How Connected TV Advertising Steals the Spotlight From Social Media Advertising

10 Min Read

Television marketing, specifically Connected TV advertising, is even more impactful than ever before – one would even say more than social media.  Why?

Connected TV advertising makes it easier to stand out in a saturated ad market

Social media platforms are notorious for their ever changing algorithms (sorry Instagram) which make it impossible to keep up, and paid efforts don’t have the same impact as on Connected TV. For example,  Facebook’s cluttered news feed interface makes it difficult for brands to be visible. The same notion applies to Twitter, whose feed is set up for users to scroll rapid-fire and makes it easy for viewers to skip over any sponsored posts. 

While it may be easy to skim over a static or five-second pre-roll ad on a social media platform, it’s a different experience on Connected TV (CTV), since these ads are designed for the, well, big (TV) screen. MNTN Living Room Quality feature is testament to this, which allows for 15 or 30 second non-skippable ads to be served and achieves an average 95% completion rate.

To answer your question around whether or not ads on TV sustain attention better than social media – research shows that ad recall is one of Connected TV’s biggest strengths and is 32% higher than on other devices. 

Social is primarily mobile first…

Over half of US social network users will be mobile-only in 2019. What about the rest of these users, and what about the other devices that they may be on? Social media marketing generally supports businesses that are also mobile-first. For example, 96% of Facebook users access the platform via their mobile device, and users rarely access Instagram through their web browser as the platform was built to be consumed on mobile.  

What if we told you we have a solution that will address your mobile-users and the other devices they may be on  – all through a single platform? We acknowledge that mobile is the primary way we see and consume content, but let’s not forget the ways of getting them there. We call this the ‘Second Screen Strategy’, a consumer behavior finding that suggests the majority of viewers watching TV are also interacting with their mobile phones at the same time.

…And it skews towards a younger audience

Did you know that 67% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 18-35 and 65% of Facebook’s user base is under the age of 35? That’s great if you are targeting a young target audience but not if you’re targeting anyone 35 and over.

You’re probably then wondering – what about everyone aged 35 and up? That’s a huge subset of the population. Connected TV subscribers are more equally weighted across ages, as the research shows below. 

It looks like viewership is on the up across the board, as more Americans catch onto the benefits of Connected TV and spend more time in front of their TV screens.

Brand relevance isn’t always on target

As the title suggests, this one affects two areas – brand relevancy and targeting. On Twitter, notorious for its fast-paced and conversational nature, users are more likely to see sponsored/promoted tweets as spam. There have also been accounts of hacks on their platform, which means you’re often better safe than sorry when it comes to hopping on hashtag bandwagons or finding your voice on a trending topic.

MNTN Performance TV takes an audience-first approach, and only partners with leading TV networks that are geared for performance. Unlike social media platforms, we don’t let low-CPM performing inventory chip away at your brand equity – instead we hand picked over 125 of top-tier networks, among the likes of CNN, CNBC and Food Network, to serve CTV ads. Did we also mention that 30 second TV commercials are the gold-standard in targeting all three areas of the brain that are responsible for brand recall and awareness? 

We’ve got the brand relevancy part nailed down – what about the targeting? Through MNTN, you have access to MNTN Matched, the world’s first keyword-based audience builder for CTV, which lets advertisers match with the consumers who are most likely to buy their products.  

Tying it back to ROI is a challenge

Likes, Retweets, Engagement Rates and Shares are great vanity metrics but it’s difficult to truly measure how they are moving the needle for advertisers. Studies show that this concern is universal – whether this be an advertiser or an agency supplying these resources on behalf of a brand. More than half of agencies—55 percent—say that they can measure social ROI somewhat, and only 17 percent say that they can quantify it accurately. Not to mention the time investment to get those marketing metrics in the first place – whether this be organic or through paid efforts, since advertisers have to engage with their follower base quite regularly. It’s a full-time job in itself! 

MNTN Performance TV is truly a performance marketing platform in every shape and form, and ROI is part of our DNA. This means advertisers can tie back every element of their Connected TV advertising back to measurable results – from our Cross-Device Verified Visits proprietary attribution model, which tracks when a CTV ad is viewed to completion, as well as the customer journey through to making a purchase. There’s also our integration with Google Analytics – a performance marketer’s trusty tool – which gives advertisers a window into how their CTV ads fare against all of their other digital platforms. All of this is funnelled through to a single reporting user interface, which tracks over 900+ metrics across the board and can be moved around like a jigsaw puzzle to provide customized reports. 

Interested to find out how Connected TV advertising can transform your digital marketing? Sign up for a demo below, and one of our team members will be in touch.