television advertising:

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1. Did you base it on the name of the network, or on the price per viewer?

2. How many times will that viewer see your commercial?

3. Did you compare this station with others based on these metrics?

4. Do the station viewers you paid for have the profile your business needs?

5. Can a station's own salesperson provide all this information objectively?

6. Do you have the time, manpower and tools to find the answers on your own?

We can measure the success of TV advertisements using a few different tactics. First, if you are advertising using connected TV or OTT, you’ll be able to gain significantly more insight into your ad’s performance than you would via a cable or broadcast TV campaign.  We utilize several third-party tracking tools to better measure the success of our connected TV campaigns. As these ads are served over IP address, we are able to match the location of where an ad runs to any other devices that end up on your website or even making a purchase on your website in a 1 to 1 manner.  If you are advertising using cable or broadcast television, that technology digests the time commercials ran, the market the commercial ran in, and other factors in order to initiate website lift attribution analysis and determine the performance of your TV ads.  Two additional methods we employ are using a custom phone number and/or a custom website landing page on each of your different ads. For example, if you are running one TV spot on NBC and one spot on Azteca TV, you may place a unique phone number and website address on each ad. This way, as you receive website visits or phone calls to these pages, you can confidently attribute them to a specific ad.

Most of the costs involved in running a TV advertising campaign come from buying the actual advertising inventory. Typically the very low-end budget required to run a TV ad will be about $3,000 per month. These costs can scale up based on various factors, including: whether the company is advertising on local or national television stations, how frequently the ad is shown, what station the ad is running on, what program the ad is running on, and how many views the ad receives each time it plays (CPM). The most important thing about broadcasting is allocating enough budget to build authentic brand awareness. That’s why the more people a channel or program reaches, the higher the advertising costs. 

The cost to produce a commercial will vary depending on length, production style, and its complexity. Some may be included at no cost with a specific advertising buy. Typically, production costs begin around $1,000 for a 30-second commercial but can quickly go up from there depending on various factors, including: whether the company decides to hire an ad agency or use cheaper in-house producers. The type of production crew they hire (experienced/inexperienced and big/small), the equipment and props needed, the number of actors required, the length of time it takes to shoot the commercial, whether or not any special production like animation, motion graphics, or CGI is required. 

The station a company decides to run its ad on determines broadcasting costs and level of viewership. The four main types of advertising that a company may choose from are connected cable television advertising, broadcast tv advertising, CTV advertising, and OTT advertising.

Cable television, or Linear TV, allows viewers to watch regularly scheduled programs in real-time as they air. With cable, a household can choose channels that pertain to them and pay for those solely. For instance, viewers who like the Food Network can subscribe to that channel or receive it in a cable package deal.  In turn, companies use the theme of a channel and its TV shows, matching the ads to the programs. By doing so, they’re adhering to a specific target audience with their insight into the viewers’ interests. Then, the companies sell those ideas back to the viewers via ads, creating a high return on investment (ROI).

Connected TVs, more commonly known as Smart TVs, access the internet, allowing viewers to stream their favorite shows. Connected TVs can directly download different streaming apps like Hulu or Paramount+, allowing users to stream content without the need for any additional hardware.  As opposed to cable television that delivers ads during set time slots, connected tv ads are not locked into specific programs or time slots. Instead, connected TV advertising platforms can use data they’ve collected about the users and their behaviors to determine the best ads to show them when they stream content.

OTT (Over-the-Top Television) advertising is essentially the same thing as connected TV advertising; however, you use external hardware like AppleTV or Amazon Firestick instead of streaming content with a smart TV. Like connected TV advertising, OTT ads are also served to users based on behaviors, interests, and demographics.  Although one can reach a large demographic with OTT advertisements, these platforms are best for brands looking for that difficult-to-reach millennial or Gen Z audience.

It continues to accelerate across premium TV and video as consumers demand greater flexibility in how, when, and where they consume content.

This fragmentation creates challenges for advertisers trying to target specific audiences. Many advertisers leverage multiple vendors to drive reach and frequency. Oftentimes, solutions are stitched together to maximize coverage which can create an excessive overlap in some areas and gaps in others.

You can address common challenges by working with the right media agent to engage potential customers at every stage, across platforms and devices, and minimize ad waste and ad fraud.

Your independent agent has access to insights from first-party data and clear optics into what  audiences are watching, when they’re watching, and across what platforms and devices. This step is critical in ensuring that audiences can be accurately targeted, and performance can be measured and optimized.

Second, develop an understanding of how that media provider plans and executes buys across live linear TV, video on demand, and OTT. What are the targeting options for each? What differentiates that provider’s inventory, targetability, and measurement from others? How will the campaigns be optimized to align with your defined goals and objectives?

Third, it’s important to have a solid understanding of ad waste, ad fraud, and brand-safe content. Ad fraud and waste can be difficult to detect and challenging to stop. Brand safety matters and consumers pay attention to the content your ads appear alongside. Make sure your advertising partner has the correct policies in place to care for each.

Yes, video fragmentation is accelerating, but navigating the changing landscape doesn’t need to be another time-consuming responsibility.