Welcome to the first episode of AlikeAudience’s AdTech podcast, where we discuss the latest AdTech trends and industry insights in a series of interviews with industry leaders. In this episode, AlikeAudience co-founder Bosco Lam and Director of Business Development Derek Fan sit down with host Jessica Lam to discuss the journey, trend, and future of CTV ad space.
AlikeAudience is an industry leader in the AdTech industry offering high-performing and privacy-compliant audience segments with scale, value, and accuracy for advertisers across the globe.
Tune in below to find out why CTV, connected TV, is becoming an important digital advertising strategy, insights into the current reality and the future of CTV, and how you can combat ad fraud in the CTV ad space.
Here are the resources that we mentioned in the podcast:
Presenting AlikeAudience’s AdTech podcast
Jessica Lam: Welcome to the first episode of AlikeAudience’s AdTech podcast, where we discuss the latest ad tech trends and industry insights in a series of interviews with industry leaders.
Meet your host: Jessica Lam
Jessica Lam: I’m Jessica, the Director of the brand creatives, a boutique agency on brand content for tech companies, and I’m hosting the podcast today.
Meet the experts: Bosco Lam and Derek Fan
Jessica Lam: First, I’d like to introduce Bosco Lam. He is the co-founder of AlikeAudience and addressability working group member of Ivy Tech Lab. And Derek Fan is the director of business development and partnerships at AlikeAudience.
Today’s topic– CTV for Advertisers, Emerging CTV space, campaign effectiveness, and ad frauds
Jessica Lam: Today, we’d like to share their perspectives on CTV strategies and combating ad fraud in the CTV space, an issue that advertisers are concerned about. So, to begin with, let’s start with a key question. Why is CTV an important part of digital advertising strategy today? Let’s begin with Bosco.
The shift from scheduled airtime to on-demand airtime
Bosco Lam: Sure, thank you Jessica. My pleasure to be here today. Well, when we look at CTV, let’s first define how CTV has shifted from linear TV, the most traditional type of broadcasting, to today’s connected TV ecosystem.
Basically, a lot of premium content is being streamed to the apps, either on your Smart TV or through what we call the OTT (over-the-top device) and when we look at the consumption pattern of consumers, it has shifted from scheduled airtime to on-demand and maybe on the go, meaning that you can select your own favorite movies whenever you like and wherever you like.
A whole new ecosystem of TV advertising
Bosco Lam: Such behavior change has caused TV advertising to shift from the mass market to households or even individuals. This means that you can pick the right audiences throughout your marketing funnels.
From the top of the funnel, you have your awareness campaign, which you can target the household, which we’ll get to later. And we have the opportunity to target the mid or even the lower funnel for product comparison. So the outcome is that CTV opens up a huge opportunity for the massive linear TV budget to shift into this whole new ecosystem.
Data on the growth of the CTV space and viewership
Derek Fan: I agree. I think there’s immense growth in this space, especially in the coming years. And just 2020 alone, I read an article that mentioned CTV ads accounted for 40% of all video impressions. And that CTV ad revenue by the end of this year is expected to reach 11 billion. And it’s supposed to reach as high as 19 billion by the end of 2024.
If you’re kind of a statistics and historical data nerd like myself, you would probably appreciate some facts, such as 63% of all time spent on television right now is actually spent on online streaming, and approximately 80 minutes per day is spent on AVOD, which is ad-supported streaming content.
The driver for the trend
Derek Fan: Part of this trend is driven by COVID. COVID has accelerated the shift from linear TV to connected TV.
Lessons from the Super Bowl 2021
Derek Fan: Many of us who have lived in the US may notice that SuperBowl 2021 had the lowest viewership in decades. And I think this speaks volumes to the number of people that are actually cutting cords and shifting from linear television to connected TV. And obviously when consumers make the shift, advertisers will follow.
From AlikeAudience’s point of view, we’re seeing many of our major DSP partners building out infrastructure to support this channel from an inventory from a targeting and measurement standpoint.
