3 Things You Must Know Before Investing in CTV Advertising

Connected TV viewership continues to grow, as does the number of subscription-based and ad-supported streaming services available to consumers. However, Connected TV (CTV) ad spending is still considerably less than that of linear TV. But let’s take a step back to better understand the full CTV advertising landscape.  

The State of Connected TV by the Numbers 

As of February 2022, Nielsen found that the average weekly time spent streaming video content hit 169.4 billion minutes, up 18% since 2021 – on top of the growth streaming had already experienced since spiking in 2020. By the end of 2021, CTV ad spend had also increased – 57% year-over-year, reaching $15.2 billion – and is projected to grow an additional 39% in 2022 to $21.2B, according to the IAB’s “2021 Video Ad Spend and 2022 Outlook” report.  

While the streaming wars remain tenuous, with changes in format – both Netflix and Disney+ are planning to launch ad-supported tiers, and subscription churn leaving subscription counts in flux, many advertisers are moving full stream ahead with investment in the channel.  

This shift in ad spend and viewership will continue to increase as the linear and digital TV ecosystems converge. In fact, eMarketer predicts that US linear TV ad spending (including addressable, programmatic, and upfront investments) will grow to $68.35 billion in 2022 but will then decline over the coming years. Ultimately, CTV’s appeal of growing viewership and improved measurement is too strong for advertisers to ignore.   

To help you determine how to incorporate this channel into your media mix, here are three things you must know before investing in CTV advertising.  

1. CTV offers advertisers a huge opportunity to reach consumers with advanced targeting 

Reach people where they are watching with a more granular approach to audience targeting. Fragmentation remains a pain point for many advertisers, so as consumers continue to spread their attention across an ever-growing number of screens, devices, and platforms, it’s time for advertisers to follow where the eyeballs lead. 

With a wide variety of data and audience targeting solutions, advertisers are faced with choice overload. Fortunately, Cadent Aperture Audience Data Marketplace seeks to minimize friction and enable advertisers to activate audience segments from their preferred third-party data providers.  

Learn more about our data partners. 

2. Ad fraud is cause for concern among CTV advertisers, but the risk can be mitigated 

U.S. advertisers are expected to lose $23 billion to fraud this year, based on forecasts from Juniper Research. And like all digital media, fraud exists in CTV. According to DoubleVerify, the number of fraud schemes spiked by over 70% year-over-year from 2020 to 2021.  

But just how prevalent is ad fraud on CTV? GroupM and iSpot.TV determined that there will be $1 billion in CTV ad waste this year. While these numbers are not exact, that amounts to roughly 4.3% of all ad fraud. Unfortunately, as CTV viewership grows, the advertising industry will need to be more vigilant in combatting ad fraud. 

As an advertiser, it is important to understand if and how your CTV media has been evaluated by key verification, viewability, attention, and brand safety markers – not all CTV or platforms are created equally. Cadent integrates with leading third-party verification and viewability providers to help you effectively combat issues like fraud.  

3. Measurement for CTV provides advertisers with digital-level insights  

Measurement is often seen as the defining characteristic that sets CTV apart from other TV advertising channels. Yet over the course of the past year, debates around “multiple currencies” have dominated the industry dialogue as agencies and advertisers raise their concerns regarding industry standards and the challenges of interoperability. 

At Cadent, we not only minimize the impact of fraud from a delivery and viewability standpoint, but we take it a step further by tying CTV performance to real business outcomes. Through Aperture Platform, Cadent enables measurement from the leading third-party measurement providers to best support our customers.  

Today’s marketers also need solutions that allow you to match planning, delivery, and optimization to results on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Cadent Aperture Viewer Graph was created with this challenge in mind. Advertisers do not have a single need and measurement in a “black box” is as inefficient as no measurement at all. Through Aperture, Cadent seeks to foster a more open, effective TV advertising ecosystem.  

Interested in learning more about CTV advertising through Aperture Platform?