With the right support systems in place, including a central order management system, publishers will be set up for success.
By David Dembowski who is the Senior VP of Global Sales at Operative.
Streaming media is taking off in popularity around the world, with one in five people on earth expected to use it by the end of the decade. Streaming brings together the best part of television and digital, offering high-quality viewing experiences with the data-driven interactivity of the internet.
Advertisers are also embracing streaming. With an expected advertising spend of $137bn by 2027, it’s expected to surpass linear TV spend in many markets by that time.
One innovation that has captured advertiser attention is dynamic content optimisation, also known as dynamic creative optimisation or DCO. This software creates multiple variations by combining media and components, and then targeting the optimal one for a target viewer. This enables advertisers to deliver more relevant ads efficiently and at a large scale. They can deliver ads on a big screen next to premium content, using personalisation, automation and real-time responsiveness for a much more relevant ad experience. DCO is a major opportunity for advertisers on streaming.
Benefits of DCO for Streaming
Streaming media does not have the same limitations as linear TV, which is mostly used by advertisers for mass reach or locally targeted advertising. With the benefits of being a digital channel, streaming delivers several benefits to advertisers, such as the ability to use data, automation and targeting.
First, DCO enables advertisers to personalise ads. It enhances the value of an ad impression and increases engagement by showing the right ad to the right person.
Second, DCO delivers automation. Advertisers only need to provide the individual imagery, copy and targeting data, and the technology will do the rest. DCO can analyse, assemble and send ads to an advertiser’s ad-tech stack, ready to be served in near-real time.
And third, DCO offers real-time or near-real-time responses, which can improve ad performance. For example, advertisers can feed the DCO system real-time online search or shopping data, or the DCO system can use recent response data from ads shown to similar viewers to deliver timely messages and optimise ads over time.
How DCO Works for Streaming Media
DCO can be thought of as a next-generation creative assembly line. The technology takes different images, text and sound (such as music or talk tracks) and assembles them on the fly. DCO can create thousands of different versions of an ad automatically based on data and analysis of individual viewers, to deliver a personalised experience.
AI and ML enhance DCO to make it smarter and more efficient. DCO uses AI to gain viewer insights from large amounts of data, and to assemble ads at a massive scale with ease. This next-generation technology can also use AI to predict what a viewer might react to based on the response of similar viewers in the past.
For example, Hulu uses DCO to match advertisements to the mood, genre and past preferences of a viewer. This has been proven to lift key advertiser metrics such as brand awareness, purchase intent and ad recall. Similarly, Spotify implements DCO for personalised audio advertising that has also driven improvements in ad performance.
Implementing DCO for Streaming Media
Although DCO is a powerful new advertising technology, it comes with some challenges, including issues with data quality, creative consistency and performance measurement. Publishers must have a few things in place to minimise issues and maximise their lift from DCO.
An order management system (OMS) can help publishers by providing a centralised catalogue for all creative assets for each campaign and advertiser, providing structure, organisation and easy automation. An OMS can also provide seamless connectivity to other systems including ad serving, which allows publishers to deliver DCO-enabled campaigns at scale with accuracy. An OMS also catalogues data from the campaign to aid in reporting and billing, so that publishers can capture revenue quickly and easily. DCO presents a new revenue opportunity for publishers, and with the right support systems in place, including a central order management system, publishers will be set up for success.
