MarTech Interview with Amy Guenel, VP, Product Marketing at Nexxen

What can help modern marketers boost their CTV ROI? Here’s what Amy Guenel, VP, Product Marketing at Nexxen has to say:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Amy, tell us about your marketing journey and more about your role at Nexxen…

I’ve been in the ad industry for nearly 20 years, jumping from agency-side media planning to ad product development and finally to product marketing. I’m currently Vice President of Product Marketing at Nexxen, where I’m responsible for ensuring the successful development and launch of our global suite of ad products for advertisers and publishers. It’s been exciting to watch the evolution and maturation of CTV over the past decade.

We’d love to hear more about Nexxen’s latest cross-platform for CTV feature and how it benefits end users? 

We are extremely excited about the potential of our cross-platform planner, as it’s helping fill a gap related to the convergence of linear and digital. Now that time spent streaming is starting to surpass traditional linear viewing, it’s critical that publishers and advertisers begin thinking about how they can reach their audiences in this new converged landscape. With the cross-platform planner, broadcasters can balance their yield optimization needs with advertisers’ preferred outcomes, and we will also be enabling buyers to use the tool so they can better understand how to activate across an array of inventory types and multiple sellers. Ultimately, the cross-platform planner is designed to bring a smoother advertising experience to consumers across all channels.

When it comes to the topic of optimizing cross screen video campaigns ROI, what do you feel brands today need to do more of? 

The first thing brands need to think about with their cross-screen video campaigns is frequency management. For example, connected TV (CTV) can be quite expensive, and reach is not infinite, so using a combination of CTV and online video (OLV) to maximize reach and frequency is an optimal strategy.

It’s also important to think about the story that can be told through message sequencing. Different screens can be used together to drive users from awareness to consideration to action. Retargeting users who have been exposed to ads on CTV using OLV, audio or display formats can be a great way to drive engagement more efficiently.

Think about creative executions that are catered to specific screens and audiences. CTV creative should be designed for the big screen, with calls to action that work well to drive awareness and simple user engagement, such as QR codes or branded slates, along with data-driven creative that personalizes the experience to a given household. For mobile and desktop, lean into more interactive and rich creative treatments to boost the message impact in busier environments and encourage more active user engagement.

What are some of the latest trends around CTV advertising that you’re following and those that you feel will shape a new future for this segment?

CTV has traditionally been seen as a branding channel, but recently, we’ve seen an uptick in demand for CTV as a performance-driver. Measurement on CTV has grown in sophistication and there are more options than ever before. Whether a brand is looking to measure upper-funnel brand metrics, like awareness or incremental reach, or they want to tie more closely to performance outcomes, like website conversions or app installs/engagements, there are myriad solutions available.

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Speaking of new trends, there’s been quite a lot of chatter around attention measurement in advertising of late. What does this look like in CTV, and what do brands need to know about attention measurement overall?

Despite the growing buzz surrounding attention measurement, it’s still very much in the test and learn phase. Since viewability has been the industry standard for years, it’s going to take time for advertisers to determine how attention will work with other metrics for planning and reporting, based on the impact it has on driving outcomes.

As it pertains to CTV, we must remember that many consumers are second-screening or simply have the TV on in the background while they do other things, which further validates the need for attention measurement. While the streaming platform or inventory source can certainly affect attention levels (i.e. paid subscription services typically have higher levels of attention, since the viewing instance is more intentional), there are additional factors to consider. Using compelling creative, for example, has a huge impact on capturing consumers’ attention. In addition, partnering with reputable Attention Measurement vendors like Lumen and Adelaide – who use TVision’s CTV panel data to assign Attention scores based on ad placement, dayparting, pod positioning and ad pod length – can also help to effectively allocate CTV budgets to garner maximum attention levels.

For brands wanting to optimize their CTV experience, what best practices would you share?

Leverage the unique targeting capabilities that CTV offers. Given CTV is a household device, understanding the content being viewed in the household will help you better understand the audience. This can be accomplished by leveraging TV viewership data via auto-content recognition (ACR) data or by using TV content signals like genre, language or rating.

Next, I’d recommend making sure your creative is built for CTV (versus using a repurposed asset from another channel). There are so many interesting creative treatments within CTV that can improve personalization and drive user engagement – think data-driven creative, QR codes, shoppable units and more.

And finally, be very intentional about what you’re trying to measure. CTV measurement has matured significantly over the past few years, and there are now so many more options for measuring campaign success beyond standard media metrics, ranging from branding to performance (such as incremental reach and frequency, tune-in, QR code scans, website visits, app installs, etc.).

Can you comment on the growing use of AI in this space? 

There are a few ways in which AI is starting to pop up in ad tech, impacting CTV as well as digital in general.

The most obvious application is with creative, and the ability to quickly craft AI-generated creative optimizations based on campaign or creative performance. While we think using AI to process a lot of data to make more informed decisions is useful, we also still believe in the human touch of creative, so for us at Nexxen, this will always be a blend.

Another application is enhancing performance algorithms and audience data modeling using machine learning and AI to improve optimizations and performance within the activation platforms (DSP or SSP). And thirdly, using AI to help streamline workflows such as using more automation tools to build out campaign wrap-up reports or fill out requests for information (RFIs), which have traditionally been more manual processes.  The potential for AI is huge, of course, but given ad tech is very much a service industry, we’ll need to continue to balance automation with human elements.

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Before we wrap up, take us through five must-dos you feel every B2B CTV advertiser needs to follow on a daily basis to make the right real time adjustment to campaigns or fuel better future campaigns.

I’ve already addressed a few of these, but five must-dos I’d suggest ever B2B CTV advertiser needs to follow are:

1. During campaign planning, think about the optimal way to manage reach and frequency across screens.
2. Ensure you’re leveraging creative that is built for CTV, not just repurposed from other screens, to drive the highest impact.
3. Be thoughtful about how you plan to measure your CTV campaign, ensuring it aligns with your business outcomes.
4. Explore new metrics, such as attention, to determine the impact they can have on campaign performance.
5. Remember: CTV isn’t just a branding vehicle. Think about how you can use it to drive performance.