Embracing Advanced TV in Your Targeting Strategy

Will 2024 be wheels-up for advanced TV? Industry predictions indicate addressable TV advertising will continue to build momentum this year as advertisers look to effectively reach desired audiences across channels. Even though all the signs are positive, not everyone is on board – or more simply put – aware of what’s possible.

There’s a host of advertisers from traditional linear TV to direct mailers to even some digital natives, that are still reluctant to begin using advanced TV as a viable vehicle for precision audience targeting. To deliver on KPIs in today’s economic climate, marketers need to be assured their campaigns will achieve a robust level of targeting at scale while balancing efficiency.

TV Targeting Based on How Audiences Consume

For agencies and brands developing their TV targeting strategy, we suggest taking a step back from your professional role and considering how you, your friends and family members actually consume TV and related ads today. You have everything from movies lovers, Netflix loyalists, Sports diehards, to constant switchers of services looking for deals and of course those of us who have more subscriptions to streaming services than they can keep track of and a cable package to boot. You’d never hear anyone say I’m an Adult 25-54 watcher of early fringe and primetime. It begs the question, why are some advertisers still buying television this way?

The antiquated ways of traditional television targeting have quickly evolved beyond targeting simply by daypart, demographic, and contextual program adjacency to a new arena rooted in people-based audiences backed by a host of real- world data points. Meaning TV advertisers can activate audiences that capture how consumers spend their time, money and consume television.

This is possible through data science that factors in billions of purchase transactions, along with demographic elements and lifestyle data. The magic happens at the ecommerce level, capturing content and services consumers are actually paying for or subscribing to. This means being able to identify subsets of audiences that are loyalists to specific streaming services or multiple services to switchers that have shifted payment away from one service to a new one.

Alliant TV Subscriber Audience Examples

• Netflix Subscriber Propensity
• DIRECTV Subscriber Propensity
• Paramount Loyalists
• Streaming Switchers from Hulu
• Multi-Streaming Services Subscribers

Another advancement is identification of audiences based on viewership habits using known deterministic, permissioned data sourced from TV manufacturers and modeling. This approach allows for targeting of audiences that view specific genres or sub-genre such as Documentaries, or more specifically Sports Documentaries. Additionally, targeting audiences that are active fans of specific movies or shows and what type of smart TVs by manufacturer they own is now possible.

Alliant TV Viewership Audience Examples

• Documentary Viewers
• Comedy Romance Viewer Propensity
• Yellowstone Viewers
• Succession Viewers
• Sony TV Owner Propensity

Rethinking Your Target Personas

Traditional demographic factors like age, income and life stage are still crucial for establishing a targeting baseline. However, with the adoption of streaming content across devices and the growing popularity of hit shows with cult-like followings, it’s hard to argue that television hasn’t become an integral part of who we are. This should be factored into how marketers develop targeting strategies and personas.

What consumers are willing to spend money on in the TV space offers new indicators from a behavioral and interest standpoint that can easily be layered into different types of target personas. Let’s explore how to do so with a few persona examples.

Target Persona - Kayla

Target Persona  - Jeremy

This approach allows marketers to build upon demographic targeting factors by adding additional layers of real-world television behavior into their audience personas. And it’s not just adding on for the sake of adding on, but rather actual ATV on-demand audience segments that are available for activation today. The trick will be to strike a balance between precision ATV targeting while also achieving scale as buyers launch and optimize campaigns.

You Can’t Afford to Wait

The evolving nature of advanced TV demands a departure from conventional mindsets. While each brand needs to decide whether or not advanced TV is right for their unique multi-channel approach, it is reassuring to know audience targeting continues to ascend. Brands looking to enter the advanced TV space or double down on their planned efforts will do so with more access to high-quality data and dynamic on-demand audiences than ever before.

Those who are proactive in understanding and capitalizing on next level audience data are poised to deliver better advertising experiences that will meet the demands of today’s modern consumer. Seeing relevant ads on TV is the expectation, so why shouldn’t brands evolve their strategy to make this a reality.

Explore Alliant advanced TV audience solutions available across channels now through leading buying platforms.