The ad tech industry is an ever-changing, increasingly-competitive, fragmented space, full of acronyms, complex tools, ad networks, and lots of data. With the ever-changing nature of the industry, it’s important to remain one step ahead.
2022 brought a lot of growth to the ad tech space, showing no signs of slowing down heading into the new year. The ongoing digitization trend and the rise in spending to improve workflow and productivity of employees is expected to fuel the market growth in the coming years.
The increasing investments into the flourishing advertising industry are further expected to influence the market demand.1 While 2023 will bring even more growth, advertisers will be looking for more capabilities around measurement and optimization and ROI generation.
Looking back at the industry this past year, advertising revenue grew by 6.5%.2 Despite the economic downturn, large ad spend declines were limited to certain markets and are not reflective of the overall industry’s health. It seems that through 2022, large advertisers are still growing revenue, unemployment remains low, new business opportunities remain steady and digital media is still growing.
As we head into 2023, a notable trend emerging is the forecasted growth of connected TV—which should see double-digit increases next year and account for one-third of total TV spend by 2027,2 as it continues to steal dollars previously allocated to linear investments. TV advertising as a whole will grow by 1 to 3%2 over the next five years, reflecting how much certain traditional investments pull down the category as a whole.
With ad spend predicted to have positive growth, it’s vital to make sure your ad dollars are being allocated correctly. Working with an experienced media partner to optimize and measure ad performance in real time should be an investment brands are willing to make going into 2023.
What should advertisers and agencies expect in 2023? Here are some predictions from the Digital Remedy Team:
As streaming continues to grow in popularity, so too has “subscription fatigue,” the sense of being overwhelmed by the amount of content available. Audience media consumption will continue to shift, which will not only be a challenge in the CTV space next year as consumers rotate through streaming services but also across all media platforms. Due to this shift, brands need to be agile with their strategies, which should be powered by data such as audience insights and campaign performance.
Data is at the heart of the business, and advertisers and agencies that are not leveraging it will be at a disadvantage. OTT platforms have access to owned audience data on what is being watched within their networks, as well as when and how they’re watching. And while there’s a lot of room for more detailed audience insights, the data they have now can allow streaming platforms to utilize data-powered content strategies that are more likely to resonate well with audiences.3
The rise of ad-supported streaming on CTV is an opportunity to deliver real, measurable outcomes and will continue to become a focus for marketers in 2023. Streaming giants such as Netflix have announced ad-supported subscription tiers with favorable pricing in exchange for advertising within content. This year, ad-supported streaming will generate $19.1b and by 2024,2 marketers will spend $29.5b on CTV advertising. With all of the new inventory, the streaming space is becoming increasingly competitive. Advertisers have more ways to reach consumers than ever before, leveraging targeting and performance reporting is key to ensuring ad dollars are being utilized.
While brand awareness is critical, many marketers focus on driving (and measuring) bottom-funnel actions, such as website visits, in-store visits, and purchases. Improvements in measurement for upper-funnel media are coming fast and furious. These improvements are showing that lower-funnel media can have branding impacts, and upper-funnel media can have performance impacts that will be highlighted heading into 2023.
For more on Performance TV, check out our report.
CTV has been increasing in popularity with advertisers, but with the economic downturn, advertisers will focus on channel diversification in 2023 and follow their target audiences more closely wherever they’re watching. Consumers today are using many different screens and devices for streaming media, and advertisers need to make sure they are keeping this in mind. Running cross-channel campaigns can create touch points throughout the customer journey that will keep their brand top of mind.
A successful performance CTV strategy has a lot of moving parts. Utilizing real-time measurement to drive decisions and focus media budgets on the highest-performing channels will be a key CTV strategy to pull into 2023. To be effective, marketers must meet audience expectations for personalization, which means taking a dynamic and agile approach with targeting and execution.
Contextual targeting, which enables marketers to target users online based on contextual signals rather than third-party data, offers far more privacy for individual web users, and this is critical as we move towards a world without cookies. This means targeting the right user at the right time on the right channel with a personalized contextual message—without third-party data tracking.
First-party data infrastructure will be crucial for effective brand advertising. We see this marketing trend continuing, helping advertisers provide targeted experiences to key consumers through audience segmentation and smart audience management with the help of technologies.4
For more on the privacy-focused future of advertising, check out our talk.