The similarity of CTV to the emerging phases of digital marketing
Derek Fan: In many ways, it’s very similar to how digital marketing first emerged. Think about the first online banner that replaced traditional out-of-home billboards. I think what we’re seeing right now is very similar, in that a lot of marketers are starting to see that connected TV is indeed more cost-effective.
Advantages of CTV
Derek Fan: First of all, it’s more efficient to buy. It’s more efficient to measure. There’s more flexibility in adjusting your creative and messaging during the campaign. And then obviously, you have more control over audience reach and frequency too.
AlikeAudience’s CTV strategy
Jessica Lam: It’s interesting to note that COVID has changed many viewing patterns and brought flocks of viewers to the CTV industry. And this presents a goldmine of opportunities for CTV advertisers. So as a key strategist for AlikeAudience brand positioning, I understand that AlikeAudience is passionate about ethical future-proof data solutions for advertisers. So can you talk a little bit more about how AlikeAudience’s CTV strategy aligns with the vision and your mission?
CTV relies on IP addresses–not cookies
Derek Fan: Before I answer that, I think it’s important to note that CTV doesn’t rely on cookies, unlike the typical desktop and mobile campaigns that we’re very used to. Instead, it has long relied on IP addresses as the most common way to build household graphs, and to identify and target audiences.
An interesting trend in the future of IP addresses
Derek Fan: That being said though, there has been lots of speculation lately that IP addresses would eventually face the same outcome as third-party cookies, partly due to the nature of IP addresses which are not always precise. There’s the possibility for the IP address to be reverse engineered to identify the consumer or the household concerned.
So there are definitely some PII and privacy issues facing CTV IP addresses, and it definitely has some challenges for GDPR and CCPA. And I think the general consensus is that it’s going to go away in a couple of years.
Upcoming and thriving alternate cookieless IDs
Derek Fan: During this time, marketers should definitely look for alternatives. Of course, CTV targeting can use the unique device IDs provided by the CTV platform or the streaming service they’re buying from. But bear in mind that you might have a scale problem when you use only those. So this is where a lot of the emerging alternative IDs in the space right now, especially as cookieless is coming, would help fill this gap. For example,
- Unified ID 2.0,
- LiveRamp’s RampID
- Yahoo’s ConnectID
They all rely on hashed emails, allowing the marketer to link different consumer devices together using a single and very persistent currency for a truly omnichannel strategy. But, of course, the prerequisite here is that there needs to be widespread adoption among buyers, sellers, CTB platforms, and ad tech vendors like ourselves.
AlikeAudience is in a very good position right now because we have adopted all the above three. So we’re ready to work with marketers who want to target the CTV space.
AlikeAudience pioneering the new movement
Jessica Lam: It sounds like partnerships are a key factor in advancing your mission and vision. What about you, Bosco?
The importance of transparent partnerships for attribution
Bosco Lam: Derek has mentioned a great point about partnerships. It’s all built on trust and transparency. The fundamental question that advertisers and agencies are being asked today is what’s happening under the hood. How can I attribute? How can I measure? Otherwise, they would not be able to tell how the advertising budget is planned effectively.
This is a key question not only for the CTV space. But even 10 or 20 years ago, when we began with desktop and mobile, we always asked the question of transparency in attribution. You just cannot have players and referees be the same person. You just can’t have that black box that sits under the hood and creates its own homework. So you have to be clear about the role of different solution partners and how they contribute to your campaign effectiveness.
Need for independent attribution partners in the CTV space
Bosco Lam: I think the ecosystem is quite matured for desktop and mobile. But when it comes to connected TVs, we often ask–Who is my third-party independent attribution partner? Who can give me objective feedback? These are the common questions that we see in this ecosystem.
For example, there are certain CTV inventories that tie with smart TV manufacturers who are independent referees or independent measurement partners who would be able to deploy the pixels, track the number of view-throughs, and assess the characteristics of this household.
