Foreword
The streaming decade is not just a golden age for consumers. It has also never been a better time for advertisers. The creative options are richer. The ad buying platforms are more precise. And the measurement is bringing clarity to CMOs and CFOs alike.
As America’s #1 TV streaming platform, TV starts here with Roku.1 In fact, since our ad business launched, nine out of 10 of the advertisers that have been in the Ad Age 200 have advertised with Roku. But it’s not just the largest brands shifting into TV streaming. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands are too. Roku provides what marketers need to succeed, starting with scale. As of the end of Q3 2021, Roku had 56.4 million active accounts. In Q3, 2021, The Roku Channel was a top five channel on the Roku platform in the U.S. by active account reach, and its streaming hours more than doubled year-over-year. Roku also enables brands to tell their best stories with creative built for TV streaming, while OneView by Roku, the ad buying platform built for TV streaming, helps marketers achieve better results from brand awareness to product sales.
The decade of streaming is accelerating. 2022 will bring fresh opportunities for the marketers who are ready. This guide will help you succeed on the road ahead.
Have a happy, healthy, and successful 2022.
Dan Robbins
VP, Ad Marketing & Partner Solutions
1. Performance Will Get Bigger on the Big Screen
34% of Q3 2021 spend in OneView used an algorithm that optimizes to an action. That’s up 27% compared to Q1 2021.
2. TV Creative Will Become More Interactive
The number of Roku customers using interactive ad units increased by about 34% year-over-year (YoY). [2]
3. Direct Consumer Relationships Will Drive Superior Outcomes
Advertiser spend on Roku Audiences is nearly as high as what brands spend on their own first-party segments. Both are derived from direct consumer relationships.
4. Customer Lifetime Value = The Golden Metric
Roku clients measure campaigns based on incremental reach, store visits, app downloads, and so much more. No single metric rules them all.
5. Ad-Supported Content Will Lead the Way
Reach on ad-supported channels grew by 23% from Q3 2020 to Q3 2021. Streaming hours of ad-supported channels on Roku also out-paced growth in overall streaming hours. [3]
Roku Advertising 2022 Predictions:
1. Brands will move beyond content creation to content distribution.
2. The first breakthrough hit will come to free, ad-supported streaming.
3. Growth marketers will go hands-on-keys with TV streaming.
4. Post-cookie identity solutions will become the most important consideration when selecting an ad platform.
5. Incrementality will become the preferred method for measuring growth.
For decades, brands have produced their own content. Think BMW Films’ web series “The Hire,” General Electric’s “The Message” podcast, and Microsoft’s “Learn TV.” Brands will use TV streaming to do more than just create compelling content. They’ll partner with platforms like Roku to produce content built for TV streaming and to maximize its distribution, amplifying their creations with customers, communities, and collaborators.
Bringing influencer marketing to TV:
To differentiate their offerings while appealing to a generation of social media natives, look for a rise in influencer marketing for TV.
Jordan Rost, Head of Ad Marketing, Roku
What brands stand to gain:
Takeaway:
Just as content creators rely on streaming platforms to distribute their streaming apps, partner with companies like Roku to deliver scale for your branded content. In addition, Roku Brand Studio can help you produce world-class, branded entertainment built from the ground up for TV streaming.
Sizing the exodus from traditional pay TV to TV streaming:
According to eMarketer, the number of US households that have cut the cord increased by 50% in just two years, going from about 19% in 2019 to over 27% in 2021 [4] In addition, content creators spent an estimated $13 billion on ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) content in the US in 2021, up from $10 billion in 2020. That number is forecast to reach $31 billion by 2026 [5] Meanwhile, ad-supported household reach on Roku was 80% higher at the end of Q3 2021 compared to Q3 2019.
Even sports, long seen as a category that would slow, if not prevent the collapse of traditional linear TV viewing, is drawing fans to TV streaming. According to Roku data:
Super Bowl
While the 2021 Super Bowl saw a 15% decline in traditional linear TV reach, YoY, TV streaming reach grew by 44% across channels on Roku that carried the Super Bowl during time of gameplay.
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament
More than 1 in 5 (22.6%) of 2019 traditional linear TV viewers of the tournament’s first rounds streamed a channel carrying the 2021 tournament during time of gameplay.[6]
NBA Finals
We observed a 78% increase in households (HHs) streaming the 2021 NBA Finals vs. 2019, and a whopping 64% of fans who watched the Finals on traditional linear TV in 2019 didn’t return to watch on linear in 2021.[7]
What brands stand to gain:
Brands should expect more blockbuster ad-supported content in which to invest than ever before. TV streaming services attract different sized audiences that can vary considerably in their profile and degree of engagement, so brands will need to monitor how audiences respond to these big hits to determine which ones will best support their goals.
