If you are only purchasing Linear TV then you are not reaching almost half of US households, period.
You are not reaching half of the people who could potentially be interested in your product, half of Americans who will not be sharing how great your product is with their friends and family, and half the country who will not choose your brand over the competition.
Just 56.8% of US households in 2021 have a paid TV Subscription, the rest are either cord-cutters or cord-nevers; nearly half of US households can no longer be reached through linear television.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up digital video adoption considerably and we are seeing a record number of cord cutters in 2020 and higher digital viewership during lockdowns. The pandemic continues to impact TV viewing habits with more people testing subscription video services. A recent eMarketer study projects that cord-cutters and cord-nevers will outnumber pay TV subscribers by 2024.
An advertising media campaign is built on a few fundamental truths for all mediums:
- Maximizing reach/frequency targets based on client strategy, competitive market, time of year, and brand awareness - based on industry standards.
- Doing it efficiently.
An advertiser must look at their target audience, where and what they are most likely to be watching, and ensure a campaign is built around these parameters - building a campaign that maximizes both reach and optimal frequency levels against your target demographic, while also striving for engaging programming that promotes increased ad recall.
Adding Connected TV (CTV) to a Linear TV (LTV) buy allows advertisers to extend their campaign reach with low duplication, while increasing response KPIs. It provides access to the elusive and valuable cord-cutters, shavers, and nevers. It’s where audiences are going and where advertisers need to be.
Our clients find that we drive great success in pairing Linear Television with a Connected TV campaign to reach target audiences and drive performance. LTV and CTV are both high funnel awareness mediums that drive to mid-lower funnel tactics. They are both used to elevate brands and promote ad recall via a captive audience, engaged and receptive while watching their favorite content.
While LTV is mass reach with limited targeting capabilities, adding CTV to campaigns can narrow down the target audience, reducing waste with the added benefit of leveraging CTV tracking capabilities for lower funnel attribution. Using affinity targeting and lookalike data, we’ve discovered that KPI results from CTV are on par with what we are seeing on LTV (and once we build in retargeting with CTV, we see these efficiencies increasing even further).
Technology continues to progress in this space as well, as you are now able to supplement your LTV strategy with CTV by targeting those households that are under-served or unreachable through LTV. That is, you can now omit those households exposed to your linear spots from your CTV campaigns. There is no better way to do this than by reaching viewers through the most powerful screen in the house - the television, in the center of their family room.
Our media approach is to pair both what Linear and Connected TV do well in the upper funnel and follow these audiences through their customer journey, measuring performance and conversion in the lower funnel.
As more households adopt digital video, leaving traditional TV behind, we remain on the pulse of this changing landscape. To build unduplicated reach and drive increased performance efficiencies, our data demonstrates that CTV, more than ever, should be an essential part of any traditional video campaign.