The State of Connected TV in August 2023 

4 Min Read

As more marketing teams lean more into the power of Connected TV (CTV), smart marketers need to keep up with its rapid evolution. Today, marketing teams are increasingly adding CTV to their marketing mixes, anticipating future challenges, and optimizing their strategies for the months ahead. 

Recently, Ali Haeri, Senior Vice President of Marketing at MNTN, joined Digiday and Modern Retail to discuss the current state of CTV. Let’s take a look at some of the conversation: 

How Is the CTV Industry Evolving? 

As the CTV industry moves forward, advertisers continue to look for ways to improve their platform experiences. According to a recent survey from both Digiday and MNTN, 2023 research reveals that brands are shifting budgets to CTV in new ways, and they’re making strides to solve the challenges of inventory fragmentation. 

Where Do CTV Budgets Come From?

As more brands continue increasing their spending on CTV, many industry folks wonder about their budget strategies. Are they pulling money from another area of their marketing budget, or are they creating new budgets altogether? 

And the answer is: yes. Based on the Digiday and MNTN survey, about 25% of brand and agency respondents now have a dedicated CTV budget, which will go up to about 30% in 2024. Other brands, however, are moving money from different areas of their marketing mix—including social media, paid search, and email marketing—to make room for CTV. 

CTV ad spend is anticipated to surpass $25 million USD in 2023, with no signs of slowing down, so this conversation certainly isn’t going anywhere. When it comes to budgeting, remember that no two brands are the same, so you’ll need to test, refine, and optimize your own CTV budgeting strategy to get the most of your marketing mix. 

Industry Challenges

As the CTV industry evolves, the hurdles the industry will face evolve, too. This means trailblazing advertisers will often be the first to encounter new challenges—but marketing teams across the globe are used to (and usually ready for) a quick redirection. 

Right now, data privacy is one of the biggest marketing challenges that will demand ongoing flexibility. While these rules and regulations were beyond overdue, the changes impact several different marketing strategies, including certain types of audience targeting. 

Another common challenge from advertisers is brand safety, i.e. the protection of your brand’s reputation. If your ad plays alongside irrelevant or offensive content, viewers are likely to tune out at best—or develop a negative perception of your brand at worst. 

To relieve brand safety concerns, it’s essential to work with a CTV partner who provides exclusively brand-safe options for your ads. MNTN offers Connected TV inventory on thousands of high-quality, brand-safe networks and apps. This allows you to advertise to your hand-selected audience when they’re watching content from networks like the Food Network, CNN, and ESPN. 

CTV Optimization 

After creating new budgets or shifting funds from other areas, marketing teams want to get the most out of their CTV campaigns. In order to make this happen, advertisers are optimizing their CTV strategies to make sure they’re meeting their goals. 

Thankfully, previous Performance TV advertisers have already shared optimization best practices. For example, brands looking to optimize for performance should consider an initial strategy for both prospecting and retargeting campaigns. 

Advertisers also have the ability to optimize their CTV creative, which increases its effectiveness. Whether it’s evergreen creative or a quick, seasonal ad, CTV creative optimizations can help improve the efficacy of each campaign. For example, purpose-built creative geared toward a specific audience or objective can help reach that goal faster. 

The Future of Connected TV

From creative to analytics to optimization (and beyond), advertisers have a lot to consider as they refine their CTV campaigns for the upcoming months and years ahead. Watch the full webinar here to learn more about the state of CTV in 2023.