What’s the optimal balance of TV and streaming advertising?

Advertisers should allocate 20-30% of their premium video budget towards streaming, the rest to traditional TV, advises a new report from Comcast Advertising, the advertising division of Comcast Cable.

Based on a study of more than 20,000 campaigns, The Comcast Advertising Report 2022: Actionable Insights for the Modern TV Advertiser claims to offer a unique perspective on how viewers are viewing, buyers are buying, and sellers are selling and to see what does and doesn’t work. 

Why it matters

As the TV advertising landscape becomes increasingly complex, the old rules of thumb used by advertisers no longer apply; new ones have to be found. 

Takeaways 

• Viewers prefer live content on both TV and streaming: 89% of traditional TV viewing is spent watching live TV and 54% of digital video viewing is live.

• Viewers are exposed to more digital ads than ever before, as ad views on digital services increased by 45% from H2 2020 to H2 2021.
• Audience targeted campaigns have increased by over 50% year-over-year, as advertisers turn to audience targeting to reach viewers, at scale, across viewing platforms
• Programmatic ad views have grown 80% year-over-year, as advertisers see programmatic buying as a way to reach specific audiences more efficiently. There was also an increase in programmatic campaigns bought on a guaranteed basis.
• As sellers move to programmatic models, they are working with an average of 13 different programmatic partners – and up to 30 in total.

Key quote

“TV should still act as the foundation for most advertisers, but reach is highest when 20-30% of the budget is allocated to streaming” – James Rooke, general manager, Effectv.

Sourced from Comcast [Image: Comcast Advertising]