Ads on streaming services such as Hulu, CBS All Access, and NBC Universal are so popular, targeted, and scalable that they create huge advertising opportunities. For some established omnichannel and e-commerce retailers, streaming advertising – called over-the-top (OTT) advertising because most cables and streaming boxes are used to sit on top of television – can provide a level of audience targeting similar to social media advertising. and search engines and affiliate marketing. Because of this targeting capability, ott advertising is very different from traditional television advertising.

And like other forms of performance marketing, advertisers only pay for OTT ads when there are measurable results – usually when a potential customer watches the full ad.

While it may not make sense for a new or small eCommerce company to buy Over-the-Top advertising, established businesses that are already investing in performance marketing – again, advertisers only pay for measurable results – should consider OTT because of its popularity, targeting, and measurement, and diversify promotional investment.

OTT is Very Popular

The surprising forecast that more US adults – and this is pre-Covid, and Covid has accelerated all of this – in 2020 will see Over-the-Top advertising than will be used. Consumers have evolved, and marketers have to evolve and go where they are.

Target Oriented

With OTT, advertisers can identify potential customers more precisely by combining demographic info from streaming services with other data sources, including credit bureaus, loyalty programs, mailing lists, and more. Also, data can come from a variety of devices, such as cell phones and computers, not just televisions.

The mechanism that occurs is a cross-device graph. Usually, this involves the IP address as the primary data point, but not exclusively for connecting all devices in the home together. That means we have connected desktop, mobile, and TV screens at the household level. This information can be combined with other data sets to make targeting very precise – even to the point of being a little creepy.