Seven years ago, some people believed targeting on connected TV (CTV) wouldn’t be possible without cookies. Fast-forward to today, and cookieless CTV targeting is not only possible but commonplace. We’ve entered an era where precision targeting is the norm, even as the traditional methods of tracking have evolved.
Now, we’re heading toward the final frontier of digital advertising: bringing the addressability we’ve come to expect in the programmatic world to traditional linear TV audiences.
After years (decades, really) of conventional thinking saying it can’t be done, it’s happening: Publishers are bringing the set-top box into the programmatic universe, giving programmatic buyers access to largely untapped audiences and new stores of premium inventory.
Best of all, this new linear addressable TV market is emerging with a level of flexibility that’s democratizing access to what has long been considered the most exclusive ad inventory in the world, such as live TV premieres, live sports and prime-time content. Addressability is making this exclusive inventory accessible to smaller buyers and giving all buyers a chance to test campaigns without breaking the bank.
The linear addressable “white whale”
Most programmatic buyers can list off statistics on the meteoric rise of CTV. Ad spend is chasing growing audiences. But savvy programmatic buyers are always looking for ways to expand reach and find new audiences, while prioritizing premium inventory.
In that regard, linear TV has always represented a “white whale” of sorts, living at the intersection of all of these wants. These are millions of viewers, many of them in valuable demographics, untapped by programmatic campaigns. And these viewers are watching premium inventory. (After all, there’s nothing more premium than live TV premieres and sporting events.)
Yet today, most advertisers still treat programmatic and traditional linear TV as two entirely separate business lines. On one side, programmatic teams drive digital-first campaigns across over-the-top (OTT) apps and OEM devices, using real-time targeting and attribution to guide their spend. On the other side, linear TV teams manage traditional TV buys, often using audiences developed by the programmatic teams, but with the benefit of broader reach.
Programmatic buyers would love to break down this wall. But today, most of the options that exist in the budding linear addressable space are clunky and feel foreign to programmatic buyers. They want to be able to simply lift or expand their existing CTV strategies to linear addressable – not start over from scratch or have to engage separate experts.
Bringing linear TV into the programmatic universe
The back end of linear TV has been growing increasingly digital for years now. And today, some linear TV providers are developing ways to lay new digital pipes onto the linear TV framework and bring a modern level of audience addressability and attribution.
With both linear and CTV offerings, we are in a unique position at DISH Media. We’ve learned a lot as pioneers in the CTV space, building and expanding our Sling TV offering. Those insights served as guideposts in building out our new linear addressable offering, which we dubbed DISH Connected.
The essential goal: Give programmatic buyers a consistent experience from CTV to linear. They should be able to use the same audiences across different programmers, implement the same tactics and rely on the same attribution metrics.
The vision is to break down the silos and unify the marketplace, so buyers have a choice on how they run, whether it’s CTV, linear or programmatic, with the same data inputs and outputs throughout.
Giving programmatic buyers what they want: flexibility and transparency
Another key lesson from the early days of programmatic advertising is that flexibility and transparency are essential. Programmatic buyers want real-time flexibility and transparent attribution, and these are precisely the elements that have driven the success of CTV.
Unfortunately, many larger players in the industry have moved away from this flexibility in recent years. As we expand into linear addressable TV with DISH Connected, we see it as an opportunity to double down on giving programmatic buyers what they want. That means no minimum budgets, no locked-in deals and no unnecessary hoops to jump through.
In fact, if buyers want to work through DSPs and never talk to the linear provider, they should be able to do that. And if they prefer 1:1 deals or guaranteed deals, they should be able to do that, too.
Programmatic buyers respond enthusiastically to this level of openness and flexibility. We’ve seen this dynamic firsthand with Sling TV. We believe that’s how the entire programmatic TV ecosystem should operate.
Democratizing access to linear TV inventory and audiences
One key outcome of this kind of open, flexible approach to linear addressable: It introduces the power of linear audiences to buyers who traditionally didn’t have the resources to work directly with large players in the linear TV space.
Traditionally, buying linear TV inventory required a significant investment – an insertion order (IO) and a large upfront commitment. For many smaller programmatic buyers, this was a barrier they couldn’t overcome.
Integrating linear TV into a flexible and transparent programmatic ecosystem breaks down these barriers. Imagine a small agency or a boutique brand having access to premium live sports events on linear TV, programmatically, without having to commit to a budget-crippling investment or months of planning.
But this isn’t just about helping the smaller players; it also makes linear addressable a practical channel for experimentation. Programmatic buyers accustomed to testing new inventory and optimizing in real time will be able to do the same with linear TV, using the same targeting and attribution tools they’re already familiar with.
Steering the successful evolution of the programmatic marketplace
The merging of programmatic advertising with traditional linear TV will be one of the revolutionary moments on the digital media timeline. Bringing fine-grained addressability and attribution data to untapped, large-scale linear TV audiences will enable a more holistic approach to campaign planning. Even the smallest players will be able to test linear campaigns and inject new ad spend into the market.
We’re excited to see that revolution take shape in the next few years. And as a player shaping this linear revolution, we’re adamant about our role in maintaining the flexibility, transparency and accessibility that we believe are essential to a functioning programmatic marketplace.
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