A lot of advertisers are reimagining how they approach TV. But that doesn’t mean we’re all suddenly experts on the latest addressable TV technologies that make data-driven household targeting possible.
In fact, during a recent Adweek event aimed at educating attendees on addressable TV, speakers from Neustar and Dish Media Sales were flooded with questions from the audience—far more than could be answered. That’s why we’re taking the opportunity to explore these questions a bit more in-depth below. We’ve also made the event’s footage available here on demand.
How does addressable TV differ from programmatic? How do they tie into each other?
Addressable TV refers to targeting an ad at a household via a connected device such as a set-top box. Programmatic TV refers to the automation of the ad buying process, where platform data is used to make traditional TV buys against shows and dayparts, or is used to make digital buys via internet-delivered, over-the-top services. Addressable TV and programmatic TV can be used together or apart.
Addressable TV lets us target at the household level. But how do we know which family member is watching the TV? Is it a 35-year-old married woman or 50-year-old man?
In almost all studies done to date, household targeting is not an issue. There are several reasons for this. One, TV is further up the funnel, so it’s in some ways removed from the actual purchase. Two, most demographics exist at the household level (for instance, household income, number of cars). Furthermore, most complementary datasets also exist at the household level. For example, there’s usually only one grocery store loyalty card per brand per home, only one homeowners insurance policy, etc. These are all reasons why targeting at the household level remains powerful.
Doing this requires authoritative, accurate and up-to-date information about what types of people live within a household, plus the behavioral patterns of that household—media consumption, hobbies, etc. This makes it possible to activate through all channels—email, desktop, direct mail, mobile, social and TV—so you can hit these same consumers wherever they shop.
Is addressable TV only available on a national basis, or can it be bought on a DMA level?
With addressable TV, you can target at a DMA level or make your targeting even more precise. There are a lot of options here and it’s important to think about it as you would think about desktop targeting. Do you want to target based on a household and its behavior, on the location of an audience or on a combination of geo-targeting and household targeting? Addressable TV makes all of the above possible.
What verticals are having success using addressable TV?
Companies with higher-value products like automobile manufacturers, airlines or financial services providers tend to see the best ROI with addressable TV. For CPG and other verticals, addressable TV provides the ability to reach specific demographics and audiences instead of buying at a national level.
How does addressable TV’s CPM compare to linear and/or digital video?
Linear TV has a lower upfront CPM because a lot of impressions are being bought that don’t fit the exact target that the client wants. If we calculate the actual realized target CPM (also called effective CPM) of a linear campaign, it’s much higher than that of addressable TV. Addressable TV CPMs are generally comparable to those on digital video.
What should be our budget for an addressable TV test?
In general, we’re seeing average minimum tests of $200,000.
When leveraging CRM data, does Neustar or Dish provide modeling to help us use addressable TV to find new customers that would not be in CRM?
Absolutely. Many clients use Neustar to help them find new customers. Neustar links over 17,000 consumer attributes at a household level to find the households that are most likely to be your best customers and/or are most similar to your existing best customers.
You can use this data to activate your targeting, suppress targeting, get insights about your best and worst performing households, discover similar audiences and scale these audiences up. And once you get it right, you can apply the same methodology across all your advertising channels and reach the same consumers while saving time, money and effort.
If we’re running a cross-media campaign—across, say, addressable TV, mobile and desktop digital—can we measure effectiveness including the impact through exposure to all three channels?
Yes. With a campaign running on addressable TV and different digital channels, Neustar can link, with a high degree of accuracy and scale, ad effectiveness across multiple media channels.
Illustration by Chris Fernandez
