CTV Best Practices

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Overview of CTV Best Practices

CTV is a specific subset of OTT, defined as content streamed only on televisions that are connected to the internet via Smart TV apps, Game Consoles and Set Top boxes.

The following is an overview of the best practices for setting up a successful CTV campaign on the Pontiac platform:

  1. Run through Deals as opposed to the Open Exchange, as this will allow for premium, fraud free placements.
    • Deal access can be requested in the ‘Inventory’ tab, then associated to the Line under ‘Targeting’. Select Deals with ‘Inventory Types’ that are ‘CTV’ or ‘OTT’. To ensure the Line only serves through selected Deals, DO NOT ASSOCIATE ANY EXCHANGES.
  2. Do not add frequency caps. Although Frequency Capping is available for CTV lines, it is often inaccurate and will severely limit scale as many CTV publishers do not consistently pass device IDs and user IDs across platforms.
  3. Enable the ‘Allow for Cookieless Users’ box. Cookies are not typically available across CTV devices, and requiring them may prevent lines from serving.
  4. Target ‘Instream’ Inventory by selecting ‘PreRoll’, ‘MidRoll’ and ‘PostRoll’ video playback types.
  5. It is only recommended to use audiences from the providers TruAudience (Tru Optik), Lotame and Comscore. While these audiences are intended for CTV, they may still limit scale.

How to set up CTV using Deals

  1. Request Access to Deals and Create or Select a Deal List:
    • The first step in setting up a successful CTV campaign is to select the PMPs or ‘Deals’ that the Line will target. Read more on Deal Inventory here: Open Exchange vs. Deal Inventory
    • For CTV Lines, select Deals with the Inventory Type ‘CTV’ or ‘OTT/CTV’. As a best practice we recommend selecting and targeting every Deal that fits your campaign’s needs. There is no limit to the number of Deals that can be associated to the Line and due to the premium nature of this inventory the auctions can be very competitive. Selecting many Deals will increase the ability of the Line to scale. Additionally, for content that most closely mimics a linear TV experience, we recommend focusing on Deals with the formats ‘Live’ and ‘Long Form’ as this will display your ad either during live shows or full episodes. You can also select from pre-set ‘CTV’, ‘Long Form CTV’ and ‘CTV – Full Episode’ Deals lists or create your own custom Deal List that can easily be added to multiple Lines. In the ‘Inventory’ tab, request access to the Deals you would like to use. Deal access will be approved in 1-2 business days and from there the Deals can be associated with a Line Item for targeting.
  1. Upload Creative:
    • If you do not yet have an Advertiser created for this campaign, first create the Advertiser. Then open the Advertiser and upload one or more Creatives that meet the OTT/CTV Specs, see here: Pontiac CTV & OTT Specs
    • The Creative will need to pass the Creative Audit which may take up to 24 hours.
  1. Set-up a Line Item:
    • Under the Advertiser, create a Line Item following these recommendations:
    • Inventory Type: CTV
    • Platform KPIs: Reach or VCR
    • Frequency Caps: Because device IDs and user IDs are not always available, frequency-capped CTV video campaigns can be more challenging to scale than desktop and mobile campaigns. For this reason, we recommend setting caps to 0.
    • Bid Strategy: The PMPs are real-time bidding environments with a specified price floor as defined by the publisher. This is the minimum CPM bid required to enter the auction. These auctions can be very competitive and typically, PMPs will clear somewhere between 40-80% higher than the Deal Price Floor. Closing CPMs are on average in the $30-60 range, with the most premium inventory running between $60-100 CPMs. Closing CPMs will vary greatly according to the caliber of publishers and inventory selected, where the PMP falls in the publisher waterfall, the level of competition, the format (Live, Short Form etc), the time of year and more. In general, we recommend using the price floors for guidance and adding an additional 40-50% to start the bidding. If you are not achieving the desired scale, continue to increase bids.
    • Allow for Cookieless Users: Enable this feature, Cookies are not typically available across CTV devices, and requiring them may prevent lines from serving.
    • Foot Traffic Attribution: This is available for CTV at a $4 CPM, add this additional cost to your bid CPM.
    • Exchanges: Remove ALL Exchanges.
    • Deals: Select the CTV Deals that you would like to purchase inventory through, or in the ‘Deal List’ tab, add Pontiac Curated Deal Lists or your own Custom Deal List to associated all Deals within that list.
    • Geo Targeting: Zip Code, DMA, State, or Country
    • Device Types: Leave the Device Types set to ‘TVs’, ‘Game Consoles’ and ‘Set Top Boxes’.
    • Operating Systems: Leave all operating systems selected
    • Video Playback: Select from ‘PreRoll’, ‘MidRoll’, and ‘PostRoll’, recommended to include all three. Do NOT select ‘Outstream’.
    • Video Size: Do not select a size.
    • Viewability Threshold: NOT AVAILABLE
    • Ads.txt: NOT AVAILABLE
    • Creative: Associate a Creative that meets the OTT/CTV Specs.
    • Audience Targeting: It is only recommended to use audiences from the providers TruAudience (Tru Optik), Lotame and Comscore. These can be found by filtering by ‘Provider’ in the Audience tab. Associate the selected audience to the Advertiser, then to the Line Item under ‘Associate Segments’. Keep in mind that these audiences are intended for CTV, but they may still limit scale.
    • Conversion Pixels: The standard ‘Conversion Pixel’ cannot be used. To track online conversions driven by a CTV Line, you can use an IP Conversion pixel. Read more here: IP Conversion Pixels

