Media measurement is at a critical juncture, with the industry racing to adapt to new technologies, shifting consumer behaviors, and evolving regulatory frameworks. 

As TV and video consumption splinters across devices and platforms, the need for consistent, reliable identity resolution (IDR) has become increasingly urgent. The complexities of audience fragmentation and data loss have forced companies to rethink how they approach identity and measurement at scale.

To that end, CIMM, in collaboration with OpenAP, launched a strategic review of the identity resolution ecosystem to address the challenges of stitching together data across disparate identity spines. 

David Levy, CEO of OpenAP, has been at the forefront of these efforts, emphasizing the importance of durable, privacy-safe identity solutions that can serve both buyers and sellers in the advanced TV landscape. OpenAP’s commitment to this project reflects its broader goal of establishing a more transparent and interoperable marketplace, ensuring that IDR evolves to meet the growing demands of advertisers and consumers alike.

Dennis Buchheim, Managing Director of ThinkMedium, shared that while identity resolution has made strides, the current environment is “fragmented and inconsistent,” calling for data quality and interoperability improvements. He emphasized the need for more transparency, saying, “The industry must work together to create an adaptable, privacy-safe identity ecosystem that can evolve with changing regulations and consumer expectations.”

At the recent CIMM Summit, sessions provided a look at the industry today with a roadmap for what lies ahead as data quality, transparency, and interoperability dominate the conversation.

5 Big Ideas We Took Away From CIMM Summit

Insight 1: Identity Resolution Is Still Fragmented — But Progress Is Being Made

The complexity of identity resolution continues to challenge the TV and video marketplace, but significant advancements are being made.

• Fragmentation Issues: The TV identity ecosystem is fragmented, with different identity spines and providers offering disparate solutions, making it difficult to track audiences across multiple screens and devices.
• Comcast’s Solution: Comcast’s deterministic signal authentication offers a promising privacy-safe solution to unify fragmented audience data, yet broader industry standardization remains elusive.
• Data Quality Challenges: The lack of data quality in some identity resolution practices is a consistent concern, with many speakers calling for more transparency and better labeling of data sources.
• Need for Buyer Education: As identity solutions evolve, marketers need more education around data quality and transparency, ensuring that they understand the signals they are working with and how those signals influence campaign outcomes.

Insight 2: Fragmentation of Media is Both a Blessing and a Curse

The rise of programmatic buying and connected TV (CTV) is transforming how media is bought and sold, but the growing complexity is a double-edged sword for buyers.

• Opportunities for Personalization: In the session Building the TV Ad Market of the Future, speakers like Freewheel’s Mark McKee and LG Ad Solutions’ Michael Hudes pointed to opportunities that media fragmentation offers. McKee described how personalization across fragmented content creates new touchpoints for audience engagement.

• Challenges in Measurement: As content spreads across different platforms, buyers face the growing challenge of managing reach and frequency. As Katie Klein noted, the difficulty lies in tracking audiences across a fragmented media landscape while delivering meaningful performance metrics.
• The Role of LG Ads Innovation Lab: Hudes emphasized that behavioral and emotional cues are critical to surfacing relevant content, making personalization even more integral to managing fragmented content across multiple devices.

Insight 3: The Shift to Multi-Currency Measurement is Gaining Momentum

Multi-currency measurement is quickly becoming necessary in advanced TV, but implementation is still in its early days.

• Enabling Optionality: During Ready or Not, The Advanced TV Ad Market Is Here, panelists like Paramount’s Michele Stone stressed that offering measurement flexibility — allowing buyers to transact based on the currency they’re comfortable with — is critical to the future of advertising. As agencies work with multiple measurement providers, they are increasingly focused on aligning these metrics to serve both buyers and sellers effectively.

• Growing Complexity: Publicis Media’s Sam Armando highlighted the complexity agencies face when dealing with multiple currencies during major events like the Super Bowl, where several measurement systems must work together. The challenge lies in ensuring consistency across these systems while maintaining accuracy.

