CTV’s been capturing ad industry headlines for years, but adtech is finally getting to the good part of unlocking its transformative potential. After speeding from $8.11 billion in the US alone in 2020, to $24.6 billion just in the US in 2023, more marketers are tuning in and allocating their budgets accordingly, with further growth to follow.
From our perspective on the front lines, we’re extremely excited about where CTV will grow next, as the innovations we’ve helped to drive across the broader ecosystem start to make their impact felt. The next big step here comes on one of the world’s brightest stages: The Olympics.
Connecting adtech’s innovations to CTV
But first, advertisers must understand the latest advancements to CTV before they can unlock its full potential. In doing so, they’ll recognize many of the same innovations that have spanned broader adtech – and have the chance to apply these innovations on the marquee stage that is CTV:
- Identity is unlocking a better view of consumers than ever before. We’ve innovated so far beyond the days of panels, and other imprecise methods of knowing who was on the receiving end of linear TV buys. Now, with both publishers and marketers leveraging identity, TV marketers are able to not just better understand households, but even individuals exposed to ads, generating insight into every step of consumers’ journeys. This starts before ad exposures, when identity can show where consumers’ viewing habits make them reachable; during ad exposure, as consumers can be marketed to based on their unique stage of the customer journey and relevant interests; conversion, including in retailers; and proving this all with measurement to drive more effectiveness on both sides.
- Data collaboration is helping the entire CTV ecosystem do more with their data. The adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies, like LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) and PAIR, is allowing publishers and marketers to better leverage and combine the strength of their first-party data to find their intended audiences, personalize each interaction, and activate on their data. Data collaboration is unlocking previously inaccessible data across all forms of advertising, enabling truly comprehensive cross-screen measurement and analysis.
- Retail media networks are closing the loop. RMNs are uniquely positioned to target consumers across media channels and leverage their owned differentiated assets to influence conversion. CTV offers the ability to combine premium formats and vast addressable audiences with RMNs’ strengths, enabling scale and performance more than ever before. Data is the foundation making this possible, leading to an increase in data collaboration tools such as data clean rooms across the RMN and CTV sectors – and identity helps to improve the outcomes of using these solutions.\
The Olympics feeds CTV’s flame
These strengths are what primes CTV to capitalize on one of consumers’ favorite pastimes: sports. Sports will perpetually be one of the most premium content types, with its heightened visibility, emphasis on live moments, and limited inventory for the most premium events – and the Olympics takes all of these to the next level. While a smattering of events across various professional sports had been available for programmatic CTV advertising, Paris 2024 marks the first time that the Olympics have been available for programmatic, a key bellwether as CTV continues to consume TV.
Data collaboration, enhanced identity, and retail media measurement are helping to transform CTV marketing on sports’ biggest stage, turning the Olympics from an expensive spotlight for brand campaigns into powerful performance-driven marketing. With the scale of the number of viewers for the Olympics combined with the new level of data-driven insights and performance, marketers are given the keys to campaigns that can drive unprecedented results.
Critically, more of sports’ other marquee moments are headed to CTV. Centerstage games for the NBA, NFL, and others are all slated to be broadcast over CTV in the years to come, and marketers have a transformative opportunity to come out of the blocks quickly and build CTV and live sports leadership.
On your marks
LiveRamp is working across the CTV ecosystem to help publishers, marketers, and other stakeholders to build effective, sustainable CTV strategies, and power cutting-edge CTV solutions. These include innovations like Google Display & Video 360 Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR), which enables publishers and marketers to securely and privately reconcile their first-party data, and personalize the customer journey more effectively. LiveRamp is helping a number of CTV stakeholders to deploy PAIR, including NBCUniversal.
While it may be tempting to see the manifold growth of CTV over the past few years and think that its most exciting days have passed, in reality, we’re just now starting to realize the benefits of cutting-edge technology for the CTV ecosystem.
If you’re looking to take your first steps in CTV at this critical time, deploying an identity solution helps lay a strong foundation for success, whether you’re a publisher or marketer. Check out our webinar with Paramount and Circana to learn more about why this foundation matters.