What Experts Say You Need to Know About CTV in 2022

4 Min Read

It’s the worst kept secret in advertising: 2021 was the year of CTV. According to eMarketer, U.S. residents streamed over 80 minutes of content a day last year—up 8.7% from 2020 (and that was a year of pandemic lockdowns!). Meanwhile, a Roku/Harris poll found that more people than ever are streaming TV (213.7 million a month in 2021)—and they’re watching 78 more minutes of CTV than linear TV.

As a result, advertisers are doubling down on their CTV commitments. Last year, CTV ad spend rose by 59.9% to hit $14.44 billion—and it’s already on track to reach $19.1 billion by the end of this year. We’ve recently looked at top CTV trends for 2022 and what awaits CTV testing and performance, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of what some industry experts are predicting. Here’s what they have to say (spoiler alert: the future is looking very bright).

Goodbye Digital, Hello CTV

As CTV spend and interest has increased, advertisers are increasingly re-evaluating their marketing budgets. While advertisers traditionally pulled from linear TV budgets to chase audiences on CTV, last year saw a rise in dollars reallocated from digital marketing. A recent MNTN and Digiday survey found that a shocking 41% of brands are powering their CTV ads by shifting ad dollars from their social budgets.

All of this is happening against a backdrop of rising problems for social media platforms, with 37% of users saying they distrust social media more than ever, and 60% of viewers preferring to watch content on CTV over social media. Advertising Week is specific in their prediction, noting “As digital performance likely craters due to the disappearance of cookies and the gatekeepers exerting more control over their ecosystems, digital marketers will seek a new channel for their spend. The growth in spend in 2022 will be in large part due to a shift from digital to CTV.”

A New Way to Measure Success

Much has been made of the bruising Nielsen took in 2021, with inaccurate reporting and public breakups with high-profile media companies like NBCUniversal dominating headlines. Experts predict that Nielsen’s struggles with CTV attribution will only continue to worsen in 2022, as they lose further influence in the new media landscape.

Effective CTV marketing needs an end-to-end attribution system that delivers across the sales funnel. Premium CTV platforms are already starting to bridge that gap; for example, MNTN Performance TV’s Cross-Device Verified Visits model tracks the user experience from the first CTV ad served to the point of purchase—regardless of the device they use. These advancements are only going to continue to evolve in 2022.

Safe, Secure, and Streaming

CTV’s meteoric rise has attracted the attention of everyone—including bad actors engaging in fraud and deception. Last year saw the SmokeScreen scam deployed across 10,000 devices and run up over 10 million fraudulent requests every day – cheating advertisers out of $6 million in just months. CTV’s only getting more popular, which means these scams are only going to get more complex—and dangerous. Advertisers and CTV platforms are looking for a better way to control privacy and security while still providing meaningful analytics on ad effectiveness.

Experts predict a rise in third-party organizations that work within the walled gardens of CTV platforms to remove any personally identifiable information (PII) and deliver the insights to advertisers. Already, some CTV platforms are going even further. CTV platforms like Performance TV only serve ads on premium inventory via private marketplace (PMP) deals, which shield advertisers from potential fraud issues found on the open market and give advertisers access to real-time feedback themselves. As a result, advertisers don’t have to wait for organizations to provide the data they need, and their ads are seen on secure, premium networks like ABC and ESPN. This not only provides peace of mind, but also gives marketers the power to make quick decisions, optimize creative on the fly, and publish topical content.

2022 is the New 2021

It’s safe to say that advertising experts are feeling bullish on Connected TV, and it’s easy to see why. While predictions are always hard to make, the groundwork that was formed in 2021 is going to lead to massive leaps and innovations this year—including groundbreaking ones no one can see coming. 2021 might have been the year of CTV, but 2022 is coming for the throne.