In today’s ever-evolving media landscape, brands are looking for innovative and effective ways to reach their target audiences. As consumer behavior and preferences continue to change, it is critical for marketers to take a data-driven approach to omnichannel marketing. To compete in this dynamic and competitive market, the rise of Retail Media Networks has become a game-changer for brands and retailers alike.  

The numbers do not lie – advertiser spending on off-site retail media is projected to grow from 10.3% in 2021 to 17% in 2025. Overall ad spending on off-site retail media is predicted to reach $11 billion in 2024, with retail media CTV ad spend accounting for $1.5 billion, according to Statista. 

Based on current trends, e-Marketer expects that marketers will have poured more than $45 billion into retail media advertising by the end of 2023.  

As we dive into the world of retail media, we will explore the benefits of this impactful tactic, opportunities for advanced targeting and measurement, as well as how marketers can extend the reach of their retail media campaigns.  

The Benefits of Retail Media 

Retail media refers to advertisements placed at or near the point of sale – whether it’s in a physical retail store or an e-commerce website. Retail Media Networks (RMNs) sit on the sell side, offering marketers several advertising solutions: in-store (aisle end caps and digital signage), on-site (display, online video, and sponsored reviews), and off-site (display, social, and CTV). Big box retailers such as Walmart, Target, and Home Depot have leaned into retail media with robust networks of brick-and-mortar and digital products.  

Brands have quickly realized the value of retail media and are moving budgets toward the retailers where they sell their products.  

Interested in learning more about retail marketing? Learn how a CPG brand found success with in-store and CTV advertising. 

At a recent event hosted by Insider, Glen Conybeare, Global President, Reprise Commerce & Retail Media at IPG Mediabrands shared, “As marketers, we — agencies and brands alike — have become hooked on accountability, on targeting, and that’s going away on the open internet in a lot of cases. But within retail media, you can really pinpoint an audience quite accurately and marketers love that.” 

However, we believe that RMNs and marketers have only just begun to scratch the surface of the full potential of retail media. At present, off-site tends to be the last piece of an RMN tech stack, and many have yet to include it in their offering.  

The Challenge 

As the effectiveness of social media and search declines, and the depreciation of third-party cookies looms, marketers need to future-proof their retail advertising. As the value of retail media increases, marketers need to find ways to use this channel and extend reach through other growing channels, such as CTV and online video (OLV).  

Simultaneously, RMNs are racing to keep up with market trends, and often lack CTV capabilities, identity solutions, or both. Without access to CTV inventory or tools for targeting and activation, RMNs are limited to in-store and on-site placements. To maximize revenue, RMNs must develop partnerships that will provide them with CTV reach extension, first-party data onboarding, and closed-loop measurement. 

How Cadent Aperture Platform Can Support the Retail Media Ecosystem 

For RMNs that need an easier way to onboard brand customers’ first-party data to build privacy-safe custom audiences, or expand off-site capabilities to CTV, Cadent offers multiple solutions to target, activate, and measure retail campaigns – down to the local level.  

Aperture, our converged TV platform, simplifies cross-screen advertising through a streamlined workflow that brings together identity, data, and inventory with hundreds of integrated partners. 

With Aperture Platform, RMNs can build audiences through first-party data and custom audience segments, enhance them with third-party data to target viewers with the right advertisement, and then activate audiences across national and hyper-local CTV, digital, and display. Through Aperture’s customized supply scale, RMNs can optimize campaigns as they gain more insights into strategic audience viewership trends.  

Aperture Viewer Graph, Cadent’s proprietary and privacy-compliant identity graph, maps customer data to 4 billion match keys across zip codes, emails, IP addresses, and more than 100MM+ households – all without the use of cookies. Aperture also enables RMNs to define their own geo radius for targeting.  

Cadent provides multi-faceted RMN solutions across data onboarding, audience building with third-party data partners, and campaign activation, allowing partners to expand their RMN off-site offerings to reach audiences in a meaningful way—wherever, whenever, and how ever they’re watching – helping to build deeper customer relationships and drive action. 

Ready to discuss how Cadent Aperture Platform can support your retail media needs?  

