With the growing popularity of Connected TV (CTV), publishers are seeking to capitalize on this expanding market through ad monetization.
Sounds simple enough – after all, publishers have been monetizing ads on their websites and apps for years.
But while simple in theory, serving ads on CTV channels is a challenging feat seeing as the technology is difficult to implement and the top ad servers are not available to everyone.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that monetizing your CTV channel doesn’t have to be so complicated, and we’re going to explain why.
First, let’s make sure we’re on the same page with the terminology and understanding the benefits and challenges of CTV monetization.
Difference between CTV and OTT
CTV and OTT (over-the-top) are two terms often used interchangeably; however, they both refer to two different, albeit related, platforms.
OTT is a streaming service that provides content over the internet, such as Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu.
CTV is a TV or device that supports streaming videos over the internet.
In other words, CTV is a method through which OTT content can be consumed. Examples of CTVs include smart TVs, Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV.
Benefits of CTV Ads for Publishers
Over the past few years, CTV popularity has surged exponentially, making it the fastest growing video advertising platform.
In fact, a survey conducted by the Leichtman Research Group found that 82% of TV households have at least one CTV, which represents a higher penetration than cable TV. Annual CTV ad spending is currently some $87 billion and is estimated to surpass $100 billion in 2026.
Advertisers are correctly identifying CTV as the future of video advertising, and are therefore funneling their advertising budgets to these platforms, making it an ideal medium for publishers to generate revenue.
Challenges of CTV Ads for Publishers
As with all evolving technologies, challenges are never lacking.
As a CTV publisher, implementing a wide and lucrative ad inventory is challenging due to technological demands as well as limited access to ad servers.
For example, the vast majority of channels cannot access Google’s video ads because Google only granted its CTV/OTT monetization license to a select number of companies.
Google is the largest advertising exchange, and without Google ads, there is significantly less competition which leads to lower ad revenue.
Benefits of Working with Adnimation
Adnimation is one of the few companies that was granted Google’s license to monetize CTV apps and OTT content.
Under this license, Adnimation received access to Programmatic Access Libraries (PAL), which are lightweight SDKs (Software Development Kits) that provide discrete access to targeting signals for Google Ad Manager programmatic ads.
Put simply, with Adnimation’s technology and this new Google license, publishers who partner with Adnimation can now place highly priced video ads from Google advertisers within their CTV channels and OTT video content (read a case study here).
This gives Adnimation partnering publishers a big advantage in creating competition between advertisers over their video ad inventory. Managing their monetization, Adnimation then leverages this healthy competition into higher priced video ads and eventually into much higher ad revenue.
Get in touch with our team and learn how Adnimation can help boost your CTV ad revenue.