Insight 4: AI’s Role in Measurement is Just Beginning

AI-driven media measurement is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to revolutionize how media is planned, bought, and measured.

• AI for Personalization and Automation: In the session Into the Future of Media Measurement, panelists discussed how AI will drive more personalized and immersive experiences by 2030. Automating content delivery and optimizing audience engagement is seen as a major benefit.

• Ongoing Challenges: AI also introduces challenges. As Sonata Insights’ Debra Aho Williamson pointed out in the AI-Driven Roadmap to 2030, questions around transparency, data ethics, and the accuracy of AI-driven insights remain unresolved. CIMM”s Tameka Kee stressed the importance of industry-wide collaboration to address these issues and ensure AI can deliver on its promises.

Insight 5: CTV’s Growing Influence on Performance Metrics

Connected TV (CTV) now plays a bigger role in performance-based advertising, offering brands opportunities to drive outcomes that were once difficult to measure with linear TV.

• Impact of Live Audiences: IPG Media Brands’ Maureen Bosetti noted that while linear TV still offers significant reach, CTV complements it with advanced performance metrics. Brands are increasingly using CTV’s flexible formats to deliver both brand-building and performance-driven campaigns.

• Cross-Screen Attribution: As highlighted by the panelists in Building the TV Ad Market of the Future, the ability to track audience behaviors across multiple screens is improving, with programmatic buying allowing advertisers to optimize reach and frequency in previously challenging ways.

Navigating these growing complexities — identity resolution, audience fragmentation, and measurement standardization — requires collaboration across the sell-side, buy-side, and tech platforms. 

The future of media measurement depends on the industry’s ability to adopt multi-currency frameworks, embrace AI-driven solutions, and improve the cross-screen attribution model to reflect today’s fragmented viewing habits. As AI integration advances and CTV continues its rise, the next steps will involve finding ways to unify fragmented data ecosystems and develop scalable solutions for cross-screen measurement.

Moving forward, the industry must keep pace with technological innovations and regulatory shifts to ensure that identity resolution and media measurement evolve together to support advertisers, publishers, and viewers alike.

The post 5 Big Ideas We Took Away From CIMM Summit — Identity Resolution Was the Biggest appeared first on AdMonsters.

The revolution in live-streaming sports is unfolding before our eyes, disrupting the broadcast and cable industry as new media giants, including Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube, enter the field. Sports organizations are finding themselves negotiating deals with lots of layers, where specific streamers get a certain night, like Amazon while free streaming is available on Twitch and aired on local broadcast stations. 

The stakes are incredibly high as everyone figures out the rules for live-streaming sports. The NBA’s rights are valued at $75 billion over 12 years, and the NFL’s rights are worth upwards of $110 billion. The current court case against the NFL won’t just affect NFL franchise revenue, but the entire advertising and streaming ecosystem, which relies heavily on these extremely popular mass live events. 

With all of this upheaval and complexity, it seems logical for advertising to follow the same path — with digitization, fragmentation, targeting, and more. But that’s actually the opposite of what’s going to happen. Live sports events on streaming channels actually work very much like linear broadcast sports events, and both streamers and advertisers need to understand why the industry will succeed.

Streaming Can’t Change Live Sports

Streaming sports has hit a tipping point — 53% of adults stream sports at least once per month, and it now accounts for 30% of all streaming views in the US. For multi-channel media companies like NBC, striking a balance on live sports is critical to ensure they aren’t out-maneuvered by a native digital competitor.

Tech giants like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Netflix have the resources to dominate streaming sports. Unlike traditional broadcasters, they lack legacy relationships and dependencies, allowing them to operate more flexibly. Without the constraints of politics, multiplatform contracts, and outdated technology, these companies can leapfrog traditional broadcasters.

However, streaming might be upending most things about watching TV, but a lot about live sports looks a lot like linear. People can binge-watch shows, watch new movies in their living room, and access content from around the world, but sports are resistant to a lot of these elements.

