A big misconception about addressable TV is that it’s only for advertisers with big budgets. That just isn’t true. We spoke with Steve Wild, head of sales for business development at Sky Media, who told us that, with budgets starting from £3k, powerful, targeted TV advertising is within reach for every brand. In our conversation Steve shared how addressable TV offers advertisers effectiveness, precision and proof. It’s those advertisers that commit to test, learn and scale their business which will be the winners on TV.

The questions I’m most often asked by advertisers tend to be very consistent. “How honed is your targeting?”, “What budget do I really need?”, “How do you measure success?” and “Can I use my own data to help targeting and relevance?”. Clients want effectiveness, precision and proof. We can give them all three. We use advertiser data to plan and target efficiently and we know that relevance boosts effectiveness.

The one thing I wish every advertiser knew about our addressable solution is this: AdSmart from Sky genuinely gives you the best of both worlds. You get the brand safe environment and quality content of premium TV, but with the precision targeting you’d expect from digital. It’s TV that works harder and smarter. And it works for advertisers of all sizes, giving them a competitive advantage. One of the biggest misconceptions we still hear is that addressable TV is only for big budgets. That just isn’t true. With budgets starting from £3k, it puts powerful, targeted TV advertising within reach of every brand. Through smart targeting we limit wastage. Typically, advertisers hone reach to around 15-20% of the available audience which makes better use of their budget.

Using first party data to unlock a competitive advantage on TV

The biggest opportunity for advertisers and agencies this year will be the smart use of first‑party data. As viewing continues to shift, the advertisers who combine their audience insights with premium inventory and relevant targeting will be the ones who unlock real competitive advantage.

Our latest development, Norman, is a unique database which analyses 2,400 campaigns across six years to provide useful insights by sector in terms of targeting, frequency, creative message and norms in effectiveness. We’re fortunate at Sky Media to have a four million-strong viewing panel who we have a billing relationship with, providing second-by-second viewing data across our ecosystem. This enables us to understand what is driving effectiveness throughout the various stages of the sales funnel to optimise the way we enable addressable TV for clients. Combining first party data with the benefits of our insight reporting database will give clients an addressable advantage.

A great recent example of this is our work with Attraction Tickets, a leading provider of theme park tickets that uses Sky AdSmart to combine performance-driven marketing with brand building and storytelling. Together we focus on Attraction Ticket’s two core audiences: families with younger children and those with teens. We then use further targeting such as household affluence and proximity to major airport hubs to make budgets go further. We tracked attribution and performance across 7-14-30 day windows and the result was over six times ROI. Have a look on our website to see the client’s testimonial.

Looking ahead, those that commit to test, learn and scale their business will be the winners on TV

Looking ahead over the next three years, I expect even smarter data for targeting plus tighter integration between our TV and digital channels to maximise reach and response. This will result in a surge of new advertisers discovering just how effective addressable TV can be.

Brand safe content will also continue to be important. Sky spends around $10bn a year on content; from sport (which is mostly watched live) and news to documentaries and drama (which is mostly streamed on demand). This is important, because it’s quality content that people want to watch and be entertained by that engages audiences. With over 90% of Sky’s content viewed on a big screen, it is very attractive for advertisers.

The advertisers that will come out on top over the next few years will be those that are pushing for better: better measurement, better creativity, better outcomes. The people who build effective media solutions and the clients that commit to test, learn and scale their business will be the winners.

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