How can startup founders, investors, and marketing leaders truly understand the return on investment from advertising within streaming content? Finding effective methods to measure OTT advertising is essential, but how is this achieved in a practical sense?
With the ongoing transition from traditional television to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, the potential for advertisers is enormous. Yet, accurately measuring OTT advertising effectiveness can be a significant hurdle. Let’s explore how this TV advertising impacts various stakeholders.
Table Of Contents:
- What Exactly are OTT Platforms?
- Measure OTT Advertising Campaign Success
- Key Metrics To Evaluate Performance
- More Ways for Optimizing Measurement Performance
- Conclusion
What Exactly are OTT Platforms?
OTT, an abbreviation for “Over-The-Top,” describes the delivery of video content via internet-connected devices like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV. This isn’t a temporary fad.
Consumers now have an expanded selection of on-demand videos, movies, and TV series. This growth is further evidenced by Statista’s projection, which anticipates an 8.86% revenue increase in the OTT platform Video market for 2025.
Why OTT is Good for Marketing Efforts
Marketers have historically faced challenges in evaluating the effectiveness of conventional TV commercials. Because it was difficult to track viewing data directly, assessing performance was a considerable challenge.
OTT ads are revolutionizing this across various sectors. Log-level data in OTT provides comprehensive insights, including the Designated Market Area (DMA), impression timing, and device details, enabling innovative analyses of performance metrics.
Measure OTT Advertising Campaign Success
Effectively measuring the success of your OTT advertising campaign will take some planning. A key approach to measure OTT advertising is understanding the incremental contribution through audience split tests and geo-matched-market tests.
Here’s a detailed explanation of each testing method to measure OTT advertising:
Audience Split Tests
Audience split testing divides your audience into distinct groups: one exposed to your advertisement (the test group) and another that sees a general advertisement, like a public service announcement (the control group).
Monitor the conversion rates of both groups over a set period, such as 30 days. Determine the campaign’s success by calculating the difference in these rates.
Another technique, known as the “ghost ads” method, identifies viewers who meet specific criteria but intentionally excludes them from seeing your advertisement. These viewers form the control group, enabling you to gauge campaign results without directly manipulating the ad exposure.
Geo-Matched Market Tests
When a straightforward audience split test isn’t feasible, consider an alternative approach. Select smaller markets that are representative of larger regions (for example, California).
Then analyze the variations in performance indicators, such as conversion rates and user revenues. From that data you can evaluate the ads’ incremental contributions. Maintaining clear controls, free from extraneous variables, is crucial for achieving reliable results.
Measured assists advertisers in structuring campaigns to evaluate the effectiveness of various marketing channels. Next we’ll cover more detail that helps with assessing channel, campaign, and ad set performance.
Key Metrics To Evaluate Performance
Beyond audience split tests and geo-matched-market tests, it’s beneficial to monitor additional metrics and understand Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These figures will provide insight into optimizing campaigns to reach the best OTT audience reach performance results.
Let’s discuss a few of them here:
Viewability Rate
This metric quantifies the percentage of instances where your ad has the potential to be seen by viewers. According to Statista, as of July 2022, the ad viewability rate exceeded 90 percent.
Advertisers might find the terminology used to assess ad visibility confusing. It is critical to discern what impression viewability truly indicates about ad exposure and delivery. Reflect on the practical implications of “opportunity to see” when assessing whether advertisements effectively reach their intended audiences.
Completion Rate
Completion rates help gauge viewer engagement and require careful observation. Completion rate is the number of viewers who watched the advertisement in its entirety.
Generally, high rates suggest strong creative performance. Conversely, low scores may indicate a need for creative adjustments.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR tracks interactions, highlighting audience engagement and potential conversions. The CTR specifically measures the number of clicks on an ad, reflecting immediate viewer engagement.
CTR assists in determining whether your ad prompts users to take further action. It should be considered alongside other conversion metrics.
Conversion Rate
The Conversion Rate statistic primarily focuses on post-view actions. It involves tracking specific actions taken by viewers after seeing the ads, such as making a purchase or signing up.
Advertisers and providers must establish a clear connection between these conversions and the specific ads shown. By examining your conversions, advertisers can adjust targeting or messaging to improve ad conversion rates.