The excitement of the game happening live doesn’t change much just because it’s streamed instead of broadcast — few people time shift an important game. Sure, some people might discover they love Canadian curling or Indian cricket on streaming, but most people are going to root for the same local teams that they always have, streaming or broadcast. The big games like NBA finals, the Super Bowl, and the World Series will draw huge audiences all watching at the same time.  

Premium Content Demands Premium Prices

The mass live appeal of sports means that the digital, often programmatic advertising that digital companies know and love isn’t as relevant. Amazon might have an advantage of cash and streaming technology, but their advertising savvy doesn’t come into play. It doesn’t make sense to allow a performance-oriented advertiser to bid on individual impressions during an NBA game when a brand-oriented advertiser is willing to pay premium CPMs for an entire audience – maybe even several national ad slots during a single game. 

Live sports advertising makes media companies the most money when they stick to old-school ratings-based metrics and price-based on branding at scale, not precision targeting. This means that any streaming sports rights-holder is still going to consider the UpFronts important. They’re going to want some direct premium ad sales executives. And, they’re going to need to be able to program advertising directly coded into the content, not dynamically serve it to individual households through a big complex supply chain.

The Trickle-Down Effect to All Streamed Sports

By leading with brand awareness and following with addressability on major sports events, streaming platforms create a valuable ecosystem, avoiding the race to the bottom seen in programmatic advertising. 

However, betting solely on brand advertising carrying streaming sports at the long tail is risky. The math of sports broadcasting shows that larger audiences generate greater revenue, but not every game attracts millions of fans. Mid-season baseball games for a mediocre team, college basketball, hockey, and many other popular but smaller sports streams can and should deliver a hybrid of premium brand advertising and targeted advertising. 

As all of these details get worked out, the future of live sports streaming will remain complex. Half of American households still have cable. Sports rights holders need licensing deals that cater to both groups and offer flexibility for a variety of ad-sales strategies. Converged media planning across platforms will be essential. Convergence means different things for buyers and sellers, with varying performance KPIs. Success with converged platforms requires unified sales, delivery, performance metrics, and reporting. 

Streaming will continue to grow in importance, but it won’t lead to an all-programmatic world. The ad market will resemble network TV more than walled gardens, with mergers and acquisitions likely shaping the future landscape as linear slowly fades out and streaming evolves. The convergence of live streaming and traditional advertising will define the next era of sports broadcasting.

The post Live Streaming Takes Brand Advertising Full Circle appeared first on AdMonsters.

As the digital media industry looks forward to a cookieless world, attention metrics are becoming paramount for publishers and advertisers. While ensuring ad viewability is crucial, some argue it doesn’t necessarily translate to actual engagement. 

Attention metrics have gained importance due to the decline in identifier usage and the challenge of capturing consumer attention amid online ad saturation. Brands measure attention through viewability, creative elements, interaction, placement, timing, platform, audibility, clutter, device usage, and eye tracking.

A recent study unveiled by GSTV, the network that programs gas station screens, at the 2024 IAB NewFronts conference highlights GSTV’s prowess in capturing viewer attention, surpassing digital, CTV, and linear television platforms. In collaboration with Lumen Research, the study provides compelling evidence of GSTV’s effectiveness in engaging audiences and delivering value to advertisers.

Brands struggle to connect with concentrated audiences. Positioned at a natural break in daily routines, GSTV seizes the scarce opportunity for undivided consumer attention. Teaming up with attention experts, GSTV’s data was analyzed, revealing superior attention metrics compared to other media channels.

GSTV’s Attention Rates Reign Superior

According to the study, GSTV’s attention rates demolish all other mediums, including online video and display, social media, linear media, and CTV. The only medium that comes even close to rivaling GSTV’s attention is online display. 

GSTV achieves a 95% eyes-to-screen rate, surpassing digital, CTV, and linear TV in visual engagement. Compared to TVision norms, ads on GSTV attract 2.7x more attention than CTV and 2.5x more than linear TV.

