Premium publishers and platforms seek to diversify beyond brand dollars
The battle for advertising dollars is more competitive than ever. Many premium publishers and platforms with owned & operated inventory are vying to attract more performance marketers—and their budgets. Brand advertising is still alive and well; however, media buyers are increasingly steering more budget toward the channels and partners with which they can prove outcomes and return on investment (ROI). While reach, frequency, and brand awareness are still considered valuable, there’s more pressure to show ROI in the form of specific business outcomes. This is why outcomes measurement has become such a hot topic in adtech.
Outcomes Measurement Enables Performance Marketing
Outcomes measurement evaluates the tangible results and impacts of marketing and advertising efforts. It goes beyond simply observing total impressions and unique reach to narrow in on measuring the actual outcomes and business objectives achieved. The specific outcomes measured depend on the advertiser and their goal(s); however, common outcomes include mobile app installs, in-app purchases, other in-app events, and website conversions; even footfall visitation and consumer purchases can be measured in certain cases.
With outcomes measurement:
- An insurance company can see how premium audio ads drive page visits and/or form fills on their website.
- An auto dealership can connect the dots between premium CTV ads and visits to their location(s) or online bookings for test drives.
- A quick service restaurant (QSR) chain can observe how premium in-game ads drive orders and loyalty registrations through their mobile app.
Advertisers are willing to spend performance budgets only if the outcomes they seek to drive can be measured accurately and transparently. Outcomes measurement is therefore fundamental to performance marketing.
Let’s explore the real use case of a smart TV original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and how they leveraged outcomes measurement to grow their ad sales business.
Example Use Case | Smart TV OEM Platform
The Company
A smart TV OEM innovating the future of CTV advertising. Through its vibrant CTV entertainment ecosystem, the company offers advertisers extensive reach and precision targeting across tens of millions of homes.
The Challenge
While the company has ample business with brand marketers, it’s seeking to grow ad sales revenue with performance marketers. Marketers have long pigeonholed CTV as a brand marketing channel for driving awareness and audience reach, while discounting its effectiveness for driving true performance. Battling this perception, the company needs to connect the dots between their platform-direct ad inventory and lower-funnel conversions across connected devices. The end goal? Enabling advertisers to correlate their ad spend with direct business outcomes.
The Solution
The company licensed and integrated Kochava for Publishers, a hosted outcomes measurement platform. The company syndicated ad impressions across its placements into the platform. Further, leveraging built-in integrations, the company’s advertisers were able to syndicate their conversion events securely into the platform. This facilitated real-time attribution of ad exposures across the company’s inventory to the lower-funnel outcomes (app installs, in-app events, website activity) their advertisers sought to drive.
Ads served across the company’s prime placements—home screen, app channel store tiles, mobile remote banners, and sponsorship splashes—could now be directly attributed back to user engagements on an advertiser’s app, website, or other connected service.
This gave the company real-time outcomes measurement to support a performance-based marketing model with their media buyers.
The Impact
A major streaming entertainment service launched performance marketing campaigns for user acquisition (UA) on the company’s platform. With outcomes measurement enabled, the company could independently report same-screen and cross-screen conversions for installs and launches of the advertiser’s app on CTV and mobile devices.
Through the performance marketing campaigns, the company drove a 9.5% lift in same-screen app installs (compared to industry norms of 4–6%). These were cases where the user saw an ad, then took action using the remote to engage with the advertiser’s app directly on the same screen. An 8.7% lift in app install activity was also observed across other connected smart TV platforms—scenarios where the user saw the ad on one CTV device, then converted later on another CTV.
Based on the direct performance results showcased by outcomes measurement, the advertiser is now increasing spend and activating more campaigns on the platform.
Outcomes measurement now enables the company to expand relationships across its other clients, engaging with both brand and performance marketing teams to diversify its ad sales revenue growth strategy.
Adding Outcomes Measurement for Your Premium Inventory
If you’re a publisher or platform with owned & operated inventory, connect with us to learn more about outcomes measurement tools.
