Best Practices For CTV PMPs
Note: This post originally appeared on the Telaria website.
Most programmatic buyers are familiar with private marketplaces (PMPs) in a desktop and mobile environment, but fewer are acquainted with PMPs for connected TV. With connected TV’s desirable combination of premium, brand-safe content, high viewability, and growing audience, including connected TV PMPs as part of a buyer’s programmatic strategy makes sense. Due to the strong demand for connected TV inventory, much of the supply is transacted through PMPs, and highly sought after content may sell out before reaching the open market. As such, buyers need to transact via PMPs to reach the connected TV consumers.
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when setting up connected TV PMPs:
- Explore inventory options: While there is less connected TV inventory compared to desktop video, there is more supply than you might think. In fact, there are premium connected TV publishers like Sling, Pluto, and Xumo, with millions of engaged viewers – and the number grows every week. It is important to look beyond the top three connected TV publishers that first come to mind to unlock the full potential of what your campaign budget can achieve.
- Check the API framework: Keep in mind that connected TV usually requires a VAST video creative, and typically does not support Flash or Javascript. Some connected TV publishers have limitations when handling VAST wrappers. We recommend using no more than two wrappers to avoid any player capacity issues.
- Get granular with targeting: Targeted buying is a major market trend. Telaria’s connected TV publishers have the ability to segment inventory by content, genre, geo, and demographic. In addition, Telaria is the only VMP that enables targeting by connected TV and OTT devices. Buyers can decide if they want to reach smart-TV viewers, Roku or Apple TV users, or even audiences that watch TV content through gaming consoles, such as Playstation. For example, an energy drink company might decide to target people who watch TV content through their Xbox, as they find that Xbox users align closely with their desired demographic.
- Extend impression wait times: To help with ad loading times, some connected TV platforms pre-fetch ads ahead of time in order to stitch the ad creative into the content stream. Be sure your impression tracking systems are programmed to wait up to two hours for impression pixels to be received.
- Utilize the proper attributes for frequency capping: Most desktop and mobile web supply rely on buyer IDs for frequency capping. However, the vast majority of connected TV supply does not support cookies, which are needed to store the buyer ID. As an alternative, we recommend using the IFA sent in the bid request when applying frequency capping to connected TV buys. Buyers should refer to Telaria’s article on the IAB Tech Lab’s guidelines on IFA for OTT for more best practices on frequency capping for connected TV.
- Provide high quality creative: Since connected TV is “big screen” inventory, the width and height values needed for the creative assets should follow standard TV dimensions. This is crucial for a quality viewing experience.
Advertising on connected TV enables buyers to reach audiences in a high-quality, engaging environment, and PMPs are a great way to achieve this. Buyers should work closely with their dedicated tech partners to ensure their connected TV PMPs are set up for success.
Have more questions about connected TV PMPs? Get in touch with your Telaria rep or email us at partner-dsp-ops@magnite.com.