“B2B Marketers Can Do Better”: Why CTV Needs To Be in Your Marketing Playbook

4 Min Read

Connected TV – once an advertising medium that belonged almost exclusively to B2C – is no longer off-limits to B2B. In fact, leading B2B brands are starting to realize that CTV enables them to reach their audience and measure engagement in a whole new way – while standing out from a crowded market.  

MNTN’s Director of Performance Marketing, Hooman Javidan-Nejad, and Oracle’s Director of Data Enablement Sales, Kati Tikkanen, teamed up to discuss B2B marketing on CTV with MarketingProfs. In case you missed it, a recording can be found here – or you can read a summary of the conversation below.

Targeting and Reaching Relevant Audiences

The discussion kicked off with Tikkenan discussing Oracle’s targeting capabilities, how they tie into MNTN’s Performance TV, and why this kind of granular targeting is a boon for B2B brands looking to reach their ideal audience. “When we talk about the ability to target correctly, what’s really important is the data you bring to the table,” Tikkanen noted. It’s that data that Oracle uses to build audiences thanks to their ID Graph technology.

Oracle’s ID Graph comprises 115 million households that connect real people to their many touchpoints. These touchpoints allow Oracle to stitch together all of the data signals to individuals and households and are the foundation of how an audience is built. Oracle builds its audiences through different data sources, the majority of which are offline data. These can include CPG loyalty cards, retail purchase data, auto registrations, demographics, and other offline signals for verticals like finance, tech, media and entertainment, and more. The result: more than 99% of people and households in the Oracle Identity Graph are digitally reachable without the help of MAIDs or cookies.

Ditching the B2B Marketing Playbook

B2B marketers have often relied on the same tried-and-true methods for their advertising: event marketing, email, paid search, LinkedIn and other social networks, and informative content like webinars or case studies. The problem with relying on these tactics is that every other B2B marketer is using the same strategy. As a result, key messaging can be lost in a crowded, noisy, environment – producing weak returns and often being missed by the key audience. Think about how many emails you or LinkedIn posts you see a day.

To stand out in an increasingly competitive market, savvy B2B brands have started to adopt CTV. The result is the ability for marketers to use the targeting and metrics of digital marketing with the creative visual storytelling of television. Further, B2B brands using CTV advertising can uniquely reach their audience – after business hours, in their home, while they relax with their favorite shows. The result is a more engaged, receptive audience – and B2B brands being able to get their message across without being drowned out by the competition. “CTV is the prime channel for marketers to cut through the noise,” said Javidan-Nejad. “Don’t copy what everyone else is doing. To stand out, you must make an impact outside of work hours.”

TV Targeting Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Javidan-Nejad explained the benefit of Oracle and MNTN working together for audience targeting on CTV. “It takes the guesswork out,” he explained. “While there is no question that TV is very effective in capturing attention, there are a lot of assumptions and stereotypes about what an ideal target audience watches.” Javidan-Nejad explained that with linear TV, advertisers must guess when and what their target demographic is watching. “We believe marketers can do better than that. A lot of different people watch a lot of different shows. We say it shouldn’t matter.”

This kind of targeting allows brands to engage their audiences like never before and boost conversions faster. For instance, B2B marketers can upload their ABM accounts to Performance TV so only relevant audiences will see a particular ad. When the sales team reaches out, it will no longer be a cold call – those audiences will have been served your TV advertisement and will already be familiar with the brand. This takes the pressure off your sales team by eliminating the need to spend time on introductions and giving them more time to close the sale. “We believe this makes CTV the biggest opportunity in digital advertising for B2B brands,” said Javidan-Nejad.

Oracle + MNTN = B2B Marketer’s Secret Weapon

Both Oracle and MNTN see great opportunities for B2B brands on CTV. The platform offers a unique and exciting channel for B2B brands to stand out from the crowd, and Oracle’s data allows brands to reach and engage viewers like never before based on their streaming behaviors, OTT viewership, and CTV device ownership. This opens the doors for B2B brands to create precision-based strategies and deliver creative, dynamic content to their audience – wherever and whenever they’re watching.