Local OTT/CTV Ad Sales: Spending Grows, But Not For Every Marketer

Rising efforts around local TV stations streaming/OTT businesses continue at a steady pace — but still far less than local advertisers invest when it comes to social media spending.

Borrell Associates says this year overall percentage of local businesses using local streaming video/OTT/CTV is at 45% — up slightly from 43% last year. This compares to 90% that use social media.

Perhaps those nasty “ad tech/agency fees” are an issue.

Of the $45,358 per average individual spend on local OTT/CTV, according to Borrell, marketers also spend $14,013 “service” charges, extra digital-related stuff clients increasingly want, including attribution, targeting, business outcomes, guarantees and other measures.

Estimates are these ad-tech costs would amount to a massive 31% of overall marketing costs. That can’t be good.

Still, other marketers are finding some savings.

For example, there are local advertisers that have someone on staff handing production/advertising — versus other marketers who make the extra expenditure of employing third-party companies. Including these cost-saving marketers, the overall average expenditure of those who bought OTT/CTV locally was $31,316.

Big TV station groups can sell much of this national/local OTT/CTV advertising, packaging inventory from scores of platforms/apps with their traditional TV ad inventory. All to increase declining traditional TV reach and scale.

It’s a growing business. A BIA Advisory Service estimate says locally targeted OTT ad spending will total $1.13 billion this year.

Read more on MediaPost here.