Kickstarting Your OTT Advertising Journey
If you have subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, or any other such online streaming platforms, you are an OTT or over-the-top television consumer. This particular mode of entertainment consumerism has caused significant splashes in the entertainment industry and the advertising industry. The variety of content published on these channels and the ease of access to them has taken the world by a storm. As a result, OTT subscriptions have seen a huge spike in the recent years.
In 2021, the OTT video market boasted a staggering value of USD 238 billion. Projections for the near future are even more remarkable. It has been predicted that the OTT market could reach a staggering value of $450 billion by 2027. These number mirror the changing consumer behaviour, with their preferences shifting from traditional linear TV to consuming OTT via connected TV. The ripples of this change is now affecting the advertising world as well, as brands look to OTT as a more rewarding platform to showcase their ads. Advertisers are reevaluating their strategies and looking towards OTT advertising as the new frontier. Some have even gone as far as completely abandoning traditional TV advertising in favor of these fresh and innovative methods.
Why Choose OTT Advertising?
Precise Audience Targeting: OTT provides a variety of techniques for precise audience targeting. It gives you immediate access to data and insights from your selected platform, which you can combine with your own research. The wide range of data allows you to fine-tune your advertising campaign in order to reach your target demographic with pinpoint accuracy. In essence, you can design campaigns that are tailored to your target demographic. What’s more, with a multi-channel approach, you can target and retarget the same consumer base across various channels and screens, ensuring your message resonates.
Broader and More Engaged Audiences: One of the key advantages of OTT platforms is their accessibility across multiple devices. This means you can target not only smart TV users but also those using smartphones, tablets, and PCs. According to estimates, approximately 98% of OTT device users watch ads. Unlike traditional TV, most OTT platforms do not offer an ad-skip option without a premium subscription. This translates to enhanced viewer engagement, making your ads more effective.
Real-Time Optimization: With the advancement of modern technology, it is now feasible to track the performance of OTT ads in real time. This dynamic functionality enables you to make budget allocation decisions on the fly. You may monitor and understand which advertising performs best on which platforms, and then modify your financial allocation to maximize your return on investment. For advertisers, real-time optimization is a game changer since it assures that resources are directed where they can have the greatest impact.
Better Safety and Privacy Protection: Ensuring brand safety is paramount in OTT advertising, and this is achieved through precision targeting and real-time reporting. Contextual targeting and transparent reporting are pivotal in this regard. By combining contextual data and categories, advertisers can refine their targeting criteria to avoid inappropriate ad placements and associations with unsuitable content. As privacy changes affect performance marketing, advertisers are seeking new solutions to maintain their ability to target specific audiences. TV screens, being unaffected by cookie deprecation, have emerged as a crucial element in this new era of data privacy.
The Ultimate OTT Advertising Strategy
Your OTT advertising strategy should align with your specific objectives and target audience. The best approach is often to consult with experts in the field, but if you’re inclined to take the reins yourself, we can provide a foundational framework for crafting an effective OTT advertising strategy.
Campaign Planning: The bedrock of any successful campaign is thorough research. This involves investing resources in understanding current market trends, consumer behavior, competitor activities, consumer characteristics, demographics, and the perception of your brand by your customers. Armed with this comprehensive data, you can identify the specific data points that are most relevant to your campaign and business.
Audience Filtering Funnel: Based on the research conducted in the initial phase, you should have a clear goal in mind. Depending on the campaign’s objectives, you can now narrow down your target audience based on various parameters. For example, you may choose to target a specific demographic living in a particular location who primarily watch sci-fi shows or movies. Alternatively, you can opt to target a specific age group that is more likely to positively respond to your campaign.
OTT Platform Selection: The choice of the OTT platform is a critical decision in your advertising strategy. Different OTT platforms attract distinct types of viewers. For instance, Hulu’s subscribers are predominantly younger, while HBO has an older audience. Therefore, the demographics and characteristics of your target audience should be the primary considerations when selecting an OTT platform. The platform you choose should align with the audience you intend to reach.
Ad Content Creation: With your goals and target audience defined, it’s time to set the wheels in motion by creating compelling ad content. Keep in mind that OTT ads are typically not very lengthy, so your aim is to convey your campaign’s message impactfully and succinctly within a short timeframe. Your ad should leave a lasting impression on the viewer and be memorable from the very beginning.
Purchase Ad Spaces: Once your ads are ready, it’s time to show them to the world. But before you do, there’s one crucial step: purchasing ad spaces on the platform where you intend to launch your campaign. There are different ways to go about this. You can directly buy ad spaces from the vendors of the OTT platform, or you can enlist the services of an agency like 9MediaOnline to bid for spaces on your behalf. From a cost-effectiveness perspective, working through an agency is often a better option than buying spaces directly from the platform vendors.
Set a Schedule: Once you’ve secured your ad space, you’ll need to create a plan for starting and relaunching your campaign whenever an opportunity presents itself. An agency can help you create a schedule that is in line with the aims and objectives of your campaign. It is critical to frequently check the performance of your advertisements and assess how your audience is going to react to them. You can establish whether your campaign is meeting its key performance indicators (KPIs) based on performance data. If adjustments are necessary, you can modify certain features and parameters to ensure your campaign outperforms its existing metrics. Here too, an agency can be a valuable asset in optimizing your campaign’s performance.
In conclusion, OTT advertising equips you with powerful tools to precisely reach your target audience and effectively engage with them. It’s a dynamic and evolving landscape that presents significant opportunities for advertisers. The shift towards OTT is not just a trend; it’s a fundamental transformation in the way we consume and interact with content. By embracing this shift and crafting a well-thought-out advertising strategy, businesses can position themselves for success in the evolving media landscape. The future of advertising is digital, and OTT advertising is at the forefront of this exciting evolution.
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