Get in touch with the Cadent sales team to get started today. 

Before the dawn of digital, buying and selling TV advertising required paper spreadsheets, fax machines, and a rolodex of publishers. In more recent years, progress has been made, and the industry is undergoing a shift from IO-based buying to real-time bidding.  

Programmatic advertising technology enables advertisers to leverage their ad-buying transaction type of choice, whether it’s an open exchange, private marketplace, or programmatic guaranteed, to purchase ad inventory. Each type has unique benefits to meet the various needs of different advertisers. As programmatic deals continue to evolve, they have helped to unify digital audiences, inventory, data, and measurement into more streamlined workflows.  

However, it’s important to understand not only the benefits of each transaction type but when and how they should be integrated into your digital advertising strategy. In this blog post, we break down the key terms you need to know and explain how you can use programmatic buying for your next CTV advertising campaign.  

Understanding Types of Programmatic Transactions 

Programmatic buying and selling of CTV ad inventory continue to grow as both advertisers and publishers lean into the digital transformation sweeping the ad industry. To avoid any confusion, below we’ve defined a few key terms.  

• Open Exchange – Open exchange buying via real-time bidding (RTB) is the process of programmatic buying through an auction process. During this auction, multiple advertisers are bidding on the same inventory, and the highest bidder, based on CPM (cost per impression), wins the inventory.  

• Private Marketplace (PMP) – PMPs are a programmatic buying mechanism that aggregates supply so a limited number of advertisers can buy targeted ad inventory from an individual or a select group of publishers. Advertisers access PMPs through a deal ID which is used to identify the marketplace that meets the advertiser’s specified criteria, often based on audience and CPM. There is also typically a floor price – the minimum price a publisher has agreed to receive for its inventory.  

• Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) – PG deals are a type of buying that combines the benefits of programmatic with guaranteed inventory. Unlike PMPs, these 1:1 transactions occur when an advertiser agrees to a fixed CPM and a publisher commits to delivering a set number of impressions. Unlike a manual insertion order (IO), an automated system enables the transaction through a DSP. 

Interested in learning more about CTV? Here’s what you must know before investing in this advertising medium.  

The Benefits of PMP Deals 

Now that you understand the basics, let’s do a deeper dive into PMPs. If you’re an advertiser, PMP deals allow brand marketers to combine the efficiency of automated buying with the ability to negotiate custom deals with publishers. Additional benefits include:  

• Increased Transparency 
  
  Brand safety is of the utmost importance for most marketers, making CTV feel like a risky medium for programmatic advertising. Yet with PMPs activated through a trusted partner, ad fraud is eliminated because you know what you’re buying and from whom.  

• Access to Premium Inventory 
  
  When you use a PMP through a trusted partner, the deal IDs are built from direct publisher connections. This means you have more inventory control and fewer hops between buyer and seller. However, not all PMPs are alike – some marketplaces will include resellers.  

• More Efficient 
  
  Programmatic buying is inherently more efficient than manual transactions, but PMPs in particular are efficient because you are removing inapplicable inventory. By using a PMP, the deal ID powers faster transactions therefore increasing your chances of winning bids. It also improves the likelihood of achieving your desired business outcomes.  

Publishers also benefit from PMPs. Increased transparency for advertisers also means greater control for publishers, as this transparency allows them additional insight into who bought their inventory. Further, PMPs mean access to new demand while simplified workflows automate the buying process, lessening the need for a direct sales investment. 

How Cadent Aperture Platform Can Help Advertisers 

Ready to try PMPs for your next CTV campaign? Get to know the Cadent Aperture media exchange – Aperture MX. The new Aperture MX team curates custom inventory packages for our advertiser customers. Our customers can then select the PMPs that meet their specific campaign goals at pre-negotiated rates.  

Interested in learning more about PMPs through Aperture MX?  

Get in touch with the Cadent sales team to get started today.  

In today’s dynamic media landscape, marketers seek innovative ways to connect with their target audience more effectively and efficiently. Quality content matters, but the real value comes from effectively reaching audiences with the greatest impact. One strategy for boosting the exposure of that ideal target is to activate media across all places where consumers view content – maximizing the potential for incremental reach.  