With the goal of optimizing ad spending for ROI, marketers want to save time and money to ensure efficiency. That being said, many differing situations require varying needs when it comes to advertising platforms. Self-service platforms enable advertisers full control, where transparency is right at the tip of their fingers. When advertisers have the freedom to book their own campaigns, not only do they get an intimate, full-control experience, they also have the “natural” space to trial different aspects and elements within their campaign process. This includes budget, targeting, and creative adjustments.
For more on our self-service OTT platform, speak to a member of our team.
Backed by over 20 years of experience in the ad space, Digital Remedy is a leading digital media partner for advertisers looking to maximize their advertising efforts. We provide unique targeting tactics to extend reach beyond linear, connecting with the right audience, in the right mindset, as well as granular attribution and reporting to understand the true impact of every variable within your campaign.
Digital Remedy offers performance-focused solutions, where brands gain access to a sophisticated reporting dashboard to monitor their campaigns on multiple channels, and real-time insights to optimize towards the KPIs that matter most. In addition to optimization, and granular, transparent bottom-funnel reporting, Digital Remedy provides a new standard in tracking, transparency, and results that will maximize your marketing efforts and optimize your 2023 ad budget.
Ready to turn these trends into actionable concepts for your 2023 media plan? Speak to a member of our team.
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TV viewership has dramatically changed. With declining linear TV audiences, and an industry shifting its focus towards Over-The-Top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) streaming services, advertisers are reallocating budgets to dive into this growing platform. Not only are more people using CTV, but time spent with this medium is also increasing. There have never been more options for what to watch and how to watch it.
Non-pay TV viewers will soon outnumber pay TV viewers. By 2024, 123.8m people will view pay TV, versus 143.6m who will have cut the cord, instead streaming content and watching live TV on distributors like Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV. These shifts in viewership are opening up different ways for advertisers to target and reach TV watchers.
In this blog, we’ll cover everything advertisers need to know about YouTube TV (if you’re a viewer looking for more info on YouTube TV, go here) and how to leverage YouTube TV ads through Digital Remedy as part of your OTT mix.
We’ve all heard of YouTube, but what is YouTube TV? First launched in April 2017, YouTube TV is a subscription streaming service—known to advertisers as a vMPVD (Virtual Multi-Platform Video Distributor)—that provides an alternative to traditional cable. Available nationwide, YouTube TV lets subscribers watch live TV from 100+ broadcast, cable, and regional sports networks (in English and Spanish), in addition to video-on-demand (VOD) shows, YouTube Originals, and trending YouTube videos. Subscribers can upgrade their viewing experience with premium networks, sports, Spanish, and 4K plus add-ons for an additional monthly cost.
As of July 2022, YouTube TV has more than 5m accounts — making it the U.S.’s biggest internet-based pay TV service. In addition, it’s the fifth-biggest U.S. pay-TV service (after Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, DirecTV, and Dish).
YouTube TV service currently does not have an ad-free version, so all subscribers see ads. YouTube TV advertising is a form of OTT (over-the-top) advertising. OTT advertising is delivered directly to viewers over the internet through streaming video services or devices. With YouTube TV, advertisers can tap into one of the most premium CTV inventories to reach target audiences at scale, with robust data, optimization, and transparent reporting.
Not everyone who watches YouTube on their TV is a subscriber of “YouTube TV.” The YouTube app is already baked into or available for free download across many Smart TVs and streaming devices. The YouTube app enables viewers to watch all their favorite content on the largest screen in their house at no cost, while “YouTube TV” requires a paid subscription.
YouTube TV currently supports two types of ads:
This platform’s most significant advantage over cable TV is its Artificial Intelligence, which recommends content depending on the user’s preferences. Through advanced targeting, users can easily be targeted by:
Topic targeting lets brands reach people interested in content related to their products and services, whether travel, food, music, or something else. Topic targeting applies to non-skippable in-stream ads, and bumper ads served on YouTube TV.
With YouTube TV, ads can show up in a few different places:
This allows ads to be placed in relevant slots for target consumers as they already engage with the YouTube environment.
YouTube TV has become a valuable channel for advertisers looking to connect with the right audience at the right time and boost awareness among new consumers. YouTube TV advertising:
For more information, check out our Why YouTube TV video.
With YouTube TV, Digital Remedy offers advertisers and agencies of all sizes the ability to play within the walled garden and get the most out of their streaming campaigns. To learn how to get started, speak to a team member today.
