How OTT Can Drive Results for Your Business

Remember the days of yore when we waited impatiently for our favorite TV shows to air one night a week? If there was a chance we were going to miss the latest episode, we would record it on a VHS tape. We would come home and hope the recording didn’t glitch. Those were the days.

Convenient access to television is at our fingertips now. We binge-watch. We Netflix and chill. We don’t have to record. We stream.

From Succession to Only Murders in the Building, some of the best television is found on streaming services. Hulu, Max (formerly HBO Max), Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, and more are household staples. With so many people streaming television, eyes are being diverted away from traditional cable.

This has great implications for businesses like yours. Below we break down what OTT advertising can do for businesses in New Orleans and across the Gulf South. We’ll answer the following questions:

• What is OTT?
• What is OTT advertising?
• What are the benefits of OTT?
• How is OTT advertising bought?
• What are the top OTT platforms?
• What are some OTT best practices?
• What are some trends in OTT advertising?

With this guide, you’ll have the confidence to get started on OTT advertising.

What is OTT?

OTT stands for “over-the-top.” It is the streaming of video content “over” the Internet, bypassing traditional broadcasts. OTT platforms include streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and others. Viewing is typically on-demand, meaning that anyone can access movies and TV shows on their own time.

OTT is often used interchangeably with CTV or “connected TV.” Connected TV is a device, such as a smart TV, that allows people to access OTT content. These devices come with apps that users can use with their Internet connection, like Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max, and more.

What is OTT advertising?

Simply put, OTT advertising is the delivery of ads through OTT platforms. It allows brands to reach their target audience as they are streaming content on their connected TV.

What are the benefits of OTT advertising?

Rising Popularity as Preferred TV

Smart TVs are a staple in American households. According to Statista, 92% of U.S. households were reachable via connected TV in 2022. This vast reach offers incredible opportunity for businesses to reach their ideal customers.

Consumers are also spending significant free time with CTV. Forbes Home found the average time spent streaming video is 3.1 hours per day. Seems like we’re all cozying up on the couch to stream the latest Marvel movie.

You may be thinking, “But what about cable?” In 2022, Nielsen reported that streaming officially topped cable in viewing trends. Streaming captured a 34.8% share of TV viewing in 2022, which was an increase from the 22.6% share seen in 2021. Cable had a 34.4% share of viewing in 2022, which was an 8.9% decline from 2021.

Remember, traditional broadcast TV can still be part of your strategy if that’s where your audience is watching!

Cost-Effective Way to Precisely Target

Think about your ideal customer. Their location, demographics, interests, and behaviors. OTT takes targeting a step beyond traditional TV, allowing you to reach this ideal customer profile.

Because it is delivered via the Internet, OTT advertising leverages data. Platforms gather this data from their users, allowing advertisers to use it to reach an exact audience. Through our OTT partner Strategus, you can leverage some of the targeting below.

• Geotargeting
• Behavioral and interest targeting from 3^rd-party partners
• Website visitor retargeting
• Lookalikes of your top customers
• Retargeting of those who have recently visited your location
• TV viewing habits
• Current customer list
• Amazon shopping insights

This helps to reduce waste often seen in traditional TV advertising. You can better guarantee the ads will be relevant to your audience, increasing the chances of them buying from you. This means it will cost less to reach—and convert—your target audience.

Highly Engaged, Attentive Viewers

The OTT audience is an attentive one. When they sit down to “binge” their current TV obsession, they aren’t passive viewers. They are highly engaged.

Even if they have an ad-supported tier, they aren’t inundated with as many commercials as one would receive via traditional TV. They also can’t skip or fast-forward through ads. This means an engaged audience has a greater chance of noticing your ad, which drives higher brand awareness and recall.

You can also take this engagement to the next level. OTT platforms offer interactive ad formats, allowing brands to add clickable features.

Meaningful Metrics and Insights

With traditional TV, measurement is an educated guess at best. With OTT, you can receive more robust metrics in reporting. OTT performance reporting offers the following metrics. 