Understanding Incremental Reach 

Incremental reach refers to the additional audience that your campaign can reach when activating beyond the traditional linear TV you already have in place. Using deterministic data, you can identify, target, and measure untapped viewers – an essential tactic as sweater weather approaches, bringing an opportunity for a fall-like bounty of new households being exposed to your campaign. 

By capitalizing on media inventory across all viewing environments, you can overcome the fragmented media landscape, expanding your exposure to light and medium linear TV viewership households. This strategy is increasingly important in a reality where oversaturation of content and ad fatigue are consistent challenges.  

This year marks the first time US adults will spend more time with digital video than with traditional TV, further signaling the widespread adoption of cord-cutting and making it crucial for marketers to adapt their strategies to reach new audiences to enhance conversion rates, decrease cost per visit, and expand ROAS.  

Deliver Incremental Audiences at Scale 

Cadent takes a data-driven approach to help you most effectively reach your audience based on their viewership habits across linear and CTV. Unlike other strategies that rely solely on third-party data extrapolation, Cadent leverages cross-screen viewership data through Aperture Platform powered by our Viewer Graph to derive precise audience segments within each household. With a persistent ID across all data elements, advertisers can expect minimal drop-off and data loss when it comes time to measure, resulting in a comprehensive understanding of reach and more accurate campaign insights. Cadent’s cross-screen reach analysis reveals the total and overlap reach of a multi-channel campaign at the household-level, measuring the impact of engaging an audience on CTV in conjunction with and comparison to a linear TV buy. 

Proven Cross-Screen Results  

When implementing data-driven reach strategies, Cadent advertisers experience unique-to-CTV reach above the reach of linear TV alone, garnering a substantial average lift in incremental reach, ranging from ~30% to 60%, all while using only 10% to 20% of a campaign budget. In addition, Cadent has observed an overall CTV cost per reach point of ~20-45% of the cost per reach point on linear TV, meaning advertisers are achieving higher cost-efficiency when reaching those new and unique target audiences through CTV platforms.  

In a recent campaign, a major CPG company came to Cadent to develop an effective cross-screen activation to reach audiences wherever they are watching. The results were impressive, driving a 28% lift in incremental reach. Notably, CTV contributed 12% of the total reach achieved, despite using only 15% of the overall campaign budget. And by incorporating CTV into the campaign’s media mix, the client was able to engage additional “medium” TV viewers and reach the elusive “light” TV viewers who may only be accessible through alternative inventory sources. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT INCREMENTAL REACH

What’s Next?  

While the media and advertising ecosystems continue to shift, it’s clear that achieving incremental reach cannot be overlooked. Cadent offers an optimal strategy to identify your target audience across screens and devices, maximizing household reach and optimizing performance, and provides advanced measurement solutions to contextualize the effectiveness of your campaign.  

Ready to activate and measure the incremental reach of your cross-screen campaigns?  

Digital video ads have given businesses around the globe an opportunity to grow their customer base online through targeted advertising. Platforms, such as YouTube,  auction off ad slots ranging from six to 20 seconds, with skippable and non-skippable options. These slots are highly sought after because of the platforms’ advanced analytics, which allows advertisers to easily track views, impressions, clicks, and more. With digital video advertising, brands can expand their reach, target their audience more precisely, and keep up with the ever-changing world of media.  

In the past year, many brands have produced successful video ads, capturing the public’s attention. Three of these groundbreaking advertisements include Netflix: “Wednesday Releases Thing into New York,” Burger King: “Whopper, Whopper,” and Dove: “Dove Self-Esteem Project.” Each campaign highlights various aspects of strategic endorsement that are crucial to the overall success of a YouTube ad.  

Netflix: Wednesday Releases Thing into New York 

Late last year, Netflix launched a campaign to promote their new series, Wednesday Adams. The ad follows Thing, Wednesday’s trusty companion, as he journeys through the bustling streets of New York. As pedestrians notice the walking hand, the ad captures their reactions, ranging from fear to surprise to utter confusion. This ad was met with success due to its light-hearted and comical nature.  By choosing to center the story around Thing, a fan-favorite character,  Netflix encourages the audience to watch the entire ad  Ultimately, Netflix hit the nail on the head – or perhaps, the nail into the coffin – by allowing fans to recall a  sense of nostalgia and build a deeper connection with the new series.  

