How to Make the New Year Newsworthy With Connected TV

5 Min Read

If 2023 is any indication, all signs (and data) point to up. By the end of this year, Connected TV advertising spend topped $21 billion and is set to increase by 27% to $26.92 billion in next year—also making it the biggest upward increase forecasted over the next four years.

Despite the macroeconomic factors threatening to dampen our spirits as we slide into the new year, there’s still optimism on the streaming front as more viewers shift their eyes to the Connected TV screen—surpassing cable for the first time ever in July. If anything, your new year’s resolution as a marketer should include adding Connected TV to your marketing mix. As they say, how you ring in the new year sets the tune for the rest of the year—and so, in this article we’ll cover how to set your campaigns up for success in 2023 and beyond. 

2023’s New Year’s Resolution Theme: Healthy, Wealthy, Wise

We usually need to wait until January for research firms to compile data and publish each year’s top resolutions, however there tends to be a pattern year to year—and 2023 is not any different. At the start of this year, Statista released the top ten resolutions with a recurring theme of health and wellbeing topping the list.

As you could imagine, the start of the year is a big one for verticals like fitness, gyms, workout apparel, and even brands in the organization,  planning, and home improvement space. However, dig below the surface and you’ll find that theoretically any brand can find its ‘home’ come January, since it’s also a popular time for people to take up new hobbies. Learn a new language? Have a goal to read at least one new book a month? Book a new trip to start using up that PTO? Or start learning a new sport?  The list is endless. 

If you’re wondering who to target your campaigns toward, take a look at some of the segments we highlighted last year to get started, as the same audiences apply. But don’t worry, there’s more where that came from—next month we’ll be releasing some more hidden gems for your New Year’s campaigns. Make sure to sign up for our email newsletter here so you’re the first to know.

Starting 2023 With a Bang (and Some Conversions)

If you want to get a head start in January, now is the time to start planning your New Year’s campaigns. Granted, you’re likely to be ramping up your Q4 promotions by this point (Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, after all) but with a few clever tweaks you can have a brand new campaign up in no time. Here are some pointers to keep in mind.

• Timing: Tack on a New Year’s promotion to the end of your Q4 campaigns instead of putting your campaigns on pause. Why? Not only will you have amassed a large pool of audiences for your retargeting campaigns by this point,  but you’ll be able to work off the momentum from your Q4 campaigns. Don’t let that effort go to waste—we’re all about working smarter, not harder.

• Budget: A rule of thumb is to spend 60-90% of your budget on prospecting, with the remaining 10-40% of your budget on retargeting. However, this isn’t a blanket rule—it’s best to know your average order value (AOV) to make an informed decision on how to balance your prospecting versus retargeting budget. Calculate this by dividing your overall revenue by the sum of all conversions. Once you have your AOV, then apply your profit margin to it. This break even point indicates the maximum cost you can afford to spend on customer acquisition in a channel. Knowing this cost and observing it over time will give you an indication of when to increase or decrease prospecting and retargeting budgets. If you see your AOV exceeding the break-even point, decrease your prospecting spend and allocate more into retargeting campaigns. If you’re utilizing a retargeting only strategy, don’t forget to also utilize MNTN’s CRM tool too if you have your own customer database that you’d like to target on Connected TV.

• Creative: Why reinvent the wheel then you can repurpose your existing assets to produce fresh creative on the fly? Two words (okay, maybe seven): Creative-as-a-Subscription™ (CaaS) and QuickFrame by MNTN. CaaS provides you a steady stream of creative, on a quarterly basis, right alongside your media at no additional cost, and helps advertisers create targeted, tested and New Year’s ready commercials optimized by machine-learning, and formatted to the big (Connected TV) screen. Meanwhile, QuickFrame by MNTN is a video creation and insights platform that has a global network of creators to help conceptualize and produce ad creative as soon as a matter of days (including helping you design a new ad using pre-existing assets that you have at your disposal). 

• Messaging: Consider who you’re speaking to in January—these are people who want a fresh start in the new year (and Pew Research reveals that 41% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions). Reach these viewers by emphasizing the idea of new beginnings, taking up a new hobby/interest, setting and achieving goals, and practicing mindfulness and gratitude—and then explaining how your product and/or service could help shape their 2023. Additionally, whether viewers are into the ‘New Year’s resolution movement’ or not, the start of the year is an optimal time for planning and organization, so providing messaging that speaks to your brand’s expertise by providing actionable advice and tips is as compelling as going in for the hard sell.

You’re on the home stretch now with the biggest week/s of the year up ahead—and, with all eyes on the screen, it’s the time to make the most of the opportunity all the way through to January. Here’s to a successful end to the year and into next!