Leading the way with collaborations
Bosco Lam: For AlikeAudience, the vision here is always to embrace collaboration with media partners and DSPs, to demonstrate the value of our audience data. So we can collect data which comes with user consensus. And then, it is measured by an independent attribution partner. So we’re not grading our homework, but we’re working collaboratively.
Ad Frauds
Jessica Lam: It looks like the future of advertising is definitely in partnerships, identity solutions, and being privacy compliant, but still allowing advertisers to target with accuracy such as the household graph that you mentioned. So what about ad fraud? Is that something that advertisers can prepare for when they think about their CTV strategies?
Understanding ad frauds
Bosco Lam: First, I think it is easy to put an equal sign between effort and effectiveness. My point of view is that ad fraud is one of the subsets of ad effectiveness. You can have a legit ad impression targeting a real person but an irrelevant audience.
I want to clarify first because we need to ask the fundamental question. What is the incentive for ad fraud? Why are the bad players targeting these advertisers with fraud? Do they want to meet your KPI in an artificial way? Are they trying to inject ad impressions so that they can fulfill certain numbers of reach?
Knowledge of KPIs and modes of their measurement
Bosco Lam: Advertisers and agencies have to be clear about their KPIs. Are they targeting to reach a good future rate, or are they looking for conversion? So once you have a concrete KPI, you’ll look at how you measure this KPI. That will start to uncover what’s happening under the hood. If you find a winning formula, well, congratulations, then you can keep scaling this strategy. But if you find something suspicious under the black box, then you should deep dive into it.
You’re on the path to find are there any unknown third-party players coming to the game? Or is it transparent enough for you to identify who contributes to what? For example, which household or IP address is the inventory coming from or at what time? It just doesn’t make sense if I have a spiking impression of this household, and there should be something wrong.
Jessica Lam: You mean advertisers should be savvy as well when they look at your KPIs instead of just blindly believing what they are. So is that right?
Bosco Lam: Yeah, because there are many subsets of ad effectiveness. For example the creative, your audience data, and even the timing of the campaign.
Target audiences vs. decision-makers
Bosco Lam: For example, CTV brands that produce chocolates target kids who love chocolates. But the decision-makers are usually the moms. So I think CTV is in good shape because of shared time or shared “eyeballs” when your family sits in front of your television. Your ad creatives have to be aligned with this theme of family.
The other day I watched an ad about a print to upload couples’ photos. So you can create digital print books and send them to your family and friends. So it is fascinating because it creates a message about the family sitting within the living room. And I may be the decision-maker, but actually, my girlfriend would love to create this digital print book.
The importance of asking the right questions regarding ad fraud
Bosco Lam: It is a good angle to think about which creative can drive the effectiveness of your campaign and target the right audience. You have to pick the right audience set within this household. So, ad fraud is only one of many subsets of ad effectiveness. When you ask the right questions to see, is the data working? Is the creative working? Or are there any other suspicious activities? They will drive you to conclude your overall campaign effectiveness, but not on ad fraud alone.
Accuracy in targeting
Jessica Lam: That’s a great perspective. So I also understand that AlikeAudience products, the segments you do, bring across different mediums to pinpoint with greater accuracy in targeting, especially with CTVs. So there will be data from mobile devices, TV, and so that even though it’s different members in a household, it would be more accurate in targeting because there are different devices involved, is that right?
Holistic view offered by CTVs
Bosco Lam: Right, imagine, back to the example of KitKats and moms. So connected TV is at a household level because you sit in front of the big TV screen. It is quite different from the individual mobile because you won’t share your mobile screen with your friends or family all the time. So it is good to connect different pieces of data up at the household level. It will give you a more holistic view of the shared “eyeballs”.
Jessica Lam: So what about you, Derek? What is your input on this subject in the CTV industry?
Causes for ad frauds in the CTV space
Derek Fan: When it comes to ad fraud in the CTV space, I think it’s partly because CTV is super fragmented right now. And I also think because CTV CPMs tend to be higher than other formats like display and banner ads and that’s the incentive for the fraud.