Burger King: Whopper, Whopper 

Burger King’s recent ad features a catchy jingle for their staple menu item, The Whopper. The song allows viewers to have a greater recall of the product, increasing the likelihood of considering Burger King the next time they want a burger. In addition, the lyrics promote the customizable nature of the Whopper further piquing consumer interest. The visual aspects of the ad feature mouth-watering shots of the process of making a Whopper, showcasing the brands’ fresh ingredients and cooking techniques. Finally, the conciseness  of the ad means viewers are quickly pulled in and are less likely to “zone out.” This ad creates a fun and comical spin on a fan-favorite menu item which allows the audience an interactive viewing experience.  

Dove: Dove Self-Esteem Project 

Leaning into purpose-driven marketing, Dove confronts societal beauty standards with a hard-hitting ad that exposes the toxic roots of social media through an open conversation with mother-daughter pairs. This ad is impactful as it speaks to Dove’s core values and allows them to position themselves as an open-minded, and trustworthy brand. By focusing on real-life relationships, this campaign serves as an educational tool for potential mother-daughter conversations while further increasing consumer support for the brand. 

Digital video ads have become an integral aspect of the online experience, both for businesses and viewers. This powerful platform can reach a vast audience and provide crucial feedback to advertisers around the world. There is no better time than now to harness the strength of digital video advertising to make a lasting and compelling impact on your audience.  

In the U.S., May 20^th is National Streaming Day, a day to celebrate streaming in all its bingeable glory. Those who recognize the unofficial holiday gather with friends and family to stream their favorite movies and TV shows and share the #NationalStreamingDay love on social media. As if we needed a reason to applaud the benefits of streaming anymore, savvy marketers know connected TV (CTV) continues to grow 40% year-over-year, demonstrating endless opportunities for advertisers. 

Leveraging CTV 

National Streaming Day was first celebrated by Roku in 2014 as a means of promoting their streaming device. It has since become a day for other streaming platforms to promote new content, deals, and more. For example, ahead of Streaming Day in 2022, Disney used drones over Los Angeles to promote their brand and Hulu used enticing customer promotions to drive subscriptions and push trending content.  

It also serves as a reminder of the shifting TV consumption patterns, accelerated growth of CTV, and the importance of diversifying your media mix across linear and CTV to reach your target audiences.  

According to MediaPost, 65% of media buyers consider CTV a “must-buy” as it continues to be one of the fastest-growing media channels due to its advanced audience targeting capabilities and ability to reach unique audiences no longer found on linear TV. Implementing a cross-screen campaign will deliver incremental reach lift and engage new households and unique audiences otherwise not attained with linear TV. 

In a recent campaign for a craft & home décor store, activating across cable, broadcast, and CTV drove a 37% increase in-store visits. Read more >>>

It is important to reach audiences where they are given the seemly endless options for streaming. To better understand the CTV advertising landscape, here are three things you must consider before investing in CTV advertising. 

Using the Right Data 

Implementing a cross-screen strategy that includes OTT/CTV media requires developing a strategic approach to activate brand messaging. Asking the following questions will help kick-start the planning process to effectively engage audiences through CTV advertising:  

• How will I identify my target audience? 
• Where does your target audience consume media?   
• What and how can you measure? 

Cadent’s unique approach to cross-screen advertising begins with Aperture Platform. Aperture allows advertisers to build audiences, identify households within that audience, activate across premium inventory, and report measurable insights. 

With access to over 100M households for 1-to-1 deterministic HH-level targeting across OTT and CTV media, 90+ cable networks, and 1000+ broadcast stations, Cadent allows marketers to reach the right audience, efficiently and effectively.   

Learn more about how the right data helps marketers engage audiences through connected TV. 

Adding Streaming to Your Media Mix 

National Streaming Day signals to marketers that it’s not only a time for streaming services to promote their platforms and any new or trending content, but it’s also essential to leverage ad-supported streaming in your media mix. When it comes down to it, there’s no wrong way to celebrate National Streaming Day! 

