Connected TV

Your Dream CTV Features Probably Already Exist

MNTN and Advertising Week survey advertising leaders and share the results

Your Dream CTV Features Probably Already Exist

5 Min Read

It’s a shaky time for advertisers. Global economic inflation is on the climb, and marketing budgets are slimming down just as fast to match. Now is the time for speed, efficiency, and performance—and Connected TV is leading the charge. Advertising Week and MNTN recently polled marketers to learn how they’re using CTV to drive success and boost outcomes across all their ad channels. Now we’re sharing what your peers think to help give your campaigns a little extra oomph.

Tim Edmundson, Director of Content Marketing & Research at MNTN, recently joined Advertising Week for a live webinar to break down the polling results, detail best practices for CTV advertising success, and address misconceptions about the channel—including how advertisers’ wishlist features for the future are already available today. You can watch a full recording of “Make Your CTV Ads Go Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” here—or you can keep reading for a high-level recap of the presentation. 

It’s Time For a Performance Boost

Edmundson started the webinar by noting that, yea, things have been better for advertisers. “There’s a lot of inflation across the globe, which affects consumer spending—and as advertisers, that [impacts us] quite a bit,” he said. “In these times of uncertainty, history seems to dictate that marketing budgets tend to be on the chopping block or at least under scrutiny,” noted Edmundson. “If you’re working with higher scrutiny and potentially limited resources, the tools you use, the strategies you deploy, and the channels you activate on really make a difference,” he concluded. 

This new environment has raised the stakes for advertisers. In good times and bad, brands need to continue growing—and that puts pressure on marketing teams to produce big wins for less cost and effort. Edmundson outlined the need for solutions that offer speed, efficiency, and performance—but took time to recognize that bandwidth for channels like CTV is an issue. “Folks have a lot on their plates,” he admitted. “A new TV advertising channel, especially if you don’t have experience with it, can seem like a complicated thing.” The good news? “It’s not,” a confident Edmundson said. 

In Economic Sickness and Health


Edmundson laid out the benefits of premium CTV platforms—both in good times and bad. “CTV is very similar to digital ad channels that teams are already familiar with,” said Edmundson. He elaborated on the opportunities the channel presents by keeping costs down, targeting audiences likely to convert, driving measurable ROAS, and improving ad performance. “But importantly, it helps you maintain a presence on TV. That’s huge because TV is still the prestige advertising channel; there’s nothing better than it,” he noted before detailing how brands have used TV advertising to weather previous economic crises

Of particular note is just how accountable and measurable CTV is. “Now you know when someone sees your ad, goes to your website, and converts—and then you can track that revenue back to your TV ads,” said Edmundson, referring to MNTN’s Cross-Device Verified Vistis model. “Five, ten years ago, that was science fiction. But it’s real and you should be taking advantage of it today.” Edmundson went on to explain that this level of campaign measurement helps advertising teams use hard data and actionable insights to justify their budgets and promote their wins to decision-makers. “Or if you’re the decision maker, it helps you know that your decisions are paying off.”

Calling All Advertisers

At the heart of the presentation, Edmundson explained how MNTN and Advertising Week teamed up to survey marketing leaders on their CTV experiences. He led the section with an eye-popping stat: 64% of marketers classify CTV as a performance marketing channel. “That’s enormous,” commented Edmundson. “Nearly two out of every three marketers—your competitors, your peers—are seeing this as a viable way to reach their core audience, engage with them, drive measurable conversions, and generate measurable revenue…just like a paid search campaign.” 

“This is a sea change moment,” Edmundson commented. He further noted that CTV is seeing a lot of these sea-change moments as of late, including streaming besting linear TV in viewership for the first time last year. Other key findings from the survey that demonstrate a shift in how advertisers view CTV: 

  • 90% say it will be a relevant part of their ad strategies for the next 5+ years
  • 79% are confident with their CTV strategies. 
  • 60% say that platform plays an important role in their marketing mix
  • 50% of advertisers said that both ROAS and reach are important on CTV

Making Wishes Come True

Later in the presentation, Edmundson revealed that MNTN and Advertising Week asked marketers what they think about measurement—and what features they wished the channel had. While only 42% of respondents said they were satisfied with CTV reporting, a quick look at their wish list of features explains why that number isn’t higher. From 71% wanting performance analysis at the individual segment level to 58% wanting the ability to monitor campaign performance in real-time alongside other channels, Edmundson broke down a large list of features that advertisers wished they could have to bring CTV alive.

“Needless to say, all of these [wishlisted features] sound amazing,” admitted Edmundson. “But I have good news: you can throw out that wishlist; all of this stuff already exists if you’re working with the right partner.” Edmundson addressed every single wishlist item and showed how it’s already possible on premium CTV platforms like MNTN Performance TV thanks to features like audience segment reporting and automatic campaign optimization.  “This comes down to an adage that goes around the MNTN offices,” said Edmundson. “Not all CTV solutions are created equal.”

We’re Just Getting Started

We often say there’s more to the webinars than we have room for in our recap blogs, but in this case, it’s especially true. For nearly an hour, Edmundson covered a lot of important topics with Advertising Week — including best practices brands can deploy now to combat economic uncertainty, to a more comprehensive breakdown of survey results from advertisers. Click here to catch it all.