Takeaway:
While brands may have more choices about where to invest and larger audiences to reach, they also should anticipate that advertiser demand will continue to outstrip supply. This dynamic will result in the continued importance of upfront buying.
In the early 2000s, many marketers who had grown up in print, radio, and TV advertising learned the art and science of digital advertising. Some 20 years later, digital marketers – and growth marketers in particular – will expand their skillset by learning TV advertising. But unlike yesterday’s traditional TV buyers, this generation of digital marketers will start with TV streaming.
Like search and social, but without the baggage.
Digital marketers who have mastered the programmatic platforms that anchor search and social advertising will prefer TV streaming ad buying platforms like OneView by Roku, which offer familiar plumbing, wiring, and user experience. Companies like Roku that serve content algorithmically based on machine learning will make this transition even more familiar. TV streaming offers a richer creative canvas than social, as well as a curated and safer environment when purchased direct or through a platform that has direct relationships with its customers. In this way, digital marketers will reap the benefits of social without its toxicity.
What brands stand to gain:
A full-funnel complement to search and social, as well as more control. Running ads with Roku can help you drive more volume into your conversion engine, such as an app or website, and convert more of that traffic to sales. (To learn more, check out our Social Media Marketer’s Guide to TV streaming.)
Learning TV streaming doesn't require a massive lift, and the benefits are substantial.
Elizabeth Cellini, Senior Manager of Sales Enablement, Roku
Takeaway:
Start learning TV streaming through programs like Roku Learning. The skills that you learn will augment what you already know about search and social.
As third-party cookies and mobile ad IDs head toward extinction, brands have an opportunity to become better stewards of consumer data and to improve ad measurement. Marketers can make good on this opportunity by forging direct consumer relationships and partnering with platforms that do the same.
The deprecation of third-party cookies reflected in advertiser attitudes [8]
Creating value for consumers.
Sustainable, accurate identity solutions will require establishing a direct, transparent consumer relationship, the health of which will depend on the value that brands offer their customers.
Louqman Parampath, VP of Product Management, Roku
What brands stand to gain:
Superior growth. Brands that have a direct connection to their customers and work with platforms that do, as well, will be able to offer a better customer experience. Direct-to-consumer apparel brand Smartwool experienced this when they ran TV streaming ads on Roku and then re-engaged on mobile the people who saw the ad. The result: a 72% increase in conversion rate.[9]
Takeaway:
Make sure your first-party data strategy includes a plan to create value for your customers. This can come in the form of free or exclusive TV streaming content or offers and discounts on products and services.
Advertisers have grown skeptical of conventional attribution models, whose approach to awarding credit to specific channels can defy common sense. As a result, many advertisers now rely on incrementality. Incrementality is an approach to campaign measurement that shows how much of a particular outcome can be attributed to advertising as opposed to what would have happened anyway. Incrementality will become the favored method to measuring growth, paving the way for advertisers to embrace true performance on TV.
Brad Murphy, Director of Performance Advertising, Roku
Lovevery, a DTC (direct to consumer) brand that sells stage-based play essentials for babies, is already doing just that. The company recently leaned into the Roku Core 6 to plan, execute, measure, and optimize its TV streaming campaign. They used Roku first-party data to build audiences by age segment, activated across multiple devices and channels, and measured incrementality to determine the lift in website visits and sales achieved by the ad campaign.
What brands stand to gain.
More transparency and accuracy when it comes to how they capture and report campaign results.
Takeaway:
Run your first incrementality test in 2022 and make it a best practice by 2023.
Conclusion
As you navigate a rapidly shifting marketing landscape in 2022, Roku is here to help. From guiding marketers to their very first TV streaming campaign to expanding campaigns across TV, mobile, and desktop, Roku has the scale, performance, and storytelling capabilities you need to build stronger brands and acquire more customers.
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Forward-looking Statements
The foregoing contains “forward-looking” statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us on the date of publication of this article. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts, and include statements relating to, among other things, predictions relating to advertising developments in 2022. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
- By hours streamed according to Hypothesis Group, Oct 2021
- Roku internal data comparing Q1-Q3 2020 to Q1-Q3 2021
- Roku internal data | Roku analysis of Nielsen data, Sept. 2021
- eMarketer cord cutting report, September 21, 2021
- Digital TV Research of AVOD content spending, 2020-2026 - May 2021
- “March Madness TV Streaming Trends: How We Watch the Big Dance” blog post
- Roku Platform Data 2021
- Roku survey of brand and agency executives, Oct, 2020
- Roku case study, 2021
