“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.
Today’s column is by Jeff Sue, GM, Americas at Mintegral.
Connected TV (CTV) is rapidly emerging as an enticing channel for advertisers looking to increase their campaign reach and tap into new channels of ad inventory. The mobile ad industry is pivoting its campaign strategies to ensure privacy-era policies such as AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) do not hinder user acquisition and retargeting. App advertisers looking to take advantage of CTV have the same concern.
The headwinds facing mobile app marketing in 2023 are undeniable. A continued rise in cost per install (CPI) amid the impacts of a privacy-first ad ecosystem – coupled with an array of macroeconomic environment issues – has left advertisers needing new channels that can provide inexpensive traffic and insight into their performance campaigns.
To this end, the benefits of CTV are becoming more apparent. CTV offers a new avenue for advertisers to serve ads to a highly engaged audience in an ecosystem where user-level data is still available.
But it’s the cross-device measurement capabilities that have caught mobile advertisers’ attention. After all, an omnichannel approach that incorporates CTV will, in theory, help with retargeting. But how CTV plans on accurately attributing installs or app events remains to be seen. And it’s a question advertisers need to answer before ramping up budgets.
CTV measurement headway
There’s already been a push in the industry to address this question, with AppLovin’s acquisition of CTV content provider Wurl. Even The Trade Desk has stated that CTV is integral to its business growth. Additionally, mobile measurement partners like Adjust and AppsFlyer have also been working on cross-device solutions, including IP-based attribution.
Given the current attribution limitations of CTV, mobile marketers should consider utilizing it to assess its place in the user journey and figure out where it stands as a touch point.
Another consideration for CTV is how to implement ads given the channel’s limited ad formats and placements – something that is now fine-tuned on mobile devices. Rewarded video and playables are among the highest-converting mobile app ad formats. Meanwhile, CTV is relatively limited, with interactive video being the optimal choice. Implementing “send to phone” formats will ensure an ad call-to-action doesn’t disrupt the viewing experience and serves an advertiser’s need for accurate event tracking.
For instance, embedded QR codes can be quickly scanned and acted upon after CTV viewing, providing install or other conversion event attribution back to CTV. While CTV ad format and placement might currently leave marketers wanting more, it still serves as a top or mid-funnel strategy. It feeds valuable data insights to mobile campaigns and offers much-needed targeting methods for campaigns affected by ATT.
The promise of CTV
Understanding your campaign’s effectiveness across the entire user journey will dictate the adoption of CTV-to-mobile advertising. This means more emphasis needs to be placed on developing multi-touch attribution models that report installs along with other events like sign-ups, purchases, etc.
Driving high-value user acquisition has never been more difficult, and CTV opens up access to not just one user, but also an entire household. Furthermore, the earlier you can understand the benefits and challenges to the CTV ecosystem, the sooner your app business will have more data insights on how to optimize and iterate your ad campaigns.
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