Performance marketing has grown in popularity over the last decade, as marketing budgets have been slashed to maximize return on investment. While brand awareness is important, many marketers are focused on driving (and measuring) bottom-funnel actions, such as website visits, in-store visits, and purchases. Improvements in measurement for once-considered upper-funnel media are coming fast and furious. These improvements show that lower-funnel media can have branding impacts, and upper-funnel media can have performance impacts.
In short, more measurable real-world results and more granular reporting for marketers. Performance TV allows marketers to deliver ads to target audiences, measure campaign performance, and attribute bottom-funnel results. Two main benefits of performance TV are the ability to:
Performance TV advertising is done through connected TV (CTV) devices that help to attribute and report on those campaigns. Performance CTV provides a unique opportunity for marketers to reach highly-engaged audiences.
CTV offers the high-impact, brand storytelling power of traditional TV plus the targeting, analytics, and interactivity of digital to provide a compelling environment for audiences to engage with messaging alongside premium content.
“Linear TV and CTV are converging; however, similar to the shifting holiday season, which is promoting earlier shopping each year, that doesn’t mean it has made what to buy, where to buy, and whether or not you have the best deal clear for media buyers (and consumers), which is the case for advanced TV.”
–Matt Sotebeer, Chief Strategy Officer, Digital Remedy
For brands looking for new ways to maximize their marketing efforts, CTV is the perfect channel.
“We’re seeing brands start to gear up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and look toward new channels to leverage. CTV is definitely top-of-mind for these advertisers as long as their investment can be backed up by performance. This makes attribution and optimization on this channel more important than ever.”
– Ben Brenner, VP of Business Development & Strategy, Digital Remedy
CTV’s ability to merge the often-separated performance and brand marketing worlds—including its inherently addressable nature—is redefining the digital ad space and giving marketers a way to take their campaign measurement to the next level.
Finding the right performance CTV partner can make all the difference in optimizing your media strategy and maximizing ROAS in this fast-growing, highly-profitable market. While many ad tech vendors offer different solutions, not all of them have the full scope of resources to make the most of advertising on this medium. Digital Remedy offers first- and third-party data integrations, direct access to premium OTT publishers, real-time optimization, and granular, transparent bottom-funnel reporting through Flip, our performance OTT stack.
Digital Remedy provides comprehensive campaign performance reporting and data-driven capabilities to help advertisers and agencies connect with target audiences at the best time.With Flip, brands gain access to a sophisticated reporting dashboard to monitor their campaigns and real-time performance insights to optimize towards the KPIs that matter most. Flip provides a new standard in tracking, transparency, and results, including:
With these valuable insights, marketers can make more effective optimizations and investment decisions—to effectively grow their business and drive measurable campaign performance by leveraging the biggest screen in the home to deliver brand messaging.
Download the full report for full insights, including myths surrounding CTV. Interested in learning more? Watch our Digital Dish episode or speak to a member of our team.
In July 2022, Digital Remedy was a gold sponsor at GROW NY, a two-day event at the Knockdown Center in Queens, NY which offered growth-focused talks, panels, and workshops for DTC, ecommerce, and retail brands. At the event, our SVP of Sales, TJ Sullivan, sat down with special guest Sophie Duncan, Senior Director of Performance at ByHeart, to discuss how growth-focused marketers can leverage performance CTV to increase their customer base and take online sales to the next level. Additionally, the team debuted the beta for our new self-service performance TV campaign management platform, Flip+.
If you want to see more, you can watch the entire discussion here!
Interested in learning how you can start driving (and tracking) bottom-line results? Schedule a custom demo to see our award-winning CTV performance platform in action today. Be sure to follow Digital Remedy on LinkedIn and Twitter for the latest company updates and upcoming events.
The CTV/OTT space presents many advantages for B2B marketers, including clear targets, ideal buyer profiles, and precise targeting strategies. However, B2B marketers are feeling increased pressure to prove the value of CTV/OTT in reaching their target audience and without the right digital attribution, it can be tough to prove success and maximize return on ad spending (ROAS).
TJ Sullivan, SVP of Sales at Digital Remedy was recently featured in MarketingProfs, where he discussed digital attribution in the OTT/CTV space. Specifically, TJ outlined five ways to succeed with CTV/OTT, improve ROAS, and boost your bottom line:
Multi-touch attribution for CTV/OTT gives you the ability to see the customer journey beyond just first- and last-touch—which is especially crucial for B2B marketers looking to understand the full customer journey.