This statistic sets GSTV apart from other media formats, showcasing its ability to captivate audiences. Unlike some digital or traditional TV ads that struggle to maintain viewer engagement, GSTV’s platform, strategically positioned at key moments during consumers’ daily routines, ensures that nearly every impression captures the audience’s visual focus. 

This level of attention enhances the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and offers brands a unique opportunity to connect with consumers in a meaningful and impactful way. Media experts widely acknowledge the significance of three key signals—visibility, situation, and interaction—in attention scores. While Visibility and Situation are recognized industry-wide, Interaction ensures increased consumer engagement. Interaction is the gift that GSTV offers. 

Is GSTV More Cost Efficient and Does It Produce Better Brand Recall?

GSTV outperforms digital, CTV, and linear platforms, delivering more attentive viewing time per thousand impressions at a significantly lower cost. Elevated attention on GSTV leads to stronger brand recall compared to industry benchmarks. 

With 7702 attentive seconds per 1,000 impressions, GSTV surpasses digital, CTV, and linear platforms, as indicated by Dentsu and Lumen data. Furthermore, at an aCPM rate of $1.95, GSTV proves to be remarkably cost-effective compared to its competitors, with significantly lower costs per 1,000 attentive seconds.

In terms of brand recall, GSTV’s impact is undeniable. Following exposure, brand recall on GSTV, especially surveyed after fuel-up, surpasses Dentsu benchmarks by 1.5 times. Specifically, recall rates for GSTV post-ad exposure stand at 36%, outperforming online video, online display, social media, and CTV platforms, according to GSTV and Lumen/Dentsu norms.

The study demonstrates GSTV’s effectiveness in capturing and retaining viewer attention, offering advertisers a compelling platform to showcase their brands. With its ability to deliver high attention rates and drive brand recall, GSTV makes a strong argument for adding them to your ad spend budgets.

Visit GSTV for more key findings from this study.

The post New Study Reveals GSTV Dominates Ad Attention appeared first on AdMonsters.

This poses a significant question to advertisers: are you prepared for the effects that this year’s election has on your pre-existing media plans? As the competition for linear spots in late 2024 continues to increase, advertisers should look to scale alternative channels such as Connected TV (CTV) to avoid dark periods in their marketing efforts.

Let’s take a deeper look at the three key trends that advertisers are facing this election cycle.

Political Advertising’s Historical Focus on Linear TV

In addition to the divisive choice for president, there are 33 U.S. Senate races, 14 state gubernatorial elections and 435 congressional seats up for grabs. Most of these politicians will focus their advertising efforts on local broadcast TV where viewers tend to be older, more engaged with local politics, and as a result, more likely to vote.

There is also a “we’ve always done things this way” mentality endemic to political advertising, and campaigns often stick with the linear TV advertising that they know. While overall trends in the advertising industry show a growing shift from linear TV to CTV and streaming, political advertisers still believe that local TV is more efficient for disseminating the messages and platform of a politician’s campaign as quickly as possible.

Political Advertisers Take Priority

As many TV companies and local networks anticipate a busy and chaotic election cycle, they begin setting aside a large number of spots for political advertisers. These campaigns are historically given priority for TV placement, resulting in non-political advertisers being bumped to later months with more ad space. This presents a significant challenge for verticals such as retail, CPG and entertainment, who rely on linear TV advertising as part of their broader media plans to promote timely initiatives and offerings.

These advertisers are facing a Catch-22: they must choose between paying a premium price for spots or going dark on linear until after the election. Advertisers should begin planning for the upcoming political climate and exploring alternative channels, such as CTV, to achieve lower CPMs and greater return on ad spend (ROAS).

CTV Shines Through

Even though views on streaming services surpassed those of broadcast and cable TV for the first time in 2023, local TV is often still favored by political campaigners. This presents an opportunity for non-political advertisers to effectively shift their linear-planned dollars to CTV campaigns and drive better reach and measurable ad performance than traditional linear buys. And, through the activation of a brand’s first-party data, CTV placements provide advertisers with more control in targeting and reporting than Linear TV.

