Full Stream Ahead: How B2B Can Leverage CTV Advertising
For far too long, brand awareness remained solely a B2C-play as various consumer brands fought to become synonymous with their solutions (see: Band-Aid and Chapstick). But in recent years, B2B marketers have realized the power of brand awareness — it’s the top objective for marketers in 2023.
As a result, B2B brands are turning to non-traditional B2B advertising mediums — such as out-of-home — to generate prospect interest. While certain outlets were notoriously hard to track and measure, the rise of streaming services made one uncommon medium highly accessible: Television. And so began the rise of Connected TV (CTV) advertising in B2B.
CTV advertisements are billboards with a digital backbone — they allow companies to target prospects on a 1:1 level while also generating tactical insights that are easily tied back to specific ads. The channel offers B2B marketers the best of both worlds: It provides the brand awareness they need while supplying the efficient targeting, measurement and optimization of a performance channel. And with the right advertising partner, CTV can provide organizations with more accountability and better insights into their ad spend — but we’ll get into that later.
With B2B marketers increasing their 2023 advertising budgets by nearly 10%, this iPaper will highlight the power and benefits of CTV advertising and why it’s a worthwhile inclusion for any brand looking to raise awareness without sacrificing measurable performance. Specifically, we’ll discuss:
The steps needed to implement CTV advertising and an in-depth look at the role it plays in marketers’ overall brand awareness and performance strategies.
How CTV advertising is a key function to building audiences.
How to create palatable CTV advertisements that don’t seem overtly “sales-y,” as no one wants a hard sales pitch while binge-watching their favorite show.
How CTV enables marketers to better analyze their advertising campaigns to ensure they’re maximizing ad spend and targeting the right audience.
Real-world examples and case studies of how successful B2B marketers are leveraging CTV to generate measureable results.
Why Marketers Need CTV
B2B marketers have gotten comfortable — perhaps too comfortable — with traditional channels. While practitioners are adept at sending emails and posting on social media to drive engagement, CTV is still flying below the radar for most B2B marketers. Despite 83% of marketers saying that leveraging content for brand awareness is their top goal, they’re typically not utilizing the most effective channel.
83%
For Biz2Credit, implementing CTV was essential to capturing audience attention and driving prospects deeper down the funnel for conversions. To increase the number of financing applications on its website, Biz2Credit implemented a CTV performance marketing platform to reach its buyers on the big screen. The company’s efforts started with a prospecting campaign, which relied on Oracle Data Cloud audiences — which was integrated with Biz2Credit’s CTV ad partner — and its existing CRM data. Through a combination of internal and external datasets, the company surpassed its cost-per-acquisition (CPA) goal by 70%.
As with any marketing channel, developing a CTV plan requires B2B marketers to first explore what they’re trying to accomplish. Are they looking for an innovative way to reach new prospects? Do they want to move current prospects through the sales funnel? Or do they envision CTV as a tool for every stage of the buyers’ journey?
Sure, they have a wide reach, but billboards can’t generate the granular, actionable insights B2B practitioners are used to. Instead, savvy marketers are turning to CTV for brand building: In fact, CTV is expected to be the fastest-growing channel for all marketers, with projected sales up more than 14%. This is because CTV provides B2B marketers with the level of performance marketing that they're accustomed to while also being highly targeted
and measurable.
B2B marketers are gravitating toward video, with 90% saying video has helped them generate leads and 87% reporting that video has helped them increase sales.
Reaching The Right Audience Through Targeting Capabilities
90%
87%
But committing to video is just the beginning: Marketers then must be thoughtful in their approach and mindful of producing measurable results. When investing in advertising, practitioners need to be confident that their messages will reach the right prospects — those who are in-market and/or have purchasing power.
There’s a pre-conceived notion that B2B advertising is only effective within the confines of an office building, which traditionally eliminated outside mediums such as television advertising. However, that’s no longer the case: A Performance TV platform, which is a CTV ad solution tailor-made for performance marketing, helps streamline the targeting and measurement capabilities for businesses.
