There’s an alphabet soup of terms that advertisers and marketers need to understand: CTA, ROI, KPI, etc.
One term you should definitely know in this day and age is OTT.
The acronym stands for Over The Top. Basically, OTT refers to the streaming service location on which you see ads. You’ve probably interacted with OTT on platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, AppleTV+, or Hulu. As streaming grows by leaps and bounds (and the platforms offer more precise targeting), OTT has become a large part of advertising strategy.
A lot of people get OTT, CTV, and linear TV confused. Here’s the difference:
CTV is short for connected TV and is the physical device you receive OTT streaming on. Some examples include an Amazon Fire Stick, Playstation, smart TV, or Roku device.
Linear TV is what many people consider “traditional” television, like broadcast and cable. Programs and content are scheduled and viewed by audiences at a certain time, as opposed to the on-demand streaming that OTT provides. (Sidebar: some people will try to tell you linear TV is dead. It’s not. It is declining due to the surge of OTT, but linear can still be a part of your advertising strategy. Especially if your demographic includes older adults.)
One of the things we love most about OTT is its ability to be a part of the omnichannel in your marketing strategy. A customer could see an ad on their smart TV, then be served a display ad, and hear another audio ad while listening to a podcast. All of this is tracked within the omnichannel, so the customer is hit with the same message multiple times. And the omnichannel makes it easy to track analytics. This gold mine of data can help you identify your customers’ spending, viewing, and engagement habits so you can create successful campaigns.
There are many avenues where customers can skip or scroll past ads. OTT is built to embed ads within the content, so they must be viewed. And advertisers love a captive audience.
OTT is an integral part of modern marketing strategies and can help your brand reach audiences in a more precise and effective way.
We love OTT and have frequently used it as part of our clients’ ad strategies — and have seen spectacular ROI. If you’re ready to dive into the world of OTT, contact the experts at Know Advertising: An Agency of Excellence.