CTV/OTT metrics let you dive into the details to understand which tactics moved the needle with the right people in the right way. Factoring in incrementality lets you see the real picture by taking all attributed conversions and filtering out ones that the campaign didn’t directly drive.
Good B2B marketers know how to recognize buy signals—those actions and behaviors that indicate a prospect is ready to buy. Being able to recognize those “telling” signals and match them to the strategy—optimizing creative, targeting, and placement to drive those signals—is a key advantage in CTV/OTT advertising when it’s done right.
The beauty of CTV is that it enables real-time optimization of ad buys in comparison with Linear, which means you are able to move your budget toward the publishers, creatives, dayparts, audiences, and geographies that are working to drive the most action to fully maximize your spend.
When you combine multi-touch attribution with real-time performance metrics, it creates a powerful platform to fully optimize targeting and content delivery.
While it may be relatively new to some marketers, multi-touch attribution must become a top priority, as it allows you to not only identify the specific touchpoints throughout the consumer journey that triggered the desired action, but also leverage valuable performance insights to optimize future campaigns. With the Flip OTT performance platform, Digital Remedy is making it accessible and simple for brands and marketers at all levels to win in the OTT/CTV space. To learn how you can leverage alternative attribution methodologies within our award-winning CTV platform, visit www.digitalremedy.com/flip.
Check out TJ’s full insights on MarketingProfs and be sure to follow Digital Remedy on LinkedIn and Twitter for the latest updates.
2021, and marketing budgets have returned to normal. This is in part due to the launch and expansion of new ad-supported streaming services. CTV ad spend pricing has increased throughout the last year, which has in reaction, increased overall spend. CTV ad revenue growth will decrease slightly, following the huge spike, however, CTV ad spend will gain share of overall digital ad spending through 2025, passing 10% by 2024. The future of CTV ad spending is bright—more than doubling in 2025 to surpass $30b.1CTV viewership increased across all generations this year compared to 2020. Gen Z and Millennial users will continue to increase through 2025. YouTube is the number one OTT platform in the U.S. when it comes to penetration among OTT video service users, with market share of 95.5%. YouTube CTV viewers grew almost 63% last year and surpassed the 50% threshold for the share of viewers who watched YouTube content on CTVs.2 In addition, YouTube was found to be the number two streaming service when comparing total hours spent watching content on CTVs in the U.S.
Ad fraud detection and measurement will be extremely important because the demand for inventory will outweigh the high-quality supply. Most CTV inventory is bought and sold through private markets, which prevents fraudsters’ ability to fake ad impressions. However, the demand and price of CTV inventory is increasing which results in two scenarios:
1. Advertisers are attracted by the lower pricing in the open market
2. Fraudsters are attracted by the high demand and premium they can charge on fake inventory
Last year, Pixalate, a firm that monitors ad fraud, estimated that more than 20% of programmatic OTT and CTV ad impressions were served as invalid traffic.3 Given the significantly complex ad environment, fueled by ever-changing technologies, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate fraud completely. However, there are certain steps advertisers can take to protect their brand and their budget—ensuring exposure to fraud is minimal and ad spend is directed where it’s intended. As CTV fraud increases in scope and sophistication, it’s critical for marketers to work with trusted partners that have the experience, knowledge, scale, and ability to identify and block new threats as they emerge. Check out our recent report to learn more.
Models for marketing attribution have been used for many decades, but as the needs of customers have changed and companies have undergone digital transformations, marketing attribution has evolved. The roots of marketing mix models (MMMs) can be traced back to the 1950s. As campaigns become more complex in today’s multichannel world, accurate campaign measurement and attribution has become a major struggle for advertisers and agencies, and, unfortunately, many lack the time and resources to do so. Not to mention, a list of long-standing measurement and attribution problems that plague marketers, including a lack of standardized metrics and definitions across traditional and digital TV and video, issues with basic data accuracy and infrastructure, a lack of organizational alignment, and the difficulty of understanding and validating attribution models.