Brand Lift
Brand lift assesses how ad formats influence perceptions over time. Measuring this change provides insights into the broader campaign effects, extending beyond immediate user interactions.
This metric evaluates long-term influence, allowing for a comprehensive evaluation of the value derived from your media expenditure.
Attribution
Attribution identifies and links your various touchpoints. Tracking OTT attribution helps correlate advertisements with website engagement and sales.
Detailed ad measurement assists in optimizing returns, providing insight on the efficacy of your media spend. The return you see is correlated to this data.
Scrutinizing these metrics will provide you direction. This type of campaign optimization is needed.
Engagement and Interaction
When examining campaigns, pay close attention to how audiences engage with interactive elements in ad displays. Platforms offering interactive features, like overlays, or encouraging video views, can help you broaden reach.
This type of interaction offers insight on how viewers will receive the ad’s message. Advertisers can use the insights from this data to make campaign adjustments.
Frequency
Frequency refers to the average number of times an ad is viewed within a specific timeframe. Monitoring this count allows advertisers to refine their strategies.
Excessive views can discourage viewers from engaging. On the flip-side under delivery can lead to suboptimal performance.
Maintaining optimal views is crucial for sustaining engagement. Ensure that your audience receives adequate exposure to watch and comprehend the video content.
More Ways for Optimizing Measurement Performance
Consider various perspectives to leverage data-driven insights and improve your campaign strategies. This includes content optimization, improving targeting of specific viewer segments, and adjusting the approach to increase engagement. Let’s go through a few extra considerations here:
A/B Testing
A/B testing displays different versions of an ad simultaneously, helping assess which variation performs best in terms of messaging. By comparing campaign results, you can choose impactful strategies for driving optimization improvements.
Utilize diverse strategies when assessing messaging effectiveness. Consider how brands refine their messages across different testing platforms. Employ tests to compare the effectiveness of copy in various messaging strategies.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Evaluating OTT advertising must include a consideration of the broader advertising landscape. Identifying and allocating resources towards enhancing overall ROI and other performance metrics is crucial.
It is essential to monitor costs relative to the value generated to allocate ad funds and investments judiciously. This involves examining the ratio of expenditure to revenue generated from sales actions.
Measuring this helps optimize the use of marketing funds and target the most efficient promotional activities. Adjust targeting and bidding to increase return and allocation of budget. Also keep the concept of cross channel measurement in mind as you evaluate this.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
What makes customer value significant in video strategies? Customer lifetime value (CLTV) assesses the overall profits generated throughout the customer lifecycle after advertising on the web, not just in initial reactions.
Understanding total CLTV directs outreach efforts and long-term profit strategies. It can potentially enhance long-term value substantially.
This approach emphasizes building a holistic, long-term relationship with the customer, rather than focusing solely on the immediate return from deployed advertisements. Keep your advertising metrics focused on lifetime value and the big picture.
Data Enrichment
This involves enhancing raw marketing data with additional datasets to provide a clearer view of performance. Combining these details provides more granular insights into ad placement performance trends.
By integrating multiple records for ads shown, advertising performance analytics can be refined. The detailed insight helps improve ad campaigns.
Advanced Analytics and Tools
Utilize analytical tools equipped with in-depth monitoring capabilities to benefit from OTT campaigns. Advanced technology offers valuable insights into campaign performance, improving decision-making with performance metrics data and promoting overall marketing objectives for businesses.
Various platforms provide solutions for OTT measurement; leverage these tools effectively. This is crucial in a competitive market where continuous testing against rivals is the norm.
Conclusion
Understanding the outcomes of viewership on ad purchases is critical for business leaders. Factors such as ad exposure demonstrating clear outcomes and attribution are vital for gauging ad effectiveness in online video streaming through an incrementality platform.
It is essential to have a solid understanding of key methods for determining incremental ad value, including techniques for segmenting target markets and measuring response variations. Measuring OTT advertising outcomes involves numerous considerations.
Mastering the intricacies of viewership data enables your brand to leverage connected device information effectively. Employ incrementality lift data for return calculations, illustrating the incremental return contributions. Use actionable results, ensuring cross-channel ad measurements guide you toward successful, data-driven decisions across all devices, both now and in the future.
