As more U.S. consumers buy smart TVs and other connected TV (CTV) devices, advertisers gain access to another media channel for circulating ads and engaging with previously unengaged audiences.

There will be an estimated 204.1 million CTV users in the U.S. in 2022, up from 190 million in 2019. For advertisers, this presents an opportunity to expand your reach to more audiences and increase ad revenue.

While marketers may understand the opportunity CTV ads present, there remains uncertainty surrounding how to best leverage data to strengthen CTV campaigns, target the right audiences, and prove advertising attribution.

Connected TV advertising can be an effective way to engage at-home audiences, especially those not exposed to traditional linear TV ads; however, it is not without its challenges:

• Ad-Free Streaming Services- Some popular streaming platforms commonly used on CTV devices, such as Hulu and Netflix, offer ad-free experiences to their subscribers, restricting the platforms advertisers can use to market to audiences.
• Improper Internet Setup- OT Market Research Park Associates reports that 77% of U.S. households with smart TVs are connected to the Internet as of January 2020, an increase from 62% in 2014. CTV advertisers will have no way to market to those not connecting their TVs to the Internet, adding an additional engagement barrier.
• Lack of Tracking Standardization- Consumers have several CTV devices and streaming options to choose from, each with their own operating system, profiles, and complexities, making it difficult for advertisers to track movement across multiple platforms, like Internet cookies can.
• Uncertain Advertising Attribution- Since CTV devices lack standardized tracking processes, it can be difficult to gain actionable insight into how consumers are interacting with ads and prove their contribution to product sales.

While some of the main challenges for connected TV advertising are out of a marketer’s control, location intelligence can help eliminate guesswork related to tracking the effectiveness of ads on consumers and attributing increased sales to marketing campaigns.

Here are the top 3 ways advertisers can leverage location data to strengthen CTV ad campaigns:

Location intelligence can provide CTV advertisers with powerful information on consumer preferences. This insight is based on where people go in the real world, which can guide marketing strategies and help advertisers identify population groups most likely to engage with their ad or brand.

Location intelligence can be used to build out audience personas. These personas can be combined into population segments based on interest. For example, people who travel to gyms are likely more inclined to purchase healthy food products or workout-related equipment. Advertisers can examine these prepackaged audience segments to determine which consumers share interests that align with the products or services they are marketing so they can develop honed-in ad campaigns to best target those consumers.

In addition to identifying consumers likely to interact with your ads, location data can also improve the success of your CTV ad campaigns. By better understanding audiences most likely to interact with your brands, you can market to the right consumers. Advertising to the right audience helps you increase the ROI of your advertising campaigns, improve product sales, and eliminate wasted ad spend on too broad or uninterested buyer populations.

Advertisers who precisely segment potential audiences can develop more personalized and relevant messaging for those consumers to best engage them and encourage them to interact with CTV ads, increasing ad interaction and sales.

Advertisers may struggle to link offline purchases to digital marketing campaigns, but location data can help take the guesswork out of advertising attribution. By extracting mobile advertising IDs as people visit a store, location intelligence companies can cross-reference those ad IDs to the ad IDs of people viewing a CTV ad to determine if the campaign encouraged an in-store visit or purchase. With this information, marketers can compare foot traffic data of recorded store visits of those who were and weren’t exposed to the ad to provide a clear representation of an ad’s effect on viewer buying habits.

CTV advertisers leveraging high-quality location data in their campaigns can gain actionable insights into which target buyer populations should be targeted and how to connect ad viewership to consumer purchases. 

Want to learn more? Read our datasheet detailing how else you can use location intelligence to increase the success of your ad campaigns.