Technological advancements and nationwide lockdown orders have drastically changed how viewers consume and engage with TV content. Today, you can turn on your TV and catch the live airing of Real Housewives on Bravo, you could click into your Roku and stream The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, or move over to the NBC app on your phone and stream last week’s episode of This is Us while you’re on the go. The average person wants to watch what, where, and how they want—and these days that’s across a multitude of channels, apps, and devices. Not to mention second-screening, where viewers are engaging with their devices or another screen while watching a program.
You may find yourself asking:
- How can I plan for such fragmented consumption?
- How can I accurately measure who is seeing my ads across all of these platforms?
- Once I know how people are consuming, how does all this fragmentation impact my mixed media strategy?
To keep up with today’s viewership behavior, it’s important to be able to both combine and separate data from the various platforms to understand the holistic value of your combined channels and their individual value. But relying on multiple reporting mechanisms is no longer cutting it. The need to be agile to navigate this economic environment is more prevalent than ever. Marketers are demanding their cross-screen metrics to mirror what the digital world can provide.
Multi-layered consumption requires multi-layered data. Media buyers should be evaluating cross-screen measurement opportunities from all these inputs:
- Set-top box (STB)
- Audio Content Recognition (ACR)
- Pixels and authenticated on full episodes players (FEP)
- Cross-channel coverage across linear, DVR, and OTT apps
In addition to having accurate data from these inputs, media buyers need to ensure that they have a de-duplicated view of these channels in order to make informed decisions about where to spend their dollars. Having a true read on de-duplicated reach and frequency can help you navigate these modern viewership habits and marketplace fragmentation with ease. You can understand how that ad was placed in The Real Housewives on Bravo, in Handmaid’s Tale via Hulu on Roku, or how the NBC app actually performed, giving you granular insights that matter.
For example, you can find your over-exposed and under-exposed audiences drawing insights that can spark campaign optimizations. You should also look out for:
- Insights that are near real-time and optimization that happens in days, not months
- Granularity across properties, dayparts, and devices to uncover insights that matter
- A holistic view of your investment across all devices and the agility to make changes across screens
Reach and frequency may be seen as “old school” in terms of metrics, but when they are providing de-duplicated views for each of your channels, they can be the driving force behind more effective media strategies that are informed with data.
Learn more about how uncovering near real-time insights like cross-screen reach and frequency can deliver better customer experiences, and reach out to [email protected] to see how LiveRamp TV’s Data Plus Math can help you better quantify the value of your TV campaigns.