As well as extending the reach of your campaign, there are many ways that advanced TV enhances the effectiveness of media plans. Here we will focus on three main functions: geo-targeting, customised audiences, and data opportunities.
Geo-targeting
One of the most used targeting capabilities is geography-based addressability, which is available through both broadcaster VOD and AdSmart from Sky. It works for businesses of all sizes and has made TV more attractive to more brands – many of whom would never have considered TV before.
- Smaller businesses with highly specific footprints can specifically target their catchment area based on local postcodes.
- Larger business can take advantage of this functionality to upweight campaigns in areas where they have a high number of stores, or to those postcodes that are within a certain distance from their stores.
- Sometimes advertisers run offers in certain areas but not others, so this kind of targeting ensures that customers who can’t take up the offer don’t see the ad.
- It is also possible to run slightly different versions of creative based on the location of the viewer watching the ad.
Customised target audiences
All the broadcasters offer similar buying audiences in on demand to those available through linear TV, such as Adults 16-34, house people with children, and ABC1 adults. But, with advanced TV there are a huge array of even more targeted, customisable audiences that advertisers can select.
- Customised audiences are created by combining the broadcasters’ first party registration or customer data sets with other data sources that they have access to like viewing behaviours and preferred genres.
- As well as targeting interest-based groups this also extends to targeting people based on their income, or net worth, or their specific life stage and household size.
Customer data matching
All the broadcasters offer a means for advertisers to combine their own customer data sets with the broadcasters’ own first-party data.
This involves a 3rd party company that can take both datasets and find the individuals that match using data such as email address in a completely secure manner that is compliant with general data protection regulation (GDPR).
There are a range of opportunities that this kind of data match can provide, for example:
- You can target existing customers with specific promotions or target non-customers only to ensure you’re just speaking to potential new customers.
- If your product has an annual renewal date, you can upweight activity at the time a customer is coming to the point of renewal and remind them of the benefits of your service.
- You can use your own customer relationship management database to target customers who look like they might churn or might benefit from another product / service you offer.
- You could target different customers with different creative executions based on what you believe is most likely to trigger a response.