Now is the time to act. Doing nothing risks getting your campaigns bumped and your brand going dark during the highly coveted holiday shopping season. Talk to your advertising partners today and take control of your schedule for the fall of 2024.

Investing in CTV is the solution for all advertisers — political and non-political — far beyond the election this fall. Marketers should rise to the moment, capitalize on these massive tailwinds behind CTV to accelerate brand growth and efficiently execute their KPIs for the coming year.

The post Advertisers, Are You Ready for This Year’s Election Cycle? appeared first on AdMonsters.

According to several US forecasts, 2024 promises to be a banner year for advertising. Last December, IPG Mediabrands predicted that ad spend would grow 8.4% this year, but last week, its research arm, Magna, raised its forecast, saying revenues would grow 9.2% to reach $390 billion. 

Some, but not all, of that increase will be due to spending on political ads. Retailers and travel brands will contribute to the boon by increasing ad spend by 9%; automotive will spend 6% more over 2023.

Social media advertising will grow by 14 percent to reach $80 billion, growing 14% from 2023. That’s more than advertisers spend on linear TV. Advertising in long-form streaming will grow 13% to reach $10 billion, thanks in large part to ads in Amazon Prime.

Magna isn’t alone in predicting better revenues. Last week, Madison and Walls’ Brian Wieser predicted an increase in ad revenues. Moreover, not all that growth will result from political ads, although that will increase to $15 billion this election season. 

“My expectations for the advertising industry for 1Q24 now call for expansion of 8.0% excluding political advertising, and for the full year 2024 I expect 5.6% ex-political growth. In my prior forecast, I expected 1Q24 growth of 7.0% and full-year expansion of 5.2% on a comparable basis,” he wrote in a blog post.

The Non-Recession’s Impact on Publishing

Interestingly, both Magna and Wieser cite improving economic conditions as the source of growth, including a rise in GDP, slowing inflation, and better-than-expected job growth.

For the past two years, publishers have laid off staff in anticipation of lower advertising revenue (in 2023 alone, publishers shed 19,000 jobs). Those cuts were deemed necessary due to the impending recession, which never materialized.

This time last year, we wrote about the layoffs at publishing houses due to an impending recession, even though ad spending was rising.

Media as Revenue Generator

Economic historians have long advised that down markets are a great time to advertise, and brands that spend while others cut back stand to gain big market share.

However, according to Marc S. Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble, advertising is a way to add value to a brand, regardless of economic conditions. Writing on LinkedIn, he explains:

“There’s a way of growing markets that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: MEDIA. Media grows markets, yet it is perhaps one of the most underrated and underused ways of accelerating market growth. It’s generally the largest spending element in the marketing mix and can have a significant impact on market growth—positive or negative—but is often considered an expense to be cut when there are profit problems. However, when done well, media investment is a revenue generator that can make markets bigger.”

Publishers have always portrayed their inventory as a source of brand growth, and it’s gratifying to hear the fourth largest company in the world agree. The trick, as Pritcher notes, lies in doing it well. To that end, AdOps teams are deploying multiple AI tools and platforms to identify and respond to trends to drive campaign performance, as we detail in the upcoming Publisher Pulse. With strong economic growth and better insights into campaign performance, perhaps advertisers will continue to increase spending in 2025 and beyond.

The post Ad Spending Will Jump More Than Anticipated in 2024 appeared first on AdMonsters.

Every year, advertisers pay top dollar to feature their ads during the Super Bowl because they know they will reach a large audience. It’s an essential part of the annual pastime for consumers to decide which Super Bowl ad tickles their fancy the most. Yet, even more than large audience engagement, the event assures that the ads catch users’ attention. An iconic, uninterrupted ad spot for viewers — what more could advertisers ask for? 

