Why Innovative eTV is the New CTV in 2022

Linear TV and CTV continue to dominate political advertising budgets despite continued increases in cord cutting and impression difficulties. If you want to reach your voters, try eTV!

It's no secret that broadcast and cable TV advertising continue to boast the highest percentage of political ad spend despite the issues surrounding impressions served and cord cutting.

Samba TV’s Q1’22 State of Viewership Report paints the picture well: “The unbalance of linear reach remains a real problem for linear advertisers with the vast majority of linear ad impressions (94%) reaching and oversaturating the same 55% of TV viewers.”

In addition, an estimated 4.9 million people will cut the cord in 2022, bringing the total number of cord-cutters up to 55.1 million, or about 28.9% of U.S. households. 

Issues with cord cutting and impressions on linear TV are not new. Political advertisers faced these same obstacles with linear TV in 2020 and turned to Connected TV (CTV) to try to increase their reach. However, they were faced with lack of CTV inventory and scale which caused major issues with impressions served. 

For example, some states with competitive Senate races faced serious issues in the form of only about 20% of people making up 80% of the impressions served on their political ads. 

Despite these setbacks, CTV and linear TV are not showing any signs of slowing down with 2022 midterm spending projected as follows:

• Broadcast TV: $3.8 billion (vs. $3.05b in 2018)
• Cable TV/Satellite: $1.4 billion (vs. $1.2b in 2018)
• OTT/CTV: $1.2 billion

Midterm elections also have unique advertising challenges. In a time where fundraising is also underperforming, both granular, localized targeting for down-ballot initiatives and efficient ad spend are imperative, which is difficult to achieve on CTV and almost impossible to achieve on linear TV.

See the problem here? We do. Campaigns are spending the majority of their budgets to reach merely 20-55% of their audiences, all while being potentially outspent by their opponents and outside groups.

The Solution 

The solution to reaching your audience with your video content is simple: incorporate our award-winning Video Texting into your media mix. Made-for-TV quality ads down to direct-to-camera videos filmed on a smartphone can be sent with our technology.

Our Enhanced Text with Video, or eTV, has many features that set it apart:

1. eTV has the highest quality video & audio regardless of voter's phone carrier or device
2. Choose the preview frame of your 30+ second ad
3. 640 character eTV messages include trackable links and dynamic fields
4. Custom captions are added for the 83% of phones set to silent and the 50% of Americans who say they rely on video captions 
5. Highest delivery rate in the industry + best reporting of delivery status

If that is still not enough to convince you, here are three more reasons to incorporate eTV with or over CTV and linear TV:

1. Higher Quality Engagement – You and I both watch TV, and we both know that outside the Superbowl, we’re trying our hardest to not pay attention to the commercials. TV ad views are frequently low quality engagement. We get a drink, flip the channel, or grab our phone to check our text messages.
   
   And that’s why video texting is superior - people are constantly checking their texts. When you consider that over 85% of Americans have smartphones and that over 95%+ of texts are opened within the first five minutes of sending, it is a no-brainer to consider implementing the channel with the highest reach and visibility combination.

2. Tracking and Campaign Analysis – There’s no way to track if someone saw your TV ad and interacted with your campaign’s website after the fact. But like CTV, you can easily see who has received your eTV text, who has replied, and you can even include a trackable link to capture who has taken an action after they have watched your ad.
   
   
3. Talk Directly with Voters to Gain Zero-Party Data –  The power of two way communication should not be underestimated and is simply not possible with linear TV or CTV. Voters’ responses to text messages are valuable pieces of zero-party data that your campaign can use to inform future outreach decisions and give you the perfect opportunity to turn undecided voters into supporters.
   

Bottom Line

Michele Certo of Sage Media Planning & Placement said it best: “Building outreach plans that rely on multiple mediums, in coordination with each other, provides the best opportunity to reach voters where they consume their information.” Add eTV to your media mix today by creating an account on rumbleup.com!

Still have questions or concerns about how video texting could best work for you? Please contact our sales team at (833) 530-4400 or sales@rumbleup.com and they will help find the best solution for you!