It’s essential to begin this article with the caveat that Strategus does not recommend using OTT (over-the-top) advertising as your only sales funnel generation strategy. OTT advertising should be one component of a broader, holistic marketing strategy that includes organic, paid search/display, paid social media, and whatever other strategy fits your target market.
According to folklore, the silver bullet was the only weapon that could kill a werewolf. As we aren’t in the business of hunting werewolves, we don’t need to worry so much about finding the One Thing that will solve all of our problems – mostly because there isn’t One Thing when it comes to building an eCommerce sales funnel. OTT is not the silver bullet for eCommerce, but a cog within a much larger wheel that can help you achieve the results that you are after.
Traditionally, one of the most desirable OTT channels, the connected TV (CTV), comes with its own limitations around attribution and actionability (clicks). But with the right approach and the right partner, CTV can be light years ahead of traditional broadcast TV capabilities. OTT is on the rise, and we want to help you put your best foot forward in this ever-evolving chess match of OTT advertising, and how to work through those limitations.
Let’s take a look at some stats below that emphasize the importance of tapping into OTT advertising for your eCommerce sales funnel.
AdExchanger notes the following:
66% of households globally use an OTT service
Daily time spent watching OTT is expected to increase by 20% in two years (2017-2019
OTT ratings are up 500%; primetime TV is down 20%
41% of agency buyers plan to shift ad spend from TV to OTT (2017)
To understand how OTT can benefit your marketing strategy as a whole, you first need to know how OTT functions and maximize its value for your specific needs.
Programmatic OTT advertising is the clear winner, especially up against the more traditional methods of video advertising (think broadcast). Why OTT, you ask?
As AdExchanger noted above, OTT is on a dramatic ascent. With more and more consumers cutting ties with their not-so-beloved satellite dishes and cable cords, OTT is front and center, ready to capture an already captivated audience. Unlike traditional advertising, OTT provides precision targeting to connect with the people who matter most.
With the New Normal, media consumption has increased by 60%, and sometimes more depending on the circumstances, according to a Nielsen report. “What’s more, three-fourths of U.S. consumers are broadening their media options with streaming subscriptions and TV-connected devices.”
And the benefits just keep on rolling! This strategy offers the perfect opportunity for skilled partners like Strategus to unravel the mysteries of the inner workings of a consumer’s brain – in real-time. Talk about accessing the secret sauce to a successful eCommerce sales funnel.
Hyper-targeting is the bread-and-butter of OTT advertising. The entire point. Well, conversions are the entire point, and hyper-targeting makes those conversions happen.
This is a critical point to remember, and can often be overlooked when worrying about ROI and other big data that dilute the consumers down to a number. You are trying to reach a person, a lot of persons, on an individual level. Traditional marketing efforts are created for the masses, a shot in the dark, hoping that there are people there in the dark who are actually watching. With OTT advertising, you can utilize hyper-targeting to guarantee that your ads are landing in front of the people who are most likely to want to engage with your brand.
CTV is one of the most desirable of the OTT inventory, CTV being a subset of the latter. Since CTV ads aren’t clickable, you may assume you lose the opportunity for post-view analytics. This might seem like a major drawback to CTV advertising, but with the right tools and the right partner, it’s only a small hurdle that made space for innovation.
When you build an eCommerce sales funnel, you want to make sure that your ads are attributable and optimized for greater conversions. So how do you do that if you can’t directly track clicks (because clicks aren’t possible))? Through a first-of-its-kind marketing solution created by the Strategus Labs team – The Attribution Suite.
A survey of 1000 marketers and agencies across the globe found that “59% of marketers that have not yet implemented an attribution model say that a lack of knowledge is the main obstacle.”
Don’t let this be you. There’s nothing more nightmarish for a marketer than unclear attribution for a campaign (except maybe hunting werewolves). Your job is to see conversions and ROI that shows your campaign spend wasn’t all for naught. To achieve this, it’s important to find an OTT partner who can attribute lead actions to your campaign spend. Unfortunately, not all partners can do this, so due diligence is a necessary part of the process.
CTVs are the most desirable of the OTT inventory. Check out this article to learn why CTV is the premium option. CTVs allow smaller eCommerce businesses access to the largest digital devices in the home with exponentially greater targeting but at a fraction of the cost of tradition or broadcast TV.
While many might immediately lump CTV into the “brand awareness” category because the ads aren’t clickable, these marketers are losing out on an incredible opportunity for measurable conversions. If you’re ready to step out of those old stereotypes about what CTV is and isn’t, then you’ve come to the right place.
And that other place is to your website, a mobile app, or, perhaps, into a physical store. CTV is no longer just a means of introducing your brand to a customer. It’s a crucial piece of the narrative that you can create through a storyline that traverses the connected terrain of multiple devices.
Here at Strategus, we’ve solved the riddle that CTV presents, and we’ve packaged the answer up in a box called Encore Omnichannel. Encore Omnichannel brings trackable engagement to the CTV advertising ecosystem, but through the use of hyper-targeted, actionable ads.
Let’s succinctly recap everything we’ve touched on so far. There are many reasons why OTT/CTV is desirable in the building of an eCommerce sales funnel for businesses of any size. The key is to make sure that the spend is attributable and that you choose a partner who can make your CTV ads actionable with advanced post-view retargeting. If the thought of ineffective campaigns keeps you up late into the night, you can find comfort in the fact that you’ll be getting a solid night of sleep soon with our help. Contact us today! We would love to pioneer this journey with you towards a new way of supplementing your eCommerce sales funnel.