There were many wins at the Super Bowl — the Kansas City Chiefs, Usher, and the Beyhive. But the real question is, who took the advertising crown? According to AdImpact’s viewership data and day-after advertising analysis, certain categories remained popular, such as beer and sports betting commercials remaining popular. 

Here’s what the stats say: 

The Viewership Breakdown of the Most Streamed Super Bowl of All-Time

Super Bowl LVIII broke TV rating records by becoming the most-watched program in US television history, at least officially. Therefore, it is the most streamed Super Bowl ever. That’s a staggering fact. Still, our CTV-obsessed professionals may be wondering what medium consumers watched the game. 

AdImpact’s data revealed that most viewers watched the game on linear TV (59%), and 14% watched on YouTube TV. Linear TV remains king of the castle in terms of Super Bowl viewership, but will that change as the TV industry evolves? 

We already know that a Disney standalone ESPN streaming service will hit the streets in 2025. Alongside watching their favorite sports, the streaming service will feature an immersive experience for sports fans, offering e-commerce and features like integrated betting and fantasy sports. With a locked and loaded plan to build an audience and keep them, I’m sure all our CTV geeks will be looking to see if ESPN’s new streaming service will dominate viewership for that year’s Super Bowl. 

The Top Performing Ads of the Night

Commercials for the 2024 Super Bowl commanded higher rates than those for last year’s game, ranging from $6.5 million to $7 million per 30-second spot broadcast on TV channel CBS. With ad spend budgets on the line and only a few chances to ensure all viewers remembered your ad, brands were scrambling to score a last-minute field goal to reach that top-10 spot. 

There’s no room to waste ad spend, especially with the spine-tingling ad recession that plagued the industry at the beginning of 2023. Even more, some industry experts predicted ad spend growth deceleration starting this year. 

All brands fought valiantly to the bitter end, but only a few could score their way to the top. According to TV outcomes company EDO, here are the Top 10 ads that drove the highest consumer engagement: 

1. Deadpool & Wolverine (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures), Coming Together:15, generated +2,243% as much engagement as the median-performing Super Bowl LVIII in-game ad. 
2. Wicked: Part One (Universal Pictures), Afraid:60, +2,008%
3. Volkswagen, An American Love Story:60, +1,594%
4. Poppi, The Future of Soda is Now:60, +1,561%
5. Temu, Billionaire:30, +1,342%
6. Twisters (Universal Pictures), Chase It:30, +1,125%
7. Temu, Billionaire:30 +1,041%
8. He Gets Us, He Washed Feet:60, +942%
9. Robert F. Kennedy for President, Kennedy:30, +891%
10. Shogun (Hulu), Epic Event Promo:30, +639%

Biggest Ad Trends 

EDO also provided an analysis of some of the night’s biggest trends. New soft drinks, foreign auto brands, and nostalgia took center stage in the Big Game. International automakers seized the opportunity left by the absence of U.S. conglomerates, with Volkswagen leading in engagement with a nostalgia-driven ad. 

Despite criticism, online retailer Temu’s repetitive ad proved effective, securing top spots. Poppi emerged as a standout among soft drink brands, while alcohol ads dwindled after last year’s heavy investment. Nostalgia-driven TV reunions, including cast reunions from beloved shows, resonated with audiences, notably boosting engagement for brands like Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

The post Linear TV, New Soft Drinks, Foreign Auto Brands, and Nostalgia Reigned Supreme at Super Bowl LVIII appeared first on AdMonsters.

Will CTV pick the next president?

Political analysts often talk about the importance of a candidate’s ground game. In 2024, the winning candidates may determine who has the best streaming game. Indeed, as 2024 approaches–and portends some of the most intense races in US elections history– connected TV promises to play a pivotal, perhaps even deciding role. 

That is if campaign strategists–and the cadres of ad-buying specialists they typically deploy–recognize the opportunity before them and are willing to throw away convention.

To win in 2024, political advertisers must prepare to rethink decades’ worth of proven strategies while maximizing their data assets to take advantage of the television’s fast-evolving, advanced targeting capabilities.

