As brands try to make sense of a fragmented media ecosystem, performance measurement remains one of the biggest obstacles. For Tej Desai, executive vice president of client leadership at OMD USA, connected TV has emerged as a way forward, particularly as marketers look beyond narrow platform metrics and toward more holistic outcomes.
Social remains powerful but siloed
Desai said marketers are increasingly focused on understanding success across channels, rather than optimizing within isolated environments.
“As an agency, what we’re trying to do is figure out holistically, cross channel, how do we measure success,” he said in this interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan.
That challenge is especially acute in social media, where measurement often stops at the platform boundary.
“To get cross channel is really tough with the walled garden,” Desai said.
CTV, he added, creates an opportunity to bridge those gaps when paired with the right data infrastructure.
“CTV provides a great way to do that,” he said, pointing to clean rooms and partners such as LiveRamp that can help “aggregate some of that data together” and deliver “outcomes that are more holistic than you can look to optimize across channels, as opposed to just a siloed channel like social.”
CTV levels the playing field for brands of all sizes
Desai said CTV’s growing appeal spans both direct-to-consumer and traditional brands, largely because of how it connects performance with data.
“I think it all starts with data,” he said.
Brands in categories such as retail, travel and B2B often have a significant advantage because “they sit on a treasure trove of first-party data,” allowing them to better understand their consumers. Other categories face more hurdles.
“You’ve got other brands like CPG that have a little more challenge,” Desai said, noting that those companies “rely on retailers to figure out sort of what’s happening with their audiences, with their products.”
At the same time, CTV platforms are becoming more accessible to smaller advertisers. Desai said many providers are now working “with smaller advertisers with managed service, with programmatic to really help them get into the fold, where before they might not have been able to play there.”
Data and context drive smarter optimization
While audience data is foundational, Desai said contextual signals also play an important role in improving performance.
“The combination of the data you have on the audience combined with the contextual signals, I think really provide that holistic,” he said.
That blend allows marketers to move faster and adapt campaigns in flight.
“You’re able to optimize your budget,” Desai said, “and maybe shift on different products, different goals, different advertising campaigns.”
Shoppable creative is reshaping streaming performance
When asked to identify one innovation that has moved the needle most in CTV, Desai pointed to interactive commerce features.
“For streaming, for me, I think shoppable creative ad units has been incredible,” he said.
Reducing friction, he added, benefits both brands and audiences.
“The more that we can remove friction for audiences that are consuming media, the better,” Desai said.
Features such as QR codes and text-to-purchase tools make it easier for viewers to act without leaving the streaming environment. As Desai put it, anything that “can get you to a basket or a cart faster is great for sales for a client, but also great for a consumer experience.”
As CTV continues to evolve, Desai said performance-driven media will increasingly depend on how well data, context and creative work together across channels rather than in isolation.
You’re watching Performance Marketing in Streaming TV: The Strategies & Innovations Driving Outcomes, a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by Wurl. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