But, in case you need some new recommendations, here’s what we’re streaming on May 20^th this year: 

• Hulu: Class of ‘09 
• Freevee: Jury Duty 
• HBO Max: Oh Hell 
• Peacock: Mrs. Davis 

Ready to add streaming to your media mix? Get in touch to learn how Cadent can support your OTT and CTV advertising needs.  

Upfronts, the highly anticipated annual TV industry events, serve as an opportunity for networks to showcase their fall programming to advertisers and sell ad time for the upcoming season. Nowadays, linear TV, CTV, and digital TV all take part in upfronts (or ‘NewFronts’), shifting strategies for many buyers as advertisers navigate the evolving media landscape. Held in May over the course of a few weeks, the upfronts are also when networks secure a substantial portion of their revenue, as evidenced by the $19.21 billion worth of ad time sold during the 2022 upfronts. With attendance from network executives, marketers, senior agency leadership, media buyers, and journalists, these events play a crucial role in shaping the advertising environment for the rest of the year.

In this blog post, we explain how upfront deals are negotiated, the macroeconomic challenges currently facing marketers, and what you can do to make the most of your media dollars this year. 

How the TV Upfronts Work 

Since their inception, the TV upfronts have adhered to a standardized order of operations. First, networks create a rate card that lists the prices for different types of ad time. This rate card is used as a starting point for negotiations with advertisers. Next, networks hold presentations for advertisers, where they show clips of their new shows and discuss their primetime schedules for the upcoming season. During this time, networks have the opportunity to sell advertisers on their new and returning programs and specify which (if any) will not be renewed for another season. Finally, it’s time for networks and advertisers to negotiate deals.  

Types of Media Buying Deals 

These deals can include a variety of stipulations, including:  

• The number of ad spots that an advertiser will buy  
• The price of each ad spot  
• The time slots when the ads will air  
• The demographics of the audience that will see the ads 

And there are several different types of deals that are made during TV upfronts. Some of the most common types of deals are:  

• CPM Deals: CPM stands for “cost per thousand.” In a CPM deal, the advertiser pays a certain amount of money for every 1,000 people who see their ad.  
• CPP Deals: CPP stands for “cost per purchase.” In a CPP deal, the advertiser pays a certain amount of money for every purchase that is made because of their ad.  
• CPV Deals: CPV stands for “cost per view.” In a CPV deal, the advertiser only pays when someone watches their ad all the way through. 

Benefits of Participating in the Upfronts 

Now you may be asking, why would you want to commit your media budget so far in advance? A few key benefits stand out.  

• Guarantee: Advertisers who participate in upfronts can guarantee that their ads will air at certain times and on certain networks. This is important because it allows advertisers to plan their marketing campaigns in advance. In addition, buyers can secure inventory at a guaranteed CPM, ensuring pricing and impressions are all guaranteed.  
• Discounts: Compared to the scatter market, ad prices obtained during the upfront are generally lower (sometimes 20% to 40% lower) since networks aim to sell as much advertising time as possible.  
• Access to New Programming: Advertisers who participate in upfronts get early access to new programming that’s coming up and can make plans to buy ad time.  
• Expand Reach: The upfronts present an opportunity to stay ahead of the game and strategize new methods to reach target audiences, like including CTV in your media buy.  
• Relationship Building: Advertisers who participate in upfronts have the opportunity to build relationships with network executives which can lead to more favorable ad deals in the future. 

However, there are some significant drawbacks, such as if a new show does not deliver the expected CPMs or your marketing plans change before the media is planned to go live.  

Challenges Ahead for the TV Industry 

While there is typically considerable excitement in the lead-up to the upfronts, this year’s events have taken on a notably different tone. Lingering economic uncertainty and rising inflation has driven many advertisers to tighten their belts, meaning media budgets are projected to be flat to only slightly up, year over year.  

