As the lines between upper and lower-funnel activity continue to blur on what was once viewed as an awareness channel, advertisers are getting wise to the performance opportunities now available within CTV.
Indeed, some marketers have already begun experimenting with shoppable ad units on the platform, though the practice has yet to take off at scale.
This is about to change, said Oz Etzioni, CEO and co-founder, Clinch, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
Shoppable CTV done right
“Shoppable is a great way of actually leveraging the bottom of the funnel into a channel that used to be considered top of the funnel,” Etzioni said. “You can think of it as shortening the path to purchase.”
As with any emerging format, however, advertisers would be wise to develop a strategy and avoid rushing in simply to test the technology, Etzioni cautioned.
“What we usually recommend brands and our clients is ‘don’t create a one-off experience’,” he said. “Don’t create something that is gimmicky, but something that actually provides value and show relevant content and can benefit the consumers.”
QR codes and native integrations
Etzioni’s company has developed technology that helps brands and agencies execute shoppable CTV activations within the native operating systems of smart TVs, without interrupting the programming viewers are watching.
One example involves showing QR codes on LG smart TV home screens, which offers a cleaner, more valuable user experience than embedding the ads into the actual programming, Etzioni said.
“That seems like a better experience, and also seems like an evolution of both retail media utility, and also shoppable,” he added.
AI’s role
Etzioni predicts a wave of innovation in the shoppable CTV space, as marketers learn how to activate across multiple CTV platforms simultaneously, create personalized content, and leverage first-party data to target the right audiences.
“I really see the whole concept of like shortening the path to purchase as something that is going to accelerate more and more with the ability, you know, utilizing AI,” he said.
“The ability to do that fast, efficiently…is a challenge,” he said. “I think that’s going to change real quick with the right tech partner, the right, you know, gen AI applications, it’s something that we’re going to see very, very soon.”
You’re watching “Connected Commerce: Reimagining CTV and Driving Ad Innovation, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at IAB ALM, presented by Albertsons Media Collective” For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