• Impressions
• Reach
• Frequency
• Video completion rates
• Website visits
• Cost per thousand impressions
• Cost per attribution

With these metrics in hand, your team can extract better performance insights. Our strategists at MLCworks can also give you insight into which audience is most engaged with your ad.

How is OTT advertising bought?

When you’re ready to get started with OTT advertising, an agency like MLCworks can take the heavy lifting off of your shoulders. We work directly with an OTT advertising partner to buy, manage, and optimize our clients’ campaigns. Below is the typical process for doing so.

Pick the right OTT advertising partner.

Placement of OTT ads is most often done through an ad partner who has access to inventory across multiple OTT publishers. You can also do it directly through an OTT publisher, like Hulu. We’ll choose the best option based on your audience and budget and negotiate on your behalf.

Define audience targeting.

We’ll provide the OTT ad partner or publisher with your target audience. This includes your audience location, demographics, interests, behaviors, etc. The partner will then leverage data segments to precisely target this audience profile.

Serve ads by platform based on inventory.

Once the ad platform or publisher has your budget and audience, they’ll identify relevant inventory for your ad. The inventory will be audience centric. This means that your ads will be served to the individual users that fit your audience profile. The ads will not be served based on the program they are watching, like in traditional TV buying.

Continuously deliver ads by impression availability.

As long as budget and audience availability allow, your ads will continue to be served during the campaign period. It is beneficial for your ad to be seen multiple times by each individual user. This frequency increases awareness and recall—and boosts potential actions taken by the audience.

Receive performance metrics and insights.

Ad platforms will provide metrics and insights on how the campaign is performing. You’ll receive an overview of impressions, engagement, and more, helping you understand the campaign’s success. This allows for optimizations to drive better results.

Optimize the campaign to drive greater results.

Performance data is a great feedback loop for OTT campaigns. Based on initial results, you can adjust targeting, creative, and/or budgets to increase effectiveness.

What are the top OTT platforms?

If you’ve ever heard of the “streaming wars,” you know there are a variety of OTT platforms out there. Each contain a selection of movies, TV shows, documentaries, and original content. The original content alone is often what sends people flocking to these platforms.

Each OTT platform also has their own method of providing ad-supported content. We’ll go through the top platforms as well as their subscriber count, top content, and ad offerings below.

Netflix

Subscriber Count: 232 million

Top Content: Stranger Things, The Crown, Bridgerton, Orange is the New Black, Emily in Paris

Ads? Yes

Prime Video

Subscriber Count: 200 million

Top Content: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Fleabag, The Summer I Turned Pretty

Ads? Not yet

Disney+

Subscriber Count: 157.8 million

Top Content: The Mandelorian, Star Wars, and basically anything made by Disney, Pixar, and Marvel

Ads? Yes

HBO Max (Now Known as Max)

Subscriber Count: 96.1 million

Top Content: House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, Succession, And Just Like That, Euphoria

Ads? Yes

Paramount+

Subscriber Count: 77 million

Top Content: Star Trek: Picard, Yellowjackets

Ads? Yes

Hulu

Subscriber Count: 48.2 million

Top Content: The Bear, Only Murders in the Building, Abbott Elementary

Ads? Yes

Apple TV

Subscriber Count: 25 million

Top Content: Ted Lasso, Shrinking, The Morning Show

Ads? Not yet

Other streaming services include Peacock, ESPN+, YouTube TV, Starz, Sling TV, Roku, Vudu, and Fubo.

What are some OTT best practices?

Every advertising channel is unique. With OTT advertising, you must get out of the traditional TV mindset. Running an effective campaign via OTT requires advertisers to be mindful of the following best practices.

Leverage Data Targeting

This is something traditional TV cannot offer. When launching an OTT campaign, it is vitally important to leverage data for the success of the campaign. OTT advertising platforms can help you reach a niche audience that displays the interests and behaviors of your ideal customer.