Consumer viewership also continues to shift. The rise of streaming services has led to a decline in traditional TV viewership. In 2022, streaming services accounted for 20% of all TV ad spending. This number is expected to grow in the years to come. eMarketer’s data shows that advertisers are increasingly shifting their budgets from traditional TV to digital channels, making OTT/CTV a “must buy” as nearly half of the adults in US households watch video on a CTV device daily. Cord-cutting is also changing the TV ecosystem, with 13% of US households reporting that they had no traditional pay TV subscription – a trend that is expected to grow over time. 

The result of these compounding factors has meant an increase in the fragmentation of audiences and a decline in ad rates. The audience for traditional TV is becoming increasingly fragmented making it more difficult for networks to reach their target audiences. According to Kantar Media, the average number of viewers for a prime-time broadcast network program in 2022 was 10.2 million, down from 11.2 million in 2021. Simultaneously, the decline in traditional TV viewership has led to a decline in ad rates, pushing networks to find new strategies and innovations to drive revenue. In 2022, the average cost of a 30-second ad during primetime on the major broadcast networks was $125,000 i.e. a decrease of 6% from 2021. Similarly, the average cost of a 30-second ad during primetime on cable networks decreased by 5% in 2022 to $50,000. 

To survive, networks will need to adapt to meet the evolving needs of their advertiser customers and consumer audiences. This could include selling focused more on streaming – selling ad time on streaming platforms, creating original content for streaming, or partnering with streaming services to create co-branded content – and offering more flexibility – selling ad time on a more ad hoc basis, offering deeper discounts for early commitments, or allowing advertisers to move their ad time around if needed. 

Making the Most of Every Media Dollar 

As you look for more precise ways to reach your target audiences, advanced TV – indexed TV, addressable TV, OTT, and CTV – provides the opportunity to use data to engage specific households based on viewing habits, demographics, and a variety of behavioral attributes. Therefore, leveraging strategic audiences for your advanced TV campaigns allows you to improve the effectiveness of your advertising and increase return on ad spend (ROAS).   

Measurement is another hot topic. In the past, you could only buy ad time in broad demographic categories; however, recent developments in measurement data and analytics are allowing TV advertising to become increasingly smarter and more performance-driven. Last year’s Upfronts created a buzz about programmers moving away from Nielsen and using alternate currencies like iSpot after the measurement giant lost MRC accreditation. This year, advertisers are demanding better proof of performance from their TV ad campaigns, to ensure budgets are spent when and where they will have the most impact. Whether your focus is on currency or business outcomes, TV measurement is now a must.  

Ready to make your upfront commitments? Contact us now to discuss how we can develop a strategic advertising solution specifically for your brand this upcoming TV season. 

Recently, Cadent EVP, Advanced TV and Video, Jes Santoro spoke to Natalie Zfat, Studio 30 Contributing Editor at Ad Age, about the critical importance of cross-screen advertising – particularly, during a recession. They discussed how during economic downturns, marketers often revert to “muscle memory” tactics or reduce their advertising investment all together. However, as Jes points out, “when you look at the data that’s associated with any of our economic past downturns… it is extremely consistent in that marketers and advertisers that pull back and decrease their share of voice in market lose brand awareness and lose sales.” To help advertisers mitigate the impact of a potential recession in 2023, Jes shares proven strategies that allow advertisers to efficiently maximize reach through linear TV while maintaining a presence on more data-driven channels like CTV.

Watch their full conversation below.

Digital advertising spend in the U.S. is now approaching $250 billion and is projected to reach $278 billion by the end of 2023, according to eMarketer. It’s hard to ignore the appeal of reaching a mass market at an affordable rate with the opportunity for personalization. Yet while tools that scrape for keywords and graphic material continue to improve, concerns around brand safety persist as advertisers must contend with the possibility that their digital ads will be placed on inappropriate sites or next to content that is misaligned with their positioning.  

As the advertising landscape becomes more fragmented, TV can offer brands the chance to reach consumers in a safe, familiar environment. Whether you want to connect with morning news viewers, avid sports fans, or home improvement enthusiasts, TV is a doorway into consumers’ homes through premium channels and programming.   