The truth is, attribution is evolving and advertisers need to reevaluate the methodologies they are leveraging to ensure they are assigning credit accurately. While innovations in attribution have brought the focus away from video completion rate (VCR) and toward return on ad spend (ROAS) and cost per action (CPA) metrics, those goals are merely scratching the surface of CTV measurement. Many performance marketers are looking to optimize their CTV campaign performance, but don’t know where to start. The ability to track a customer journey and measure ad impact is incredibly powerful, especially for today’s agile marketers that are laser-focused on managing and optimizing their spend with flexibility in a changing environment. Moving forward, advertisers who expand their attribution methodologies will help refine their budget strategy and ensure a lasting impact on future ad campaigns.
than that from external sources. Until opting out, these are your customers, and they have chosen to share their contact information and purchasing choices with your business. Third-party data regulations are preventing tracking, companies are needing to shift their efforts. 42% of U.S. data users will increase spending on the use of first-party data. This shift was forced due to changing regulations on third-party cookies that are being collected. With consumers increasing concern about how and what data is being collected, companies are going to need to shift how they obtain data. The highest-performing companies are taking note and starting to utilize first-party data, which will not only be a new buzzword but the foundation and future of the marketing world.While hindsight might be 20/20, forward thinking will allow brands to stay competitive and be prepared for the inevitable shifts in consumer preferences, media consumption, and more. One thing is certain, working with a partner that specializes in diversified digital ad strategies and offers innovative technology can be a lifesaver in today’s dynamic environment. To discover how Digital Remedy helps advertisers and agencies of all sizes navigate the ever-changing digital ad space, visit www.digitalremedy.com.
Digital Remedy recently hosted a Tech-Talk webinar “To Last Touch & Beyond: Measuring Performance CTV” through eMarketer, explaining why marketers should move beyond last-touch attribution methodology, focusing instead on more nuanced ways to drive bottom-line results via OTT/CTV—and why working with an experienced media partner is crucial in today’s complex ad space. If you missed it, here’s a recap:
As the duopoly becomes increasingly saturated, improvements in measurement have proved that lower-funnel media can have branding impacts, and upper-funnel media can have performance impacts—and this is most evident in the CTV space. CTV’s ability to merge the often separated performance and brand marketing worlds is redefining the digital ad space.
In the modern age of marketing, the typical consumer requires an average of 56 touchpoints before making a purchase. Very rarely does someone convert after a single ad exposure. Marketers need to take every touchpoint (across devices and platforms) into consideration and assign credit accordingly. While last-touch attribution has long been the status quo of the ad space, marketers can discover more insights by expanding their attribution methodology.
While innovations in attribution have brought the focus away from VCR and toward ROAS and CPA metrics, those goals are merely scratching the surface of CTV measurement. Many marketers are looking to optimize their CTV campaign performance, but don’t know where to start. Working with the right media partner will allow you to uncover valuable—previously unattainable—campaign performance insights.
You can watch the full presentation on-demand or view the slides. Interested in learning how you can start driving bottom-line results? Schedule a custom Flip demo to see our award-winning CTV performance platform in action.
For the latest industry trends and insights—including more on how to leverage multiple attribution methodologies and incrementality—check out our blog and sign up to receive our monthly Trends newsletter delivered right to your inbox.
Reaching nearly $20b in revenue worldwide this year, the direct-to-consumer (DTC) market is expected to continue growing, with no signs of slowing down. Driven by the surge in over-the-top (OTT) content consumption via streaming services in recent years, advertisers are increasingly shifting media budgets to this growing channel to deliver their brand messaging to the right consumers at the right times in an engaging ad environment—but many DTC brands have yet to make the move to OTT. DTC marketers who are not spending on CTV/OTT, run the risk of missing out on reaching valuable customers where they are consuming media. While social has long been the go-to media channel for DTC brands, roughly 70% of DTC consumers say they spend more time watching streaming TV each week than they spend on social media.
In July of 2021, Digital Remedy partnered with Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data platform for insights, activation, and measurement, to field a custom survey targeting U.S. DTC marketers—with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the role that connected TV (CTV) and OTT play in their media mix, current practices, expected ad spending and top priorities for 1H 2022, and “must-haves” when choosing a media partner to execute OTT campaigns (including a full explanation of the streaming world).
For full insights from the study, download the 2022 DTC + CTV/OTT Advantage Report.
Whether you’re a DTC marketer just getting started in the CTV/OTT space or looking to take your campaigns to the next level, Digital Remedy is here to help. Flip, our Award-winning proprietary performance CTV platform, connects the dots between CTV ad views and real-world results, providing a full picture of the consumer journey and ensuring marketers get the most impact out of their budget. To find out more, visit www.digitalremedy.com/flip or schedule a free custom demo.
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