Segment Targeting and Messaging

OTT offers great flexibility. If you have more than one audience, you can target each audience segment separately. Your advertising platform will be able to deliver custom messages to each of them, allowing for greater relevancy and return on investment.

Create Short but Impactful Ads

When people are streaming their favorite shows, they impatiently wait through ad breaks. Their attention spans may also be limited. By delivering short yet impactful ads, you can ensure that you convey your message quickly yet memorably.

Produce with Quality

Streaming services offer high-quality content. Many of the original TV series and movies provided by streaming services are award worthy. Ensure that your ads align with the premium content your audience is watching.

Provide a Clear Call-to-Action

This is important in any piece of advertising delivered on any marketing channel. A call to action allows people to understand what to do next after seeing your ad. You can direct them to your website—or a page on your website—and track the number of visits you receive from your OTT ad.

Brand with Consistency

As an awareness channel, OTT can do wonders for your brand. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to drive recall among your audience. When running OTT, you want your brand to appear consistent with how you appear in other channels. This will allow for greater frequency of your brand’s message.

Continuously Optimize

OTT advertising platforms offer a wealth of metrics and insights on the performance of your campaigns. It’s important to use this information to refine targeting, ensuring you are hitting the most relevant and engaged audience. You can also use this information to evolve messaging, testing what works best in driving action.

At MLCworks, we love nerding about the data feedback we receive from campaigns. We’ll take it a step further and provide you with recommendations on how to refine and evolve your campaign for maximum ROI. Because things always change in our industry, we’ll keep you up to date on emerging best practices in OTT advertising.

What are some trends in OTT advertising?

As a growing channel, OTT will be one to watch over the next few years. As viewers and advertisers flock to streaming, we’ll see more creativity in ad messaging, targeting, and measurement. Below are the top trends we’ve identified.

Hyperlocal Targeting 

Our partner, Strategus, has identified that hyperlocal targeting is an emerging trend in OTT advertising. What does this mean for you? Businesses can target specific messages to their audiences in different cities and zip codes along the Gulf Coast.

Let’s say your headquarters is in New Orleans, but you would like to expand to Mobile and Gulfport. Through research, you may find that your potential customers in Mobile have a much different motivator for purchasing your product than those in Gulfport or New Orleans.

With OTT, you can deliver very specific messages to your customers in each region. Localizing your content, especially down to the zip code, can drive relevancy among each audience. This offers even greater personalization than that of traditional TV.

AI in OTT Advertising

Let’s face it, artificial intelligence will have an impact on everything. The technology has been around for a while, allowing advertisers to optimize campaigns efficiently. However, AI is only becoming, well, more intelligent.

Imagine a world in which television ads are quickly personalized for each viewer. An AI model could theoretically create content based on audience data, as our partner Strategus has recently prophesized.

This isn’t necessarily new in the world of advertising. Platforms like Google and Meta already allow advertisers to run dynamic content. Campaigns can iterate ad variations based on what might best prompt individual users to click. With AI in OTT advertising, television ads may soon be personalized in this way.

Live Sports

Cord cutting brings up a lot of questions, including how to target sports fans. By giving up cable, one would expect a household to also be giving up a network like ESPN. However, ESPN’s cable network is still seeing higher viewership than its streaming counterpart ESPN+.

Live sporting events often complicate matters further by fragmenting across various networks and digital providers. They’re all also exploring new digital features to sweeten the sports streaming experience – and capture loyal subscribers.

There’s no question that advertising during sporting events allows brands to reach an engaged, enthusiastic audience. However, we’ll be watching how the shift to streaming affects live events and sports advertising.

Drive Success with Streaming

OTT provides businesses like yours the opportunity to precisely target and drive action among engaged audiences. We’ve helped businesses in the New Orleans area get started with OTT – and we’re excited to help you too.

Stay ahead of our ever-changing world by working with MLCworks. You’ll have a team keeping you up to date on the latest technology and audience behaviors. Contact us today to get started.