How to set up CTV with Exchanges

  1. Create an App List (Optional)
    • If you would like to run through the Open Exchange, it is highly recommended that you target an app list to specify the apps/channels where you would like the Line to run. For CTV, if you do not supply an app list, the Line will run may be able to run on TV apps that are not strictly for streaming TV content. For example, TV Weather apps.
    • To create a custom CTV app list, go to the ‘Inventory’ tab and enter the app domains you would like to target. For example, in the Custom App List box enter ‘com.slingtv.ctv.aetv.roku’ to target the Roku A&E app. You must then add the App List to the Line.
  1. Upload Creative
    • If you do not yet have an Advertiser created for this campaign, first create the Advertiser. Then open the Advertiser and upload one or more Creatives that meet the OTT/CTV Specs, see here: Pontiac CTV & OTT Specs
    • The Creative will need to pass the Creative Audit which may take up to 24 hours.
  1. Set up a Line Item
    • Under the Advertiser, create a Line Item following these recommendations:
    • Inventory Type: CTV
    • Platform KPIs: Reach or VCR
    • Frequency Caps: Because device IDs and user IDs are not always available, frequency-capped CTV video campaigns can be more challenging to scale than desktop and mobile campaigns. For this reason, we recommend setting caps to 0.
    • Bid Strategy: Closing CPMs are typically in the $20-40 range. However, this will vary greatly according to the caliber of the publishers and inventory being targeted. We recommend starting with bids in this range, and if you are not achieving the desired scale, continue to increase bids.
    • Allow for Cookieless Users: Enable this feature, Cookies are not typically available across CTV devices, and requiring them may prevent lines from serving.
    • Foot Traffic Attribution: This is available for CTV at a $4 CPM, add this additional cost to your bid CPM.
    • Exchanges: Include the Exchanges through which you would like to purchase inventory. Under the ‘CTV/OTT’ Exchange category you will find the predominately CTV based Exchanges. It is recommended to select exchanges from this section.
    • Geo Targeting: Zip Code, DMA, State, or Country
    • App List: If you created an app list to target, associate this list to the Line as an ‘Allow’ list.
    • Device Types: Leave the Device Types set to ‘TVs’, ‘Game Consoles’ and ‘Set Top Boxes’.
    • Operating Systems: Leave all operating systems selected
    • Video Playback: Select from ‘PreRoll’, ‘MidRoll’, and ‘PostRoll’, recommended to include all three. Do NOT select ‘Outstream’.
    • Video Size: Do not select a size.
    • Viewability Threshold: NOT AVAILABLE
    • Ads.txt: NOT AVAILABLE
    • Creative: Associate a Creative that meets the OTT/CTV Specs.
    • Audience Targeting: It is only recommended to use audiences from the providers TruAudience (Tru Optik), Lotame and Comscore. Associate the selected audience to the Advertiser, then to the Line Item under ‘Associate Segments’. Keep in mind that these audiences are intended for CTV, but they may still limit scale.
    • Conversion Pixels: The standard ‘Conversion Pixel’ cannot be used. To track online conversions driven by a CTV Line, you can use an IP Conversion pixel. Read more here: IP Conversion Pixels