Connected TV may be having a “moment” – but the future is about allowing brands to advertise through both connected and linear television.

That’s according to an ad-tech exec who is trying to give them that capability.

There’s been a lot of chat in the industry about the growth of CTV of up 50% in COVID time,” says Amobee chief commercial officer Jack Bamberger.

“But what’s interesting separately is that linear is up actually 10% in the last six months as well.

“Linear is still very much here to stay. No one’s walking away from broadcast television.”

Come together

Bamberger joined Amobee in April after serving as Verizon Media’s VP of global partnerships, bringing relationships with global agencies and other accounts following earlier stints at MEC, Dentsu, Meredith, Time Warner and IPG.

In September, the company launched CTV Allocator, a product allowing ad buyers to combine negotiated upfront and newfront direct ad buys with programmatic deals, thereby unifying the two channels.

“If you’re buying in the upfront or you want to buy linear TV and CTV together, we have a data-driven tech platform that will help you minimise excess frequency and reach overlap as well as improve efficiencies across your direct sold CTV and your programmatic CTV with your existing linear schedule,” Bamberger says.

“And since everyone right now is trying to figure out how do you smartly plan, buy, and allocate CTV, it’s really critical because you’re trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of your buy and give yourself the best possible cross screen experience that’s optimised for reach and frequency.

Bamberger says CTV Allocator gives buyers results in less than five minutes.

Fraud-fighting

As connected TV audiences and ad spend grows, the medium is drawing more bad actors, like fake apps which spoof traffic in order to generate ad revenue – ad fraud.

“It’s really important that folks know and trust what we’re doing, how we’re delivering inventory, media and that we are a company that you can trust to make sure that you’re getting what you pay for,” Bamberger says.

“So for us to have a fraud-free guarantee and CTV as a partnership with DoubleVerify was really critical.”

Whilst TV, even internet-connected TV, is widely considered to be safer and more dependable than other forms of digital advertising, fraud is creeping in.

DoubleVerify’s (DV) new Global Insights Report 2020 lifts the lid:

  • Q1 2020 CTV fraud was 161% up on the prior year.
  • Since March 2019, DV has identified 1,300 fraudulent CTV apps — 60% of which were identified in 2020.

Methods include:

  • Fraudulent apps containing bots
  • Cloud server farms
  • Spoofing

This video is part of CTV Grows Up: Making a New Medium More Efficient & Effective, a Beet.TV series presented by DoubleVerify. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.