How to Advertise on Connected TV (CTV)

8 Dec

Key Takeaways

TV is Accessible to Everyone: You no longer need a massive budget to be on TV. Connected TV (CTV) allows you to target specific households based on interests and location, meaning you only pay to reach the people who are likely to buy from you, making it a viable option for businesses of all sizes.
The Phone is the Remote: People watch TV with their phones in their hands. Successful CTV advertising recognises this "second screen" behaviour. By using QR codes or simple website addresses, you can turn a TV viewer into a website visitor in seconds.
One Day Agency Makes it Simple: The world of streaming is fragmented across many different apps and channels. An integrated agency like ours handles the technical side of planning and buying across all these platforms, ensuring your message appears in the right place while connecting it to your other marketing channels like social media and search.

For a long time, TV advertising was a closed shop, available only to the biggest brands with the deepest pockets. Connected TV (CTV) has changed the rules completely. It combines the prestige of appearing on the big living room screen with the smart targeting of digital marketing. Here is how you can use this powerful channel to grow your business without needing a Super Bowl budget.

The smart way to reach the living room

We all know how we watch TV has changed. We stream shows on Netflix, catch up on dramas via ITVX, or watch 4K travel vlogs on YouTube, all on the big screen in the living room. This is Connected TV, or CTV.

For business owners and marketers, this shift is a massive opportunity. It means the biggest screen in the house is no longer just for watching; it is for digital advertising.

At One Day Agency, we find that many clients assume TV is still out of their league. They worry about complexity and cost. But the reality is that CTV is actually a performance channel. It is data-driven, measurable, and highly effective for businesses of all sizes.

Here is a simplified look at how to advertise on CTV using solid marketing fundamentals.

Precision Targeting: No More Wastage

The old way of buying TV ads was a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. You would buy a slot during a popular programme and hope your customers were watching. If you were selling dog food, you ended up paying to reach thousands of people who only owned cats or had no pets at all. That is wasted budget.

CTV fixes this by using data. Because these TVs are connected to the internet, we can target ads much like we do on Facebook or Google.

Instead of buying a specific TV show, we buy a specific audience.

Location Matters: If you run a local business, you can choose to show your ad only to households in your specific city or region.
Interests and Behaviours: You can target households that show specific habits. For example, if you sell fitness gear, we can target households that watch health and wellness content.
Customer Matching: You can even use your own data to find people who look like your current best customers.

Tool Tip: Technologies like Sky AdSmart are great examples of this. They allow different households watching the same live programme to see different ads. Your neighbour might see an ad for a car, while you see an ad for a holiday, making the ad break relevant to everyone.

The "Second Screen" and Creative

When you advertise on social media, you are fighting for attention in a fast-scrolling feed. On CTV, you have the viewer's attention on a large screen, usually with the sound on. This is a premium environment.

However, modern viewers are multi-taskers. Most people watch TV with their phone in their hand. This is known as "second screening."

Good marketing fundamentals tell us to work with human behaviour, not against it. Your CTV ad should act as a bridge between the TV and the phone.

Keep it Clear: You don't need a Hollywood production, but your video and audio quality must be high. Pixelated footage looks bad on a 50-inch screen.
The Call to Action: Since viewers can't click the TV screen, you need to give them an easy way to react. We see great success using QR Codes that stay on the screen long enough for someone to scan, or using a very simple, memorable website address.

Measuring Success: Did it work?

A common worry is that TV is hard to track. In the past, you ran an ad and just hoped sales went up.

With CTV, we can be much more scientific. Because the environment is digital, we can track the "customer journey."

We use tracking technology to connect the dots. If a household sees your ad on their TV, and then someone in that household visits your website on their phone or laptop later that day, we can attribute that visit to the TV ad.

This means we can measure:

View Through Rate: Did people watch the whole ad?
Website Visits: Did the ad drive traffic?
Sales: Did those visitors eventually buy something?

How One Day Agency Helps

The streaming world is split into many pieces. You have apps like Disney+, broadcasters like Channel 4, and hardware like Samsung TV Plus. Trying to negotiate ad space with each of these individually is a headache.

This is where an integrated agency becomes your best asset.

We Plan and Buy for You

We use sophisticated software to buy ad space across all these different platforms at once. We don't just stick to one channel; we find your audience wherever they are watching.

Efficiency: We manage the budget to ensure you are getting the best value. We can start small to test what works and then scale up.
The Integrated Mix: This is our biggest strength. We know that a TV ad works best when it is supported by other channels. We might plan a campaign where a user sees your ad on TV, and then sees a reminder ad on Instagram the next day. This creates a surround-sound effect that builds trust and drives sales.

Conclusion

Advertising on Connected TV is about working smarter, not harder. It takes the emotional power of television and combines it with the logic of digital marketing. You get to be on the big screen, but you only pay to reach the people who actually matter to your business.

By focusing on the fundamentals, such as targeting the right audience and making it easy for them to respond, you can turn the living room into a powerful engine for growth. At One Day Agency, we are here to handle the technical side so you can focus on the results.

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