As marketers focus on diversifying their performance channel portfolio, they’re embracing out-of-home (OOH) advertising solutions to reach their target audience — but using billboards alone don’t cut it in B2B.
Through geo-specific targeting and network enhancements — and adjusting the parameters to exclude previous site visitors from the past 12 months — the campaign was served across major high-quality CTV apps, such as NBC Sports. Through its efforts, the company drove 2X return on advertising spend (ROAS), while reaching more than 932,000 viewers. Those viewers then generated more than 9,000 site visits and 960,000 page views.
CTV audience targeting achieves a level of sophistication that reaches B2B’s target audience. For example, a subscription language-education software wanted to reach prospects that were showing interest in learning a new language — a relatively niche group. The platform turned to a Performance TV platform to help target individuals that purchased similar products in the past 180 days.
As with all marketing channels, B2B marketers must continuously monitor progress. But there isn’t a click when it comes to CTV advertising, meaning advertisers can’t see who visited their website. To properly account for the customer journey and ultimately measure their campaign’s impact, marketers need a way to track that cross-device activity.
Practitioners must consider cross-device attribution when choosing a CTV partner, as nearly all (87%) TV watchers use multiple devices to interact with a brand, often at the same time. Though cross-device attribution sounds like a complicated, arduous process,
it’s relatively simple to generate insights into CTV advertising.
Even Without A Click, CTV Is Highly Measurable
87%
Let’s say a prospect watched a brand advertisement, and within a specific window of time, visited the company’s website: The right CTV ad solution will be able to accurately track the visitor’s IP address, device ID and other relevant signals, as well as any other associated devices to determine that the visit happened in the same household.
Additionally, the right technology provider will
also be able to check whether the viewer engaged with any other media source that ultimately prompted their visit. If they didn’t, and the visit happened directly or organically after watching an ad, then it’s safe to connect the touch back to the CTV advertisement.
One of the challenges surrounding CTV centers around the creative: According to Ad Age Studio 30 study, more than 65% of advertisers struggled with creating enough TV advertisements to keep messaging fresh and creative. According to Jeremy Bunya, Product Marketing Manager at video creation and insights platform QuickFrame, the two main areas marketers should focus on are messaging and format. In terms of messaging,
Bunya suggested:
Ensuring Highly Engaging Content
Limiting the buzzwords and learning the customers’ terminology so it feels like the advertisement is speaking directly to them.
Stirring up the emotions of B2B buyers, which are generally utility, need or perceived value.
Cycling through multiple stories that address different pain points with other solutions to build a better picture of what the business offers.
Crafting a story with the audiences’ pain points in mind — “Cast them as the main character, and have your product, service or solution as the tool to overcome those challenges."
On the formatting side, Bunya continued that there are three mediums that practitioners should focus on:
Explainers
Explainers, which are “digestible videos that creatively distill information about
your brand or solution,” Bunya described,
adding that they’re best suited for brands without tangible products, such as apps.
Testimonials
Testimonials, which authentically show the confidence users have in the product by putting the audience in the driver’s seat to tell their stories.
Product demonstrations
Product demonstrations, which should show off what they’re selling by presenting it in use.
Bunya shared a recent MNTN advertisement that featured the brand’s Chief Creative Officer, Ryan Reynolds, and Steve-O, of Jackass fame. Steve-O ate a Carolina Reaper pepper — the hottest in the world — and then navigated MNTN’s self-serve platform with his mouth ablaze and eyes watering. Despite his suffering, Steve-O was able to navigate the platform successfully, demonstrating its simplicity.
While traditional digital advertising efforts are effective at engaging B2B audiences, the party gets too
crowded when everyone uses the same channel.
Instead, B2B marketers need innovative brand awareness and performance plays to differentiate themselves from the competition.
As marketing budgets increase across the board,
more practitioners are turning to CTV to engage audiences in a more personal, relatable way.
By connecting directly with prospects via
television screens, marketers can curate highly
targeted audiences and craft engaging videos
that encourage viewers to take action. With the
right CTV partner by their side, B2B marketers can
enter a new era of advertising.
Conclusion
