OTT Advertising-6 Things You Need To Know

How to buy OTT ads

Similar to how social platforms like Facebook and Instagram democratized social media advertising, OTT is doing the same for streaming content. This means just about anyone can run OTT ads, even if you don’t have a huge ad budget (but some platforms make it easier than others).

There are six high-level steps to successfully executing the OTT advertising process.

1. Start with OTT strategy

Before you spend a single dollar, it’s important to identify your goals for your OTT ads. Some questions to ask yourself are:

• Who do I want to reach?

• What action do I want that audience to take?

• How does this work in tandem with my other marketing efforts?

• What tools do I need in order to make this happen?

2. Select your OTT platform or provider

The next step is to decide how you want to buy OTT ads and select an appropriate advertising platform. Some of the most well-known methods are:

• Direct sales

• Private marketplace (PMP)

• Programmatic guaranteed (PG)

For instance, advertisers may purchase OTT advertising from a streaming service provider like Hulu. Hulu's self-serve platform allows advertisers to purchase inventory directly. The advantage is knowing exactly which shows ads will run against. However, the drawback is that you’re restricted to the streaming provider's owned properties (e.g. only Hulu content).

If you want to broaden your choices and inventory across a range of streaming properties, an OTT advertising platform like Madhive allows advertisers and content providers to connect through private marketplaces — or within the larger programmatic ecosystem.

3. Create your ad

Creating an OTT ad is similar to creating an ad for linear television. However, you’ll want to optimize your ad for the platform's format and your viewer’s device type.

Remember, OTT platforms often have different ad formats (e.g. pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ads). Choose the format that best fits your message and will appeal to your audience. When it comes to device type, you should consider whether your audience will be viewing on a smaller screen or a large television — and optimize appropriately.

You should also keep your ad short and sweet, usually around 15-30 seconds (some ads are as short as six seconds). OTT viewers can easily skip ads, so it is essential to make an immediate impression.

4. Select your target audience

OTT advertising brings all the benefits of digital targeting to TV. You can use all of the data available from internet-connected devices like smart TVs, laptops, and smartphones to target audiences based on demographics, interests, viewing history, and dozens of other unique identifiers.

‍Instead of blanketing broad groups of viewers based on what show they tuned into, OTT advertising allows marketers to reach specific audiences with highly-personalized ads. Of course, this is all conducted in a privacy-safe manner, obscuring all personally-identifiable information (PII).

You’ll want to get familiar with the following OTT targeting options:

• Retargeting

• Lookalike targeting

• Contextual targeting

• Geolocation targeting

• Time-of-day targeting

5. Deliver ads to viewers

Depending on your budget, target audience, and other campaign parameters, your OTT platform will deliver your ad during the most appropriate streaming content.

If you’re using programmatic OTT advertising, your demand-side platform (DSP) will access available ad inventory and bid on the most relevant advertising slots for your campaign. The DSP will determine the appropriate bid for each advertising slot, based on the expected value of the audience that the slot will reach.

The highest bidder will win the advertising slot, and their ad will be displayed during the specified ad slot. The entire process is automated and happens in only a fraction of a second. This allows for real-time optimization and the ability to adjust bids and targeting parameters on the fly.

“The race for CTV’s finite premium inventory makes it even more important to be able to make decisions as quickly as possible.”

‍OTT platforms that incorporate AI and machine learning are critical for sifting through massive amounts of information in milliseconds, surfacing informed purchasing decisions for OTT buyers.

6. Measure and optimize ad performance

Advertisers can track the performance of their ads across a wide variety of metrics, such as impressions, clicks, conversions — even footfall traffic. You can use this data to optimize your ad campaigns (in-flight and after the fact) and improve your return on ad spend (ROAS).

Warning: Don’t wait until the end of your campaign to measure performance.

You should constantly monitor results throughout your campaign and understand where your high-performing personas and markets are. This allows you to reallocate dollars and double down with those parameters.