Cadent’s advanced TV solutions help brands find their audience whenever and wherever they watch TV. Our access to inventory across 120 million households, 210 DMAs, over 200 MVPDs, 1,100 broadcast stations, and more than 100 OTT networks allows buyers to reach a national footprint. Cadent Aperture Platform provides advertisers with unparalleled audience insights, and the ability to leverage 70,000 audience segments from over 40 data partners, spanning across verticals. Cadent also integrates with leading third-party verification and viewability providers to help you effectively combat issues like brand suitability and fraud.   

Advertisers should feel confident spending their media dollars. Working with Cadent, we ensure your brand’s message is in the right environment, across the entire TV landscape. Cadent’s brand-safe, data-driven linear TV in combination with our OTT/CTV offering allows advertisers to have both effective reach and peace of mind.  

To learn more about Cadent, get in touch. 

Connected TV viewership continues to grow, as does the number of subscription-based and ad-supported streaming services available to consumers. However, Connected TV (CTV) ad spending is still considerably less than that of linear TV. But let’s take a step back to better understand the full CTV advertising landscape.  

The State of Connected TV by the Numbers 

As of February 2022, Nielsen found that the average weekly time spent streaming video content hit 169.4 billion minutes, up 18% since 2021 – on top of the growth streaming had already experienced since spiking in 2020. By the end of 2021, CTV ad spend had also increased – 57% year-over-year, reaching $15.2 billion – and is projected to grow an additional 39% in 2022 to $21.2B, according to the IAB’s “2021 Video Ad Spend and 2022 Outlook” report.  

While the streaming wars remain tenuous, with changes in format – both Netflix and Disney+ are planning to launch ad-supported tiers, and subscription churn leaving subscription counts in flux, many advertisers are moving full stream ahead with investment in the channel.  

This shift in ad spend and viewership will continue to increase as the linear and digital TV ecosystems converge. In fact, eMarketer predicts that US linear TV ad spending (including addressable, programmatic, and upfront investments) will grow to $68.35 billion in 2022 but will then decline over the coming years. Ultimately, CTV’s appeal of growing viewership and improved measurement is too strong for advertisers to ignore.   

To help you determine how to incorporate this channel into your media mix, here are three things you must know before investing in CTV advertising.  

1. CTV offers advertisers a huge opportunity to reach consumers with advanced targeting 

Reach people where they are watching with a more granular approach to audience targeting. Fragmentation remains a pain point for many advertisers, so as consumers continue to spread their attention across an ever-growing number of screens, devices, and platforms, it’s time for advertisers to follow where the eyeballs lead. 

With a wide variety of data and audience targeting solutions, advertisers are faced with choice overload. Fortunately, Cadent Aperture Audience Data Marketplace seeks to minimize friction and enable advertisers to activate audience segments from their preferred third-party data providers.  

Learn more about our data partners. 

2. Ad fraud is cause for concern among CTV advertisers, but the risk can be mitigated 

U.S. advertisers are expected to lose $23 billion to fraud this year, based on forecasts from Juniper Research. And like all digital media, fraud exists in CTV. According to DoubleVerify, the number of fraud schemes spiked by over 70% year-over-year from 2020 to 2021.  

But just how prevalent is ad fraud on CTV? GroupM and iSpot.TV determined that there will be $1 billion in CTV ad waste this year. While these numbers are not exact, that amounts to roughly 4.3% of all ad fraud. Unfortunately, as CTV viewership grows, the advertising industry will need to be more vigilant in combatting ad fraud. 

As an advertiser, it is important to understand if and how your CTV media has been evaluated by key verification, viewability, attention, and brand safety markers – not all CTV or platforms are created equally. Cadent integrates with leading third-party verification and viewability providers to help you effectively combat issues like fraud.  

3. Measurement for CTV provides advertisers with digital-level insights  

Measurement is often seen as the defining characteristic that sets CTV apart from other TV advertising channels. Yet over the course of the past year, debates around “multiple currencies” have dominated the industry dialogue as agencies and advertisers raise their concerns regarding industry standards and the challenges of interoperability. 

At Cadent, we not only minimize the impact of fraud from a delivery and viewability standpoint, but we take it a step further by tying CTV performance to real business outcomes. Through Aperture Platform, Cadent enables measurement from the leading third-party measurement providers to best support our customers.  

