Connected TV strategies to capture New Year’s resolution shoppers

Hey marketers, it’s time to start planning your New Year’s ad campaigns. Especially if you’re in an industry like fitness, wellness, sports or subscription services — essentially anything that ties into the “New Year, New You” mindset. Traditionally 12% of gym-goers sign up in January, but with this year’s brick-and-mortar health restrictions in place, chances are that energy (and spend) will be going toward other self-improvement sources. And you’ll want to be ready to capture your piece.   

Obviously, you’re going to launch paid search and social. Those two are reliable performance channels that will generate a solid return on investment. But there’s a third reliable performance channel you may be missing out on: Connected TV. Let’s take a look at how effective CTV can be for advertisers and why it’s an essential channel to tap into for your New Year campaigns. 

Viewers & advertisers are switching to streaming

When deployed properly, Connected TV advertising can drive direct-response performance similar to search and social. It brings TV commercials into the domain of digital advertising, meaning it comes complete with the targeting and measurement capabilities digital marketers have enjoyed for years. 

2020 has seen solid growth in Connected TV viewer adoption. According to research by Nielsen: 

• Total streaming TV viewing time has increased 74% year over year. 
• 25% of adults surveyed reported adding a new service in Q2 alone. 

Advertisers are following the viewers too. The IAB reports 53% of surveyed media buyers plan to move broadcast TV ad dollars to Connected TV. Similarly, 52% of buyers who control cable budgets said they plan to shift budget as well. Digital marketers are also moving budget, with roughly one in four shifting ad dollars from other digital channels.

Getting started on Connected TV

There’s no better time than in the run-up to the New Year to reach your audience while they’re watching TV. Depending on where you are in the country, it’s either cold outside or really cold outside. People stay indoors in the fall and winter, which results in higher TV viewership. 
If Connected TV isn’t part of your New Year ad strategy yet, don’t fret. There’s still plenty of time to get started (our Connected TV ad solution, SteelHouse Performance TV, can get your campaigns up and running almost instantly). Here’s what you need to know to launch an effective Connected TV New Year strategy. 

Identify your goals

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, Connected TV as an ad channel affords a couple of different options.

If you’re trying to drive new, highly-qualified site traffic to your site, we recommend starting with a prospecting campaign. If you’re looking to take advantage of your current site traffic, retargeting could be a better option. We generally recommend both, so let’s start with a look at prospecting, then retargeting.

Drive high-value site traffic with prospecting

With the New Year come New Year’s resolutions, which means there are plenty of shoppers who are dipping their toes into the waters of self-improvement. Connected TV allows you to make a great first impression on these shoppers, thanks to an ad format that leaves a positive impact. Research conducted by MAGNA discovered: 

• CTV ads are 67% more effective per exposure at driving purchase intent vs. linear TV.
• CTV ads result in a 42% lift in brand favorability.

Connected TV advertising’s digital nature means you can reach 3rd-party audiences with highly-targeted campaigns. For example, SteelHouse Performance TV is fully integrated into the Oracle Data Cloud. Its access to tens of thousands of audience categories means you can target based on a wide range of attributes including:

• In-market status
• Demographic
• Geography
• Interests
• Shopping history

The makeup of your ideal audience will differ based on industry, but regardless of who they are, we recommend pairing that audience profile with in-market audiences to ensure you’re reaching shoppers looking to buy. That ensures you’re spending budget on viewers who have a higher chance of converting. 

When you’re considering your creative approach, your prospecting ad creative should incorporate a few elements since these are viewers who may be unfamiliar with your brand. These include: 

• Lifestyle Product Imagery. You not only want your audience to see what you have to offer, but also how it’ll make them feel. Incorporate lifestyle visuals of people enjoying your products.
• Persistent URL. Since CTV doesn’t allow viewers to click on an ad, you need to make sure your audience knows where to go. Include your URL, either along the bottom or in a corner, throughout the ad. 
• Commanding CTA. Include a visual and audible CTA to prompt viewers to take action.

This compelling ad format, combined with prevision audience targeting, results in impressive campaign performance. Advertisers on the SteelHouse Performance TV platform have averaged a 1.87% site visit rate and a $4.60 cost per site visit — proving its effectiveness at driving new site traffic. And not only do these campaigns drive users to your site, they also net plenty of conversions on their own. Performance TV campaigns have averaged a 4.4X ROAS across all SteelHouse advertisers. 

Bring them back to convert with retargeting

We recommend you deploy retargeting campaigns to either target your existing site traffic or as a companion piece to your CTV prospecting campaign. 

You should fine-tune your audience targeting to reach viewers based on the actions they’ve taken on your site. Much like its 3rd-party audience capabilities, CTV allows you to curate your audience to ensure you’re only reaching viewers you care about. Here are a few behaviors you can build audiences around: 

• How often they visited
• Average time spent on site
• Time since last conversion
• Pages they visited
• Items they shopped for
• Value of items added to cart

You should focus on behaviors that denote interest in your offering. For example, include users who have visited 2+ pages as it shows they’re curious about learning more. Also prioritize any users who abandoned items in their shopping cart — they might just need a little nudge to come back and convert. 

For your retargeting video creative, we recommend a more direct approach since these shoppers have already visited your site and know your brand.  

• Get Aggressive.  These shoppers are lower down on the sales funnel now, so consider offering this group more aggressive promos to convince them to convert. 
• Focus on Your Offering. These shoppers already understand your brand, so make your product offering the focus.

Different tactics, same strong results

Whether you’re looking to drive new prospects into your sales funnel or see them through all the way to conversion, Connected TV has a place in your New Year ad strategy as a performance marketing channel. 

We highly recommend you tap into higher streaming television viewership to reach your audience on an ad channel that offers a compelling experience. If you’re interested in adding Connected TV to your New Year marketing mix, 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 — so you can kick off the New Year right.