In the next six months, one in five advertisers will allocate over 25% of their total ad spend to OTT, Advertiser Perceptions reports. This comes as no surprise, as Covid-19’s cost-sensitive climate has exacerbated already high rates of cord cutting, making streaming—especially free, ad-based services—more popular.
Every year, 2 million to 4 million American adults quit cable, according to eMarketer. And, by 2022, 10 million more will do so. At Tubi, this tracks; almost half of our viewers (48%) don’t watch linear television. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, it’s even more stark: 57% are streaming-only. To reach these young, diverse millennials, advertisers are upping their streaming buys. But in doing so, they also want more transparency in what has become a digital wild west.
How can you make sure you’re reaching the right audiences and getting the conversions you need? In Tubi’s latest report The Stream, which includes our own household-level data, we’ve identified three key areas to maximize your streaming ROI.
Limit over-frequency
Ad fatigue is real and prevalent in OTT. To maintain a positive user experience, capping frequency is key. According to a recent study Tubi commissioned with Advertiser Perceptions, two out of five marketers said they’d readily increase OTT investment if they had more control over ad frequency.
Last year, Tubi unveiled an Advanced Frequency Management (AFM) technology to address the issue of ad repetition. By transcoding every creative asset to identify duplicates, frequency is capped at the campaign level, regardless of demand source. For one major insurance brand, the reduction in over frequency resulted in a 20% more efficient ROI.
But it’s not just about frequency’s effect on ad experience. Frequency controls also maximize reach. Just as Tubi identified households where over-frequency would have occurred, we were able to identify those who weren’t exposed at all. In the same insurance brand case study, AFM increased daily incremental reach by 97,000 impressions.
Know your platform and its demographics
Incremental reach is what everybody wants. But how do you know you’re actually achieving it instead of wasting your spend on overlap? It comes down to a platform’s viewer insights.
Over the past seven years, Tubi has accumulated deep data on audience composition and behavior. Of our 33 million active monthly users, 80% are unreachable on the top 25 cable TV networks, according to MRI-Simmons. This was evident in a recent campaign with grocery chain Winn-Dixie. Partnering with TVSquared, we found that nearly four out of five households reached on Tubi were incremental—unique, additional audiences not reached through the brand’s linear investments.
What’s more, the majority of Tubi viewers aren’t on other free streaming services like Roku, Peacock or Pluto. MRI-Simmons found that nearly 70% of Tubi viewers can’t be reached on these other advertising-based video-on-demand platforms (AVOD). On the flip side, though, nearly 60% of Tubi users are on Netflix—a dream audience unreachable through video advertising.
These net new viewers skew significantly younger. Nearly half of Tubi viewers are under 35, and on average, they’re 20 years younger than linear TV audiences. For example, this impact was noticeable with Fox’s The Masked Singer. People who watched it on Tubi were significantly younger than their linear counterparts, thereby broadening the show’s fan base among 18-to-34-year-olds. As it turns out, the platform dictates viewership, not just the content itself.
Maximize your ad spend with co-viewing
Covid’s impact on viewing behaviors is pretty intuitive. More people are streaming TV and more of it. Tubi has seen a significant 58% increase in viewership over the last 12 months.
People also are watching more with others: roommates, partners, children. Interestingly, while the increased appetite for streaming consumption spiked during the early months of the pandemic, it never actually went back down. Instead, viewers have settled into the habit of streaming often, and some days, always.
What’s next?
In the next six months, 66% of advertisers will increase their streaming budgets, Advertiser Perceptions reports. Despite the need for clarity in an ever-shifting landscape, advertisers who’ve previously invested in streaming rate it as more effective than both linear and digital video. In a recent study Tubi commissioned with Advertiser Perceptions, streaming beat linear across all metrics surveyed, including quality of ad experience, metrics measurement, demographic differences and total reach.
By capping ad frequency, drilling down on demographics, and leveraging co-viewing, brands can achieve the incremental reach they’re looking for in 2021 and beyond.
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Natalie Bastian is VP of marketing at Tubi, overseeing advertising and consumer marketing strategy, partner marketing, audience research, brand positioning and communications. She leads a team of marketers and creatives who bring to market new content and product launches, thought leadership, strategic sales positioning and communications.