Today’s marketers also need solutions that allow you to match planning, delivery, and optimization to results on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Cadent Aperture Viewer Graph was created with this challenge in mind. Advertisers do not have a single need and measurement in a “black box” is as inefficient as no measurement at all. Through Aperture, Cadent seeks to foster a more open, effective TV advertising ecosystem.  

Interested in learning more about CTV advertising through Aperture Platform? 

The TV ecosystem has grown increasingly complex in recent years as a result of audience fragmentation, ratings decline, supply inflation, and measurement difficulties. Contrary to some opinions, broadcast TV is alive and well, and despite a shift in viewership, the reality of how people watch TV today may surprise you. 

A report recently published by TiVo found that a “significant gap still exists between planning to cut the cord and actually doing it” – or put another way, I’m sure you’ve heard people complain about the increased cost of their TV provider’s packages, but they still love the programming, and so the benefits outweigh the costs! Still, audience fragmentation, delivery fragmentation, and measurement fragmentation remain a challenge, so, what is a marketer to do? 

Savvy advertisers continue to keep Broadcast TV in the cross-screen mix. This highly relevant and proven marketing channel offers advertisers unparalleled reach and so much more. To tackle the problems marketers are facing in the evolving TV marketplace, here are a few reasons why broadcast TV should be a part of every media plan. 

The Value of Local 

Advertisers need solutions that solve for targeting and reach. So, how can you achieve local relevance on a national scale while network pricing hits an all-time high? Cadent’s broadcast offering provides advertisers with access to loyal local audiences in core genres like news, syndication, and sports at efficient rates – a critical component for the cross-screen mix.  

A survey from Pew Research states that 75% of U.S. adults have at least some trust in the information coming from local news organizations compared to 58% from national. In fact, across the U.S., broadcast news programming delivers vital audience reach, as nearly half of adults prefer to get their news on TV rather than through the internet, radio, or print publications.  
 
Similarly, the TiVo report determined that 84% of respondents said viewing local content is important to them. But local news is far from the only local content out there. Local sports command a passionate audience of hometown fans. When it comes to local TV, consumer sentiment speaks for itself – just as viewers recognize the importance of local content, advertisers must work with partners that can deliver the true value of local content. 

There’s Something About Syndication 

Broadcast networks continue to face stiff competition from streaming platforms. However, syndicated content is giving streamers a run for their money. Ratings show that Jeopardy is the most-watched non-sports program on TV, averaging 9.2 million viewers per night, with Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud, tied for second, drawing 8.4 million viewers per night.  

To put these ratings in perspective, compare Jeopardy with the NFL draft or NBA playoffs which drew only half that number of viewers. And it’s worth noting that the average age of Jeopardy viewers has been trending down over the past decade – before 2010, the average viewer was 70, and by 2019, it had gone down to 65. As of 2022, “among those who watch on a regular basis, nearly 4 in 10 are under the age of 35. Only one-quarter are 65 or older.”  

Other syndicated programs, like Live with Kelly and Ryan, Rachael Ray Show, and Dr. Phil have held their ground with daytime’s key demographic of women 25-54.  

Building Your Cross-Screen Mix 

Unified, cross-screen TV campaigns are designed to deliver your ad to audiences, no matter what screens, devices, formats, and services they are viewing. 

If you are already investing in cable, broadcast is the perfect complement. By incorporating local news into plans focused on national news, advertisers can extend their reach to a larger segment of their target audience. Cadent offers an unparalleled depth of partnerships and coverage across top-ranked stations in all major markets. 

If you are activating on OTT/CTV, broadcast can extend and amplify your reach to a much wider audience. Fluidity allows you to blend the benefits of both channels while combatting the issues of finite inventory and increasing demand. 

Ultimately, broadcast remains the fastest way to build efficient reach. Current viewership trends show that more than 60% of consumers’ total TV viewing time was spent watching linear programming, and forecasts predict future decline will be very gradual. In short – broadcast isn’t going anywhere anytime soon! 

Learn more about how you can incorporate broadcast into your next media plan on Cadent’s Planning & Optimizing page.