Roughly a decade ago, long after CTV’s original creation but around the time it became all the rage, TV and Digital media buyers found themselves competing for the responsibility of CTV buying.
Despite the differences in their areas of expertise, both TV and Digital buyers were qualified – in their own ways – to do this “new” CTV buying.
The TV buyers were well equipped because naturally no one knew TV programming and ratings better.
Digital buyers were certainly capable because they knew very well all ofthe nuances and benefits of a digital ad serving environment.
Some agencies assigned the job to the TV buyers and some to the Digital buyers – and both were right. Yet, in either case, no one really seemed to have a good confidence level on the “right mix” of advertising within traditional and digital long form episodic content.
A decade later, what’s the right mix?
A lot has changed since then, but one thing has not. The question is still being asked “when it comes to my ad placement, what’s the right mix of TV and CTV?” The answer – as is so often true – becomes “it depends.”
It depends on the many variables: your target audience, its adoption of CTV, the overlay of the adoption of that DMA or zip code, the respective % of cord stackers and cutters, the % of that audience on the content you’re buying, the KPI of the ad campaign, the number of households you want to reach, the number of times you want to reach them, whether the purchase is online, off, or both, maybe ten other things, and … your budget!
The question of “what’s the right mix…?” can thankfully be answered today much easier than a decade ago. This is due to the amount and quality of data that we have access to, the ability to use sophisticated household graphing to tie together viewers and households, and the viewing habits including TV, CTV, or both. It is important to note, however, that there is NOT a single sweeping answer to the right mix that applies to all campaigns – it hinges on all of the variables above.
What about Fragmentation?
Is Fragmentation real? Yes it is. Must it hand cuff us? No.
Here at Brkthru, we’re managing through the “right mix” and fragmentation challenges with authentic conversations, a realistic lens, and a darn good strategy.
In recent campaigns we see only 1-3% overlap between TV and CTV buys.
We are giving thoughtful consideration to the aforementioned variables, planning with the impacts of fragmentation in mind, and using a targeting strategy that reduces the overlap between the TV and CTV buys – these strategies when combined, effectively approach the solution to the question of “how much TV, and how much CTV?”
We’re also today – unlike ten years ago – able to measure CTV for all of the KPIs from brand, to physical visit, to website visit, conversion and even actual purchases.
If you’re interested in our approach to addressing the balance of TV and CTV, fragmentation, and “big screen on the wall” duplication, we can help. info@brkthru.com