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Another upfront TV buying season is upon us, and as brand marketers once again seek to secure their TV media, the question many advertisers are asking in this evolving landscape is, “How can I reach and engage my target audience?”

Fragmentation has been at the forefront of the TV conversation for several years, as advertisers grappled with the proliferation of screens, devices and platforms now available to consumers. Compound this with the challenges of 2020 and 2021, which pushed advertisers to demand greater flexibility as they sought to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions. As a result, many marketers were simply treading water to stay afloat. Yet as we prepare for the 2022 upfronts, it’s time to put marketers back in the driver’s seat and empower them to build unified cross-screen strategies.

Connected TV (CTV) viewership continues to grow, and as a result ad budgets are following suit. True cross-screen advertising is the future of TV, and as an industry we need to support the tools and partnerships that enable cross-screen advertising from planning to buying to attribution. Here are some things to consider about demos, measurement and choosing the right partner to deliver the results you’re looking for.

1. Finding your audience. As advertisers seek to reach more precise audiences, there is a growing demand for data-driven, behavioral targeting. For example, an automotive brand looking to reach likely sedan buyers would not want to limit its targets to adults in a certain age range. Rather, it would want to look at both demographic and behavioral attributes to create an optimal audience segment.

Today’s audience-based strategies allow advertisers to reach a narrower target, which can be a more efficient use of their ad budgets. Meanwhile, for an advertiser attempting to engage a broader audience or run a brand-awareness campaign, demo-based audiences are still a highly valuable means of targeting. It all comes down to your campaign goals and desired business outcomes.

Given current trends, we expect audience-based buying to command nearly half of all spend in the next 18 to 24 months.

2. The power of partnership. When implementing a cross-screen TV strategy, you must choose partners you trust, at both the agency and vendor level. You should be confident in leveraging your first-party data within a trusted, secure platform. Many of our customers have activated their first-party CRM data across channels, and this has generated some of the strongest results.

In addition to first-party data onboarding, your partners should provide access to a wide range of premium third-party data. This includes the ability to combine your first-party segments with third-party segments—from multiple providers—to create the most robust, scaled audiences possible.

It’s also important to choose a partner that can support your cross-screen strategy from end-to-end. There are inherent challenges that come from working with multiple partners, whether it’s additional fees or siloed measurement. The ideal cross-screen TV campaign is supported by a solution that can connect audience data, inventory, and measurement in a unified manner.

3. Measuring up. The currency for measuring TV reach is going through an evolution—or perhaps even a revolution. TV measurement has moved from an afterthought to being an integral part of every advertiser’s needs, and nowhere is that change more apparent than within the advanced TV space.

In this new era of accountability, advertisers and their agencies are seeking out cohesive measurement solutions that are baked into the media plan, measuring the impact of TV ads on brand perception, reach and eventual sales, so budgets are not wasted chasing metrics that fall outside their objective. A reliable partner will enable closed-loop measurement of metrics like sales lift, return on ad spend (ROAS), foot traffic and web engagement.

4. Watch and learn. Finally, you need to be willing to test your strategy and learn from each campaign’s performance. After just one or two campaigns, you will be able to refine what works—and what doesn’t—for your brand and your KPIs.

We believe the future of TV advertising will rely on the ability to engage audiences across any screen or delivery method, whether they’re watching on smart TVs, mobile devices, tablets or through set-top-boxes and antennas.

We know audience data is key, so we are directing our innovation toward creating streamlined solutions that help advertisers activate first- and third-party audience data, gain access to inventory and measure the performance of campaigns against KPIs.

As Cadent continues building its data marketplace, we will keep adding premium data vendors and improve customers’ ability to get real-time counts against any audience or inventory source. For the industry at large, one thing is clear—the converging TV ecosystem is reaching an exciting apex. In the months and years to come, we look forward to guiding advertisers in correctly identifying their target audiences and engaging those audiences across an ever-growing constellation of TV media.

Cadent powers the evolution of TV brand advertising. We provide marketers, agencies, operators, and media owners with data-driven solutions for buying and selling TV advertising. By connecting brands with opportunities across national inventory sources—cable, broadcast, and OTT—our technology improves efficiencies and boosts the results of linear, addressable, and cross-screen campaigns. For more information, visit cadent.tv or follow @CadentTV.

Prashant is VP of product management at Cadent. He oversees product management for Cadent Aperture Platform, which includes Aperture Viewer Graph, audience management, Aperture DSP, and data ecosystem initiatives. Prashant joined the Cadent team via the acquisition of 4INFO, where he was the head of product overseeing the DSP, audience solutions and graph.