How brands are measuring incremental performance on CTV

By MNTN

Connected TV is unique among other advertising channels because it combines linear television’s storytelling capabilities with digital marketing’s targeting and measurement.

As more marketers leverage CTV advertisements to reach relevant and engaged audiences, they also want to understand the real value they are generating with their investment. Incrementality reporting and measurement allow advertisers to measure the added reach and the actual added conversions and revenue they’re generating from their CTV efforts on top of the results they would have generated without it.

With the insights from incrementality measurement, brands and advertisers can make more impactful optimization and investment decisions.

“Advertisers have realized that connected TV can do so much more than just make up for the declining reach of linear,” said Jon Zucker, senior product marketing manager at MNTN. “With the right technology behind it, connected TV can actually be a highly effective performance channel and drive measurable site traffic, conversions and actual return on ad spend.

“As more advertisers have adopted CTV as a growth channel, they want to measure the added conversions and revenue they’re driving beyond the results they would have produced anyway with their other paid and organic marketing efforts,” he said. “So for the first time, marketers are really holding CTV’s feet to the fire and asking, am I investing in it as effectively as I can be?”

Understanding the evolution of CTV incrementality

Incrementality is a form of A/B testing that measures the true impact of CTV compared to the results advertisers would have achieved without CTV. And while incrementality measurement for CTV has traditionally relied on what amounts to a kind of black-box data science, with improvements in technology, it has become more transparent and accurate.

According to Zucker, advertisers initially measured the incremental reach that CTV gained for them on top of the reach they were achieving with linear TV. In recent years, however, advertisers have begun to use different technologies to drive down-funnel outcomes through CTV, transforming it into a performance channel. This evolution has also expanded their focus from incremental reach to measuring the incremental conversions and revenue driven by their CTV campaigns.

“By measuring the incremental conversions and revenue you drive with each ad channel, you gain an understanding of how much that ad channel is actually contributing to your business’s growth,” Zucker explained. “That knowledge can help any advertiser understand how and where to effectively spend their dollars to get the best returns possible.”

How advertisers are measuring CTV incrementality

There are three common ways to measure CTV incrementality. While each approach is different, at the core, these testing methods compare the results from “exposed” audiences served CTV ads to the results from “control” audiences who were not served the CTV ads being evaluated.

In PSA testing, the exposed audience will see a brand’s CTV ad, while the control audience will see an unrelated public service announcement. These tests are expensive because a brand needs to budget for the PSA shown to the control audience. PSA testing also requires upfront planning by advertisers and isn’t …read more

Source:: Digiday