Change Agent: The Power of Programmatic for CTV

Greg Leon, Director, Programmatic

At PHM, embracing change and innovation in our day-to-day work is part of our DNA. Enter the Change Agents—thought leaders who are experts in their respective fields, helping to guide PHM and our clients through an ever-changing industry and media landscape. This series aims to highlight these thought leaders and their unique point of view as it relates to health media.

This edition’s Change Agent—Greg Leon, Director, Programmatic on how leveraging the power of Programmatic and the expertise of Video can make an impact in the connected TV space.

Connected TV (CTV) is growing and showing no signs of stopping, with more Americans utilizing the channel each year. According to eMarketer, by 2026, CTV will account for 20% of time spent with media per day by adults in the US, compared with 11.5% in 2020. This growth creates new opportunities for brands to connect with consumers and provides marketers with key measurement data that other channels cannot.

Traditionally, we buy connected tv through our Video investment teams, working directly with our partners to purchase inventory. However, as this channel increases in importance and sophistication, it’s time for an evolved, team-based approach, marrying the power of Programmatic with the expertise of Video investment. By bringing together these two powerhouse teams, we can activate on the promise of both capabilities, breaking down silos and allowing for a holistic view of how our messaging is activating across channels.

Our Video teams have a deep understanding of the CTV landscape, with vast knowledge of the partners, platforms and existing campaigns in the space. They serve a critical role in crafting the strategy and determining how our client’s brand messaging will show up in this environment. Once this strategy is developed, our Programmatic team is then able to lean into an activation mindset, bringing a hands-on keyboard approach to this channel. We can view performance of this channel alongside others, giving our teams a clear picture of how consumers are responding to messaging across many channels, in one platform, in real time.

This approach is already paying dividends in four key areas: frequency, audience targeting, savings and trust.

Frequency

Frequency issues are well-documented in the CTV space. Consumers complain about seeing the same ads at every commercial break, potentially souring their impression of a brand’s messaging due to this fatigue. For marketers, frequency issues can create missed opportunities to connect when audiences don’t have enough touchpoints. It is a balancing act to make sure we are reaching the point of recognition with our intended audience, without overexposure.

Buying CTV programmatically allows us to mitigate against both of these issues as programmatic traders can optimize in real time vs. relying on outside parties to regulate frequency. We can expand our reach by spreading our spend across channels and partners while leveraging centralized frequency/delivery settings, ensuring that no one audience receives all of our attention and making way for more people to receive and resonate with our message.

Audience targeting

This approach also aids us in determining which audiences to target, as well as where to focus our retargeting efforts. Since we are activating this key channel in one platform alongside others in our campaigns, we can overlay existing audience data on top of our performance metrics, ensuring we are reaching the ideal audience across channels and giving us a clear picture of the full user journey.

We are then tapped into all touchpoints a user has with our core messaging, enabling us to retarget and optimize subsequent messaging accordingly—whether it’s by pushing creative that may resonate better, reaching them at a time where they are more likely to engage, or targeting via alternate channels based on previous exposure.

Savings

By reaching our target audience at the right time, we can prevent impression and ad spend waste on this growing channel. Also, by bringing this channel in alignment with the others we buy programmatically, we can optimize spend in real time across all channels. This ensures that when a channel or certain targeting tactic is performing well, we can increase spend in this area and not waste valuable impressions on lower performing tactics. We are not limited to one environment, opening up the landscape to dynamically meet our audiences where they are.

Trust

This approach allows us to foster trust. Target audiences are met with the most impactful creative at the optimal time, opening them up to be more responsive to our message. Brand teams receive a deeper level of engagement with this key channel, working with one centralized, accessible team managing ad delivery across multiple channels and tactics, ultimately driving better understanding on how to activate effectively and efficiently.  Building trust is particularly important as this channel becomes a staple in many media strategies. By connecting subject matter experts in both the Programmatic and Video investment spaces, we are able to take a multi-faceted team approach to CTV—bringing the best of both worlds to this critical channel.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.

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