CTV and B2B: 3 reasons why Connected TV advertising is primed for B2B

If you’re a B2B marketer, there’s a solid chance your marketing strategy look’s something like this: 

• Email campaign (complete with drip)
• Search ads
• Newsletters 
• Events and tradeshows
• A white paper here and there
• ABM for high-value prospects

Not a bad approach, but unfortunately it’s the same exact strategy every single one of your competitors are using. B2B marketing is famous for its cookie-cutter approach and is mired in the attitude of “we know what works, so let’s just stick to it.”

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to deploy tactics and strategies that work. But if everyone’s following the same playbook, then you risk getting lost in the shuffle; you’re just another booth at the event or email in a prospect’s inbox. That said, if the key motivation of the B2B mindset is to put results above all else, then that provides you a different option. 

That option is Connected TV advertising. It’s made a splash in the B2C world because it has given advertisers a data-fueled way to run ads on television. CTV advertising’s targeting and measurement capabilities have made it a vital, direct-response tool for many marketers. And those same advantages translate seamlessly to B2B—while simultaneously giving you a way to cut through the usual B2B clutter. 

1. You get memorable ads that are fully trackable

The idea of TV advertising has long been considered preposterous for B2B marketing. While the prestige and brand-lift it provides would be nice for any brand, B2B calls for meticulous performance tracking and an expectation of concrete results—something linear television cannot provide. And since B2B marketing teams tend to have lower headcount and smaller budgets than their B2C counterparts, they’ve needed to rely on ad channels that provide reliable, repeatable performance.

That’s not an issue with CTV advertising. Thanks to its digital nature, CTV is fully trackable; you aren’t left guessing whether your ad made an impact because you can actually track whether it did, and tie actions your prospects take to your CTV campaign.

SteelHouse Performance TV, our CTV ad solution, lets marketers track key metrics including ROAS, site visit rate, cost per acquisition, and more. And, it’s fully integrated with Google Analytics, allowing you to track its performance alongside the rest of your marketing efforts. 

That level of measurement detail has proven it to be effective at driving user action—and that’s thanks to a superior ad experience. With 15 or 30 second video ads served alongside streaming TV programming, you can tell your brand’s story and make a compelling case for your offering far better than an ad run on display or social. Ads shown on a television screen prompt 32% higher ad recall than those shown on the next closest device, which means these ads carry a natural ability to stick with an audience. And in terms of influencing behavior, a 2019 study conducted by TVB found that 56% of consumers cited TV ads as the most important factor in driving their awareness of a service or product. 

Its TV-ad impact provides a halo-effect for the rest of your marketing efforts; when your email campaign hits their inbox they’ll be more likely to notice. That said, memorable ads don’t mean much if the right people aren’t seeing them, which leads us to points 2 and 3… 

2. You can reach new, distinct third-party audiences

You just can’t be sloppy with audience targeting in the B2B world. Your audience is a pretty set and defined group of prospects; television has never really been an option because it’s lacked the ability to narrow your audience to those that matter. And a lack of precise targeting equates to wasted budget. 

Thankfully, CTV leverages digital-like targeting, similar to a channel like social. By leveraging 3rd party audience data, B2B CTV advertisers can zero in on the prospects that are interested and in-market. 

Case in point, Performance TV is fully integrated with the Oracle Data Cloud. It’s the largest CTV audience data provider available, and offers tens of thousands of audiences that can be targeted—including a wealth of B2B-specific ones that make up millions of prospects (which means it doesn’t suffer from a lack of reach). 

There’s a wide range of audiences you can select to help you reach your audience—here are just a few examples.

• In-Market Purchase Intent | You can sort audiences by whether they’re in-market to purchase particular types of services, be it SaaS, hardware, software, etc.. 
• B2B Events | Target users who have registered, attended, or read about a B2B event, conference, or webinar for a number of verticals including technology, retail, healthcare, finance and more. 
• Decision Makers | IT, finance, small business—you can target decision makers based on their industry, ensuring your ads get in front of prospects who control budgets and have authority to buy. 
• Past Purchases | You can target business users who have likely made various past purchases in different categories, including cloud, marketing measurement, retail, security, and dozens more.  

With CTV’s targeting capabilities, you’re not left crossing your fingers hoping the person seeing your ad is in the right industry, or has used services like yours in the past, or is a decision maker—you know right from the start that they are. 

3. You can put first-party audience to work

Your first party data is crucial, which means CTV advertising must be able to leverage that info to truly be effective for B2B marketing. 

Because it functions just like a digital ad channel, you can make full use of your first party data. You can do this in two ways.

• Retargeting | You can retarget site visitors, but you need to use a CTV ad solution that allows for that (not all of them do). SteelHouse Performance TV allows you to pixel your site then use it to retarget those interested prospects. 
• CRM Upload | Your CRM is vital to nurturing your prospects, and you can upload your CRM list to Performance TV to target users in your sales funnel. 

Both of these are vital tools for bringing prospects further down your sales funnel toward conversion. But when speaking of CRM specifically, your ad campaign’s success will rely heavily on your match rate which can sometimes be tricky. For example, B2B CRMs generally rely on business email addresses. If you’re looking to target those users on other devices and channels, especially CTV, you need to ensure you’re able to feed those emails into your CTV ad solution and match them to a targetable audience. 

Thankfully, the match rates we’ve seen on Performance TV have been high, in some cases matching higher than certain social platforms (which have had trouble with B2B in the past). It’s proven to be an effective way of making CRM lists actionable—which is key for B2B. 

B2B connected TV advertising works

How do we know it works? Because we created and launched our own ad, then ran it on Connected TV. We leveraged our Performance TV platform’s CRM and 3rd party audience targeting to get our ad in front of valuable prospects, which not only helped generate brand awareness among key prospects but also created real familiarity. “I saw your ad on TV last night” has become a common phrase when we meet with prospects, and it’s a testament to Connected TV’s B2B effectiveness. It’s only a matter of time before more B2B brands are leveraging this channel, and we recommend you get started sooner than later to take advantage of getting there first.  

If you’re looking for a way to go beyond the standard B2B marketing playbook, look no further than Connected TV advertising. And if you’re ready to get started, check out what Performance TV has to offer—it’s built to deliver revenue, site visits, and any other important metric you have in mind.