Combatting ad frauds
Derek Fan: One of the more common types of ad frauds I’ve seen is spoofing, where essentially bad actors or nefarious actors simulate someone watching a CTV ad. That results in the marketer buying the CTV ad space thinking it would be served to a particular group of people, but then it ends up at a different device targeting a different set of people. And as a marketer, I think the way to close that gap and avoid those types of spoofing problems is to have stronger integrations with your CTV provider, whoever you’re buying your media from, and work with third-party ad verification companies.
Especially, work with inventory that allows pixels for tracking so that you as a marketer have a level of validation and do your own tracking. Like what Bosco said, you’re not just relying on one referee that might be grading his own homework. So try to reduce the number of layers between yourself and the CTV inventory.
Also, to echo what Bosco said in terms of KPIs, make sure your team is aligned on a set of metrics that you want to track and make sure that’s consistent across the different players with different platforms and different services that you’re working with for CTV and make sure that’s aligned.
Future industry trends
Jessica Lam: Thank you, it’s really great to hear from different perspectives. Hopefully, with better maturity of the industry, and better technology, eventually, this issue will become less for advertisers. So last question here, with CTV being such a fast area of growth in the ad tech industry, what are some industry trends that advertisers should look out for in the coming years?
Competitive creatives
Derek Fan: I think there’s a lot that might happen. One of the more interesting ones I’m excited to see is the different creative ways marketers can engage with their consumers in the CTV space. Earlier I mentioned fragmentation, which obviously has its downsides, such as tracking and targeting. But, the upside is that it increases competition and variety available in the marketplace.
I think as more players start to emerge in the CTV space, there will definitely be more opportunities for marketers to adapt their creatives and functionality based on the different platforms they’re serving on and each platform’s unique environment.
Rebirth of the QR code
Derek Fan: For example, we’re starting to see a lot of TV commerce companies putting QR codes back on the screen for CTV formats, just as we thought QR codes were no longer useful. It seems to rise from its semi-dead ashes. It seems to have a good use case right now to involve the viewer to have more engagement and more interaction with the actual CTV ad.
A more inclusive CTV Space
Derek Fan: And also something I just saw today and we discussed internally is potentially automation in the future. Because right now CTV ads are really mostly used by large companies that have the budget to create a TV commercial, which obviously has huge production costs associated with it. So the entry barrier for a lot of these small to medium enterprises or mid-market advertisers is quite high.
So how do we, as an industry, create more tools for these small to medium companies so that they can actually repurpose some of their existing creatives from their search or social channel or display channels into the CTV ad space?
I think it is something that we will see in the future. I think that’s kind of the trend that search and social had–how Facebook and Google opened that gate to small to medium enterprises, and I think CTV space would see that in the next couple of years.
Jessica Lam: It’s great. And what about you, Bosco? What do you think?
Immersive and interactive CTV experiences
Bosco Lam: Metaverse? VR? Haha, just kidding. I think that immersive experience will be a trend as well for the household. Imagine you have 3D glasses or VR glasses that you can have a different experience in the rich media. At the end of the day, CTV is offering you rich media premium content. And the way I see this is another type of format that builds on the ad business. And the ad business is actually all about trust and transparency nowadays.
While the consumers give their time, attention, and data, the value they exchange is the experience with the brand and the interaction with the contents. So I believe this will be the cornerstone for us to build a business and scale up the CTV business.
Right now it’s still in the early days with different manufacturers and content providers, oh and it’s a lot more content coming up in different interactive ways. Like Derek has mentioned, there’s a way to interact with a QR code, there would be some immersive experience with a VR, and so on.
Subscribe and stay tuned!
Jessica Lam: That’s great, thanks so much for sharing both your insights today Derek and Bosco. I learned a lot today about CTV advertising and about the strategies that advertisers can use, and where the industry is heading. So thank you for listening to those who are tuning in.
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For more information about AlikeAudience’s audience segments offering, you can visit us at www.alikeaudience.com. Thank you and hope to see you next time! Thanks.
