Why Connected TV Is the Key To Omni-Channel Success

5 Min Read

This post was produced in partnership with Lever Interactive, a digital advertising agency specializing in emerging channels.

Today’s consumers are expecting an experience from brands, which is something Lever Interactive, one of MNTN’s long-standing agency partners, understands better than most. As champions and early adopters of Connected TV, they have helped countless brands generate performance and ROI. “It’s no longer a differentiator, but an expectation. They want advertising that is relevant to them, and if they are going to be exposed with messages, they want them to be relevant to their consideration journey,” explains David Sutton, Vice President of Lever Interactive. 

Television advertising has often been seen in the past as a standalone marketing channel where only advertisers with deep pockets could afford to advertise. And those who did invest hundreds of thousands of dollars (in some cases, millions) for a 15- or 30- second spot on prime time weren’t always guaranteed results, let alone the ability to measure them. Fast forward to today, and this opening statement is more myth than fact—Connected TV has made television advertising as accessible and as cost-effective as any other marketing channel. CTV advertising solutions like MNTN Performance TV made it easy for brands to upload their creative, set their campaign and targeting parameters (akin to advertising on social media), and then let machine-learning do the rest to optimize their campaigns for performance. 

However, we understand that television advertising is one (big) spoke in the marketing wheel that complements other channels. Let’s explore how it makes the wheels turn.

As Seen on TV…and Other Channels

Did you know that 90% of consumers haven’t made a decision about a brand before starting a search? With that in mind, it’s even more vital to reach users across different touchpoints and be more intentional with their brand message. “[Brands] can no longer rely on a one-touch approach…creating more personalization across channels via different messaging, creative and ultimately, more information and exposure to value props provides the audience with an experience that outranks exposure alone,” says Sutton.

MNTN’s Multi-Touch feature was created to provide a fully immersive ad experience, which starts with the Connected TV screen and ‘extends’ the campaign by serving related ads across a user’s other household devices. This approach has a number of benefits:

• It facilitates second-screen viewing behavior, which denotes when viewers are watching television but are also using a secondary device at the same time. According to research, 88% of Americans use a second device, like a phone, desktop, laptop or a tablet, while watching TV. Approximately 71% of those viewers are looking up content related to the program they were watching, and 41% are messaging friends or family about what’s on their TV screen.

• It provides a benefit to advertisers who are used to running ads on other devices, by elevating that experience with Connected TV’s high-definition, high-impact format—all within a single user interface. This ultimately improves brand recall and cuts through banner blindness. “It provides us with the ability to showcase to our clients how impactful streaming advertising can be while simultaneously illustrating the ways audiences engage with advertising across touches and devices,” adds Sutton.

• It drives performance. Bundling Connected TV advertising with other channels within a single campaign, ensures no rock (customer) is left unturned. “[MNTN Multi-Touch] provides a more immersive experience that can be more engaging and much less invasive than simply inundating an end-user with ads,” says Sutton. You’re reaching viewers on every single touchpoint possible, and maximizing each one of these conversion points by keeping your brand top of mind, no matter where consumers are devoting their digital time.

• It enables advertisers to launch an omni-channel, multi-touch campaign on one platform—and both view and measure performance holistically (or customized to the advertisers’ needs).  Advertisers can see which part of the campaign is having a true impact on performance, and even get an insight into the nuances (like the messaging and CTA) that are moving the needle. Since Multi-Touch is one part of the MNTN Performance TV powerhouse—which is also integrated with Google Analytics—advertisers can get a real-time view of their Connected TV’s performance alongside their other digital marketing efforts.

Omni-Channel Marketing Best Practices

“We wanted to understand the engagement and return considerations when a user was served an ad after being exposed to a CTV spot compared to our tried-and-true remarketing efforts. We found that MNTN Multi-Touch ads drove a 83% stronger conversion rate with significantly less investment, which led to a 73% more efficient cost per acquisition compared to paid search remarketing,” explains Sutton, whose team utilized the MNTN Multi-Touch feature across their client base with great success.

So, you’re considering adding Connected TV advertising to your current marketing strategy (nice move!)—what next? There are a couple of things to keep in mind to make sure your omni-channel campaign runs as optimally as possible. 

• Ideally, your Connected TV ad should be the foundation of your entire campaign—encapsulating a single, consistent idea within the 15- or 30- second playground you have to tell your brand story. You’ll find some best practices to get started here. Otherwise, if you’re not so DIY-inclined, MNTN’s Creative-as-a-Subscription™ service bundles your media buy with a consistent stream of performance optimized creative every quarter. Better still, QuickFrame by MNTN’s global network of creators will create ready-made video creative in a short lead time.

• Your MNTN Multi-Touch ads should be consistent with your Connected TV ad. While we don’t suggest completely replicating your big-screen ad experience on the small screen (or in the case of mobile—micro screen), we recommend repurposing elements of your CTV ad to maintain the same look and feel across your entire campaign. For example, keeping the CTA and message the same at a minimum—helps potential customers identify with your brand and also strengthens brand recall.

However, no omni-channel campaign is successful without a solid audience targeting strategy in place. Up next in this content series,  we demonstrate the audience capabilities on Connected TV advertising platforms like MNTN. If you missed part one of this series, where we provide a lay of the land of the Connected TV space, you can read all about it here.