How to Succeed with Targeted TV Advertising in the Digital Age

500 million tweets were sent each day, on average, in 2014. That’s ten times as many as were sent out every day in 2010. But according to a 2015 MarketShare study, TV is still the most effective advertising platform for B2C sales, reports AdAge.

• Why the $70 Billion TV Ad Market Still Matters

  Clearly, in such a large market, networks and TV station groups have resources to create high quality content. They invest heavily in content that keeps viewers glued to the screen. Content providers and distributors are experts at getting to the minds of their target audiences, and they’re releasing more shows than ever before.

  

  Digital advertising’s market share continues to grow with increasing amounts of popular platforms offering new types of opportunities, but networks and TV station groups are not going to go away quietly.

  Television is still the number one medium with sufficient infrastructure and resources to cover the events that attract the largest audiences, like the World Cup, the Oscars, national and local political activities, and the Olympics.

• How Digital Players’ Commitment to Targeted Audiences 
  Is Changing the TV Advertising Ecosystem

  Digital players are growing, and they want what TV advertising has to offer: brand prestige and a high conversion impact.

  Digital players have an enhanced data-driven mindset, which results from the information available in online advertising activities. As they push into TV, they challenge MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) and TV station groups to review how they approach advertising with sub-DMA targeting.

  They do that, for example, by incorporating TV and video on mobile data. Almost 60% of buyers are less likely to cancel a purchase after watching product videos, according to E-Tailing and Invodo. Plus, customers are using their mobile devices – or, at the very least, have their mobile devices nearby – when making purchase decisions or approaching a point of sale, which indicates their location.

  By using granular, geo-fenced location data in combination with mobile video results, TV planners are able to tie in the ZIP code of the phone with the  cable franchise area  or telco system coverage.

  With innovative data collection on their own on top of collaboration with third parties, as is common online, advertisers have even more power to apply the buying triggers, digital signals or physical needs that create demand. A layered approach that accurately counts and combines the options available, gives the marketer the clearest way to take advantage of all media value. Current TV analytics can include qualititative data to win in the placing the ads in the appropriate content.

  As a result, data driven planning can deliver TV ads that accurately reinforce their messages, provide a holistic omnichannel experience, and remain top of mind when the audience is off its phone – all the while preserving consumer privacy, which matters to customers, according to a 2015 VentureBeat report.

• How One Restaurant Brand Got 11,858,423 More Impressions by Using Targeted TV Advertising

  With 421 locations, an American restaurant chain considered a national TV campaign to attract as much foot traffic as possible across the country. Yet before it pulled the plug on the campaign, the chain looked into data.

  Research indicated that women make most purchase decisions in a family. It also indicated that there are 11 million women ages 25-49 (the brand’s target audience) inside a 5 mile radius around each of the 421 locations, compared to 97 million women ages 25-49 throughout the entire US.

  That meant that, if the brand ran a national campaign, only 12% of its TV advertisements would reach the potential audience in the target areas of a 5 mile radius from the restaurants.

  By opting for a targeted TV ad campaign, the brand was able to recapture 88% of wasted network impressions that happen outside of target areas. The targeted TV ad campaign broadened the brand’s reach, and increases the efficiency of the ad spots. As a result, the brand was able to increase impressions by 11,858,423 within the desired geographic areas and among women ages 25-49 at no additional out of pocket cost.

   

  How to Know When to Go National and When to Laser Focus Your Ad Targeting

  When facing the option to do mass advertising versus the option to laser focus TV ad spend, consider the profile and goals of the particular brand.

  Mass TV advertising campaigns to a nationwide audience work pretty well for companies with low to moderately prices items that have a broad consumption. It also works well for companies with low priced items that have little variation on price, or that are evenly distributed.

   

  Check out our intro guide to Targeted TV!
  

   

  The challenge comes up when companies sell high ticket items, and want to identify the type of programs and networks that are preferred by the key demographics that buy those products. By identifying this data, they can fine tune their campaign and only advertise at specific times of day.

  Similarly, when brands have several consumer profiles, or one consumer profile that’s concentrated in an array of geographic areas, they can increase the value of TV ad dollars by focusing the budget within custom areas of high consumption rates.

  Often, it’s a combination of mass advertising and targeted advertising that works best, because a layered approach can fill in the gaps where network consumption is very uneven. By moving beyond the traditional 210 TV DMAs (Designated Market Areas) into over 3,100 localized TV systems, advertisers can enjoy a wealth of opportunities to reduce waste and intensify the message.

  Targeted TV advertisers are therefore able to reach the right target audience, at the right scale, and provide the maximum impact with TV advertising.