Save Here, Spend There: Capitalizing on Ad Distribution Efficiencies

Do you wish you had more funds for a more robust media campaign?  Do you want to explore ad tech, expand into digital, add more reach and frequency, or create additional creative?  Comcast Technology Solutions recently partnered with Advertising Age to present a webinar on creating ad distribution efficiencies showcasing ways an advertiser can create “found money” through choosing the right ad delivery partner.

Ad delivery is an oft-overlooked way for advertisers to free up financial resources to optimize every step of a campaign lifecycle, and improve the quality and reach of their ads in the process (you can watch the webinar presentation on demand here). Ad distribution is a necessary stage of a campaign – a solution an advertiser is already paying for, and with a new fresh look at your delivery model one can uncover some huge opportunities to improve your bottom line. Even better, the benefits of a smarter delivery ecosystem can be felt across every campaign.

Quality is an expectation, not a differentiator

Once your well-planned ad strategy has turned into a gorgeous, compelling video ad, that ad needs to get to every desired destination, no matter the location or device. It needs to arrive on time, of course; but it also needs to arrive securely, in the correct format, and ready-to-air. Ad distribution refers to that “final mile” of a video campaign’s roadmap:

• Ad delivery puts the finishing touches on a video through versioning, watermarking, closed captioning, and other specifics based on the needs of both the messaging and of the final destination.
• Files are transcoded into a multitude of formats for all networks, stations, and media types, quality checked and then…
• Ads are delivered for display with reliable quality, underscoring the value of a message instead of undercutting it with poor visual appearance.

Consumers are extremely quality-sensitive when it comes to video. Buffering, delays, or other disruptions have a negative impact on an ad’s perception. One blowback of this is that an agency’s client may feel like the campaign wasn’t well received, when in fact it was a delivery issue that lowered the impact of the ad. The first order of your ad distribution workflow is to protect and optimize the perception of your good work.

Example: When “If it ain’t broke” just isn’t good enough

Your ad delivery processes – and your partners – should utilize best-of-breed technologies and workflows, optimizing quality and cost at the same time. Video advertising can take up a huge portion of an advertiser’s budget. According to IAB’s 2017 Video Ad Spend Study[1], ad spend on original digital programming has nearly doubled since 2015. There are lots of ways in which a modern delivery partnership can bring back client-winning results, while also saving big dollars that can be funneled back into an expanding media budget.  

For example, we handle the distribution and production services for all markets of a luxury auto manufacturer. Being that Comcast is the fourth largest advertiser ourselves, this client was intrigued by our host of time- and cost-saving advantages:

• Automated ad spot delivery workflows and a centralized storage portal
• Ability to instantly review spots, place orders / traffic instructions, and track deliveries
• Optimized and consolidated distribution to reduce the cost of sending spots
• Free delivery to 1450+ Comcast Spotlight syscodes, no late fees, no charge for reslates

During the onboarding process, we took a deep-dive with this partner into ways they could improve processes and reduce overall spend in relation to ad distribution. Along with delivery, their spots needed a huge volume of versioning to reach a wide and disparate audience. The previous approach was to manually tag both High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) spots, however the SD spots were less prevalent and only sent on an as-needed basis. Upon receiving the destination list for their first order, we saw that only approximately ten percent of the tagged SD spots were actually being used, representing a lot of unnecessary work and expense. We recommended that only HD spots are tagged, and our automated SD down-convert workflow is employed when it’s needed.

Long story short: once all the benefits stacked up, our recommendations to this client have resulted in an overall savings of 50% in ad distribution costs, in conjunction with their ability to reach over 18,000 online media destinations including national and local broadcast and cable, radio, online, and out-of-home (OOH).

If you’re looking for more ways to extract the most value from your video campaigns, take a look at our recent ebook, Top 5 Ways to Optimize Your Client’s Ad Budget. You can download it here.  Or, simply drop us a note – our team loves to find better ways to bring ads and customers together.