A Very Conservative Couple of Parties

Historically, political campaigns–particularly presidential ones–have stuck with a tried and true playbook for getting out the vote. Unlike traditional brands, this isn’t an area where you can afford to ‘test and learn. After all, if a campaign’s media buying strategy doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t just lead to a bad quarter–but the brand in question suddenly goes out of business.

Therefore, media conservatism reigns for both sides of the aisle.

Many recent candidates have embraced digital platforms (remember Bernie Sanders on Snapchat?) — they centered a large portion of this activity around collecting names and fundraising. While President Joe Biden and former President Trump spent $360 million on Facebook and Google in 2020, the two candidates doled out a stunning $1 billion on TV ads in just 13 states, reported NPR. As has long been the case, they focused most of that spending on linear TV, particularly local TV stations in critical districts.

Of course, we know that 2020 was already a long time ago in media time. Over the past few years, the TV terrain has changed radically. For example:

• Cord cutting has accelerated; per Nielsen, cable TV viewership now accounts for just 30% of TV viewing.
• Video viewership has quickly shifted to streaming and social video.
• A new generation of viewers has never had cable and consumes TV with a streaming-first mentality; for the first time this past summer, streaming accounted for most of TV consumption.

Here’s the hard and scary truth for political and traditionalists–given the confluence of these consumer behavioral shifts, a sizable portion of the electorate is simply unreachable through classic political advertising tactics.

Deciding to ignore a significant pool of potential voters, well, that’s not a winning strategy.

The CTV Election

If 2020 seemed like a particularly intense race, wait. Experts predict political brands will dole out a record $10 billion in the US in 2024.

Yet, there is a risk that many of those dollars might go to waste if political operatives don’t fully embrace and master CTV.

Thankfully, the recent growth in ad-supported streaming provides political spenders far more options. Not only have top services such as Max, Netflix, and Disney+ recently rolled out ad-supported options for consumers, but many of these companies are cracking down on password sharing while offering pricing plans that encourage new users to opt for advertising. 

Plus, the growth in free ad-supported services (the FAST category) continues to impress. There are many more outlets for political spenders to recapture much of linear TV’s lost reach.

However, that’s only part of the story. So many more options are available today for candidates to use their TV dollars more strategically. Streaming platforms have positioned themselves to offer political advertisers an edge, enabling them to tailor their messages with unmatched precision. 

Several campaigns saw CTV success in the 2022 midterms as they moved away from cookie-based tactics. Those advancements should only continue. For instance, most major streaming platforms have partnered with clean room tech firms, which should enable political campaigns to use their existing email databases to target interested votes.

In addition, during CTV campaigns, these candidates should be able to derive deeper insights from granular user data, allowing them to make adjustments mid-flight. Overall, CTV should offer a sharper targeting edge compared to linear platforms.

Yet, given these advertisers’ media buying experience, maximizing the CTV opportunity won’t happen by flipping a switch. Now is the time for political brands to take the steps needed to become masters of CTV ad targeting.

That means ensuring they make the best use of their data via the right technology and partners. They’ll need new talent and processes to optimize campaigns with speed and agility.

They’ll also need to start evaluating and pressure testing vehicles like data clean rooms and new forms of addressable CTV advertising today.

At the same time, the streamers have a job to do to capture what should be a potential 2024 windfall. Media companies must craft products and services to cater to these somewhat novice brands. Political campaigns may need training, customized tools, and tailored research. They need reliable attribution systems, as every dollar and vote counts.

The Race Is On

The 2024 political season, particularly the presidential race, will be more competitive and likely more volatile than ever. As we’ve seen in several local battles, a handful of votes can determine the difference between winning and losing, so every potential voter reached will be essential.

Therefore, the political ad teams that reorient their media focus on the need to go after those ‘unreachable voters,’ with as much targeting sophistication as possible, will be the ones that prove to be winners on Election Day.

The post The Uncharted Terrain: Political Advertising in 2024’s Streaming Ecosystem appeared first on AdMonsters.