Connected TV (CTV) has become an integral part of marketers’ omnichannel campaigns, with its ability to drive outcomes through audience engagement, household reach, and targetability. Its maturation has brought advances in measurement, too, including the way marketers use media mix modeling (MMM). Streaming platform Roku shares insights on how to deploy a CTV measurement strategy that incorporates MMM.
The streaming measurement opportunity
Viewership numbers on CTV are exploding and long-form content including must-see TV shows and live sports continue to make the channel a true entertainment destination. Because programmatic media buying is the primary way to reach CTV audiences — accounting for three-fourths of all CTV transactions1 — it’s crucial to make sure your marketing mix models accurately capture its impact.
Some MMMs have evolved to capture CTV’s value, but for many others, there’s still work to be done. The MMMs of old have a few shortcomings:
Too macro
Some MMMs still take a macro view of digital media buying and report on programmatic as if it were a single channel. This approach ignores individual channel strengths, device types, and publishers, which are relevant components of how media is bought. Without measuring them distinctly, it’s impossible to produce actionable insights from an MMM strategy.
Inaccurate comparisons
It’s standard practice for modelers to calibrate campaign results against both historical MMM input data and reporting to ensure the insights make both media buying and business sense. As a maturing platform, CTV lacks the historical data some MMM vendors require. To fill the gap, modelers may benchmark CTV performance against online video (OLV) instead. While well-intentioned, comparing CTV to OLV will significantly misrepresent its effectiveness and efficiency.
Roku’s MMM approach shows huge CTV impact
When it comes to omnichannel marketing, it’s important to accurately capture the effect of all channels to assess what’s driving core KPIs and brand outcomes. Our publisher partner Roku accounts for nearly 50% of TV streaming time in the U.S., an ample sampling of streaming audiences.2 It recognized and remedied MMM challenges through what it calls a “marketing mix meta-analysis,” commissioned from Nielsen.
The study evaluated five brands, using two years of granular data, and measured CTV separately from linear TV and online video.
Roku’s study found that the brands could achieve nearly twice their sales impact by doubling their spend on Roku’s CTV inventory — a powerful rebuff to concerns of the channel’s diminishing returns.3 In other words, more spend leads to bottom-line impact, not oversaturation. What’s more, investment in Roku inventory was twice as effective for advertisers as other channels and outperformed their ROAS benchmark by 22%.
“Advertisers can feel confident about increasing their spend on CTV when they have a MMM solution that clearly measures the incremental value it delivers."
– Anna Miller, Director, Ad Measurement, Roku
These findings on sales impact and ROAS at the channel and publisher levels would not have been possible using traditional MMM approaches that measure CTV as OLV instead of as a unique media channel. Consider how you might use these insights to adapt your CTV strategy to ensure you’re capturing the unique value this channel delivers.
Measuring CTV’s true value
Advertisers don’t need to be held back by antiquated measurement techniques. It is possible to get reliable, actionable results from your MMM framework. Here are three recommendations to help you maximize and modernize your CTV measurement strategy:
- Think ahead about what questions you want to answer. Align with your MMM team and data providers on your goals and their methodologies for measuring CTV. More clarity between parties can help ensure your campaign data is set up properly to deliver the results you need.
- Refine data cuts. MMM providers have become better equipped to deliver more detailed results. Make sure you're taking advantage of this by feeding more granular data into the models. CTV should be modeled as its own channel so that you can get an accurate understanding of how CTV drives brand outcomes. How deeply you refine will depend on your measurement goals, data volume, and budget. Check out our best practices on where to go next.
- Input historical CTV data for the best comparison. If your brand is new to CTV, ask your MMM vendor if they have a ROAS benchmark for CTV specifically. You can also leverage other measurement sources to calibrate the model, like conversion lift and multi-touch attribution.
If you’re like most marketers, your programmatic CTV budget is increasing. To that end, you’ll want to consider a comprehensive measurement framework, so that you know how your media is performing across channels. The Trade Desk can help you improve your MMM framework. Contact your account manager at The Trade Desk to get started.
Sources:
1. IAB, 2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report.
2. Comscore, CTVi, February 2024
3. Roku, MMM CPG U.S. Analysis, conducted by Nielsen, October 2021 to October 2022.
This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.