CTV/OTT Advertiser Study: Why More Ad Dollars are Flowing to CTV

Author: Annmarie Gatti, Head of Marketing, Premion. 

As we enter the second half of the year, revised industry forecasts have come out on advertising spending from the likes of Magna and BIA. And the consensus is clear: CTV advertising is the fastest-growing channel. Simultaneously, we’ve just released our own 2023 CTV/OTT Advertiser Study, our second annual survey in partnership with Advertiser Perceptions. Together, we delved deeper to uncover what’s top-of-mind for advertisers on their media spending, sentiment, and priorities.

Our study revealed one overarching trend: investment and optimism for CTV/OTT advertising remain high. In fact, two out of three advertisers using CTV/OTT are planning to increase their spending this year. The increased expenditure is driven by several factors, including the ability to reach declining TV audiences (46%), leverage the advantages of TV combined with digital capabilities (44%), and achieve full-funnel marketing objectives (39%).

What’s more, among advertisers who are increasing their CTV/OTT ad spending in 2023, a majority (62%) are reallocating funds from their digital, social media, or linear TV budgets to fund investments in CTV/OTT advertising. Moreover, one in three advertisers are tapping into new ad budgets specifically for this.

The shift towards converged traditional TV and digital teams is accelerating and this trend is further highlighted in our study. We found that 52% of CTV/OTT budgets are now primarily controlled by integrated/hybrid buying teams — that’s up from 42% from our study last year.

Our survey also affirms the growing importance of incorporating CTV as part of a complete TV strategy. In fact, three out of four CTV/OTT advertisers view CTV/OTT advertising as an extension of their linear TV strategy — and two out of three advertisers agree that combining linear TV with CTV/OTT advertising increases brand awareness and improves overall ROI performance throughout the entire marketing funnel.

Among a few other notable findings:

• The top-ranking benefits of CTV/OTT advertising are found to be achieving brand awareness and performance marketing goals (38%), leveraging the advantages of TV with digital capabilities (38%), extending the reach of linear TV campaigns (37%), and capturing declining TV audiences (37%). 
• 86% of CTV/OTT advertisers believe that CTV/OTT’s value is greater than, or equal to, that of primetime TV, with 44% saying that CTV/OTT is more valuable. 
• Seven in 10 CTV/OTT advertisers agree that CTV/OTT allows them to target audiences locally in ways that are not possible with linear TV.
• More than half of CTV/OTT advertisers agree that co-viewing is a value-add benefit of CTV/OTT advertising and/or provides a like-for-like comparison to linear TV.
• 97% of CTV/OTT advertisers agree that advertising on premium video content can improve ROI performance goals.
• 87% of advertisers consider brand safety a priority in their CTV/OTT advertising planning and strategy, with nearly 40% considering it a top priority.
• 84% of advertisers are concerned with ad fraud in their CTV/OTT advertising, with over 30% being very concerned.

For a deeper dive, we invite you to download the complete “2023 CTV/OTT Advertiser Study” here.

Read more on MediaPost here.