Insights

Five tips for brands exploring addressable TV for the first time

  • 6 minutes read
  • Global
  • 24/11/2022

TV advertising isn’t just for the market giants with years of experience and big budgets. TV is for brands of all sizes whether their goal is awareness, scale, footfall or sales. Addressable TV – showing different ads to different households watching the same show – is proven to be a highly effective and measurable way for brands to connect with their target audiences. With cutting-edge technology, such as Finecast Audience Planner, and, best-in-class data, we’re helping advertisers reach and engage with the audiences that matter to them.

Here’s why brands should consider addressable TV advertising and five tips on planning and executing your first addressable TV campaign.  

 

Why should you add addressable TV to your marketing mix?

 

TV is the best place to build your brand

TV remains the most powerful, impactful and trusted media channel with studies consistently showing that it’s also the most effective medium for building brand awareness and driving sales. By putting your ad campaign on the big screen, you are tapping into the power of TV and creating memorable advertising that elevates your brand in the market.

According to research by Thinkbox, TV ads drive the strongest fitness, social and trust signals across major media channels. Memorability coupled with the positive association of TV equates to long-term brand building and affinity, ensuring you’re top-of-mind when people are ready to purchase products.

 

You can customise the audiences you want to engage with

Addressable TV advertising uses data collected from various sources and devices to understand households' browsing, consumption and engagement habits, as well as geographical location.

Advertisers can then use this information to ensure their ads are only ever served to people who are likely to be interested in what they have to offer, based on what’s already known about them. In this way, advertisers avoid media waste and are more efficient with their budgets.

 

You can reach more people in specific locations

Addressable TV campaigns can be activated in specific locations. This means that advertisers can launch campaigns around commuter belts, car dealerships, restaurants, retail locations, airports, and more. This capability elevates advertisers’ local marketing efforts to accommodate nuances or promotions. This is a powerful tool for businesses with fixed locations, and it’s a key advantage that addressable TV has over linear TV. So here are the five tips on planning and executing your first addressable TV campaign.

 

1. Customise your audience

Traditional attributes, such as the age and gender of your audience(s), will need to be considered. But addressable advertising can be enhanced when you incorporate first-party data to build accurate profiles of the individuals and households you want to reach. For example, you can use the information you hold about lapsed purchases, or perhaps use your best-performing mailing lists as a starting point. We combine these insights with data from broadcasters and our data partners such as Experian and Axciom to help you create audience segments.

For example, we analysed the profiles of World Vision Australia’s existing donors to uncover what makes them give. We then used that information to build a custom audience to specifically reach those who are most likely to donate. Discover the results of World Vision’s case study.

 

2. Tailor your creative to better connect with viewers

Send the same ad to different sets of audiences, and your efforts may fall short. Be sure to customise your concepts according to the households you’re targeting.

Even the most subtle of modifications to a nationwide ad can increase its impact on regional segments. To appeal to viewers of different ages, backgrounds and ethnicities, you may also want to adjust the language and dialect used in your spots.

In a campaign we ran with eBay, we spoke to a UK nationally representative sample of 1,500 people who had made an online purchase in the previous 12 months. We then tested two different ads with the sample to analyse the correlation between different creative elements and perceived relevance. The results indicated that utility was the key factor for driving the feeling of relevance. Overall, the findings reinforced that really knowing your target audience, what makes them tick and what will speak to them directly is key to get the most from addressable TV advertising.

 

3. Think lower funnel

Apart from the misconception that brands need bigger budgets to add addressable TV to their marketing mix, another misconception is that addressable TV doesn’t drive lower funnel activity. We’re able to prove that addressable TV campaigns drive results like footfall to store, website visits and sales.

Simple but effective tactics include using a QR code in the creative so advertisers can connect their TV ads to their digital customer journey.

 

4. Decide what to measure

Which metrics are important to your organisation? Does exposure matter the most? Are you more concerned with engagement? Are you setting benchmarks for CPMs?

These are just some of the key questions that need to be answered before you can settle on clear KPIs. Our team will work with you to determine what you should measure and why.

We work closely with our advertisers to demonstrate the impact of their addressable TV campaigns. As more scrutiny is placed on how budgets are distributed, we know we play a key role in helping advertisers understand the value gained.

Our unique Finecast Report feature enables you to measure reach and frequency across all your addressable TV campaigns, in real-time. Due to the nature of addressable TV, we can also use closed-loop analytics to show your true return on ad spend.

 

5. Be prepared to test

Addressable TV advertising relies on setting test and control groups, then testing again and again to find the approach that generates the best ROI. Another benefit of this optimisation-focused strategy is that positive results can be rolled out across multiple providers using the same targeting principles, allowing you to scale quickly.  

Still wondering if addressable TV is right for you? Learn more here.

Get in touch

We'd love to hear from you. Click below to get in touch.