Television Advertising

TV Advertising Is Popular Because It Works

About 99% of all US households currently receive broadcast channels, giving TV advertising the most extensive reach of any traditional or digital media tactic. TV advertising also has some of the best engagement rates of any ad platform, making it one of the most effective ways to increase visibility for a brand quickly.

Television advertising becomes even more attractive when you consider that at least 23% of the country doesn’t have regular access to the internet, meaning they’re not regularly consuming ads. More importantly, people who typically consume a variety of digital media formats are known to experience “ad blindness.” This is when a user doesn’t even realize they’ve seen an ad because they were focused on the content the ad was running next to.

While TV viewers may view ads as intrusive because they interrupt the content they’re consuming, advertisers get much better ad engagement and message retention because, as long as the viewer doesn’t change the channel, they’re not being distracted by any other content.

The Cost and Pricing of TV Ads

Another reason television advertising is the most effective is because it instills a higher level of trust. While anyone can quickly create and launch an online ad using Facebook, TikTok, or Google, there is a considerable barrier to entry for running television ads like production costs and ad inventory costs.

Average TV Advertising Production Costs

The cost to produce a commercial will vary depending on length, production style, and the company producing the commercial. Typically, production costs begin around $2,000 for a 30-second commercial but can quickly go up from there depending on various factors, including:

• Whether the company decides to hire an ad agency or use cheaper in-house producers.
• The type of production crew they hire (experienced/inexperienced and big/small)
• The equipment and props needed
• The number of actors required
• The length of time it takes to shoot the commercial
• Whether or not any special production like animation, motion graphics, or CGI is required

Average TV Advertising Broadcasting Costs

Most of the costs involved in running a TV advertising campaign come from buying the actual advertising inventory. Typically the very low-end budget required to run a TV ad will be about $10,000 per month or $120,000 per year. These costs can quickly scale up based on various factors, including:

• Whether the company is advertising on local or national television stations
• How frequently the ad is shown
• What station the ad is running on
• What program the ad is running during
• How many views the ad receives each time it plays (CPM).

The most important thing about broadcasting is allocating enough budget to build authentic brand awareness. That’s why the more people a channel or program reaches, the higher the advertising costs.

For example, a 30-second Super Bowl ad can cost $6 million since over 100 million people flock to their television sets to watch the game, guaranteeing they’ll see the ad.

On average, we expect to see clients spend anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 per month on TV ads if they are running a local or regional campaign and $200,000 to $500,000+ per month if running a national campaign. However, since we can secure remnant TV ads, we can acquire far more impressions than would’ve been possible with the same spend.

Different Types of TV Advertising

The station a company decides to run its ad on determines broadcasting costs and level of viewership. The four main types of advertising that a company may choose from are connected cable television advertising, broadcast tv advertising, CTV advertising, and OTT advertising.

Cable Television

Cable television, or Linear TV, allows viewers to watch regularly scheduled programs in real-time as they air. With cable, a household can choose channels that pertain to them and pay for those solely. For instance, viewers who like the Food Network can subscribe to that channel or receive it in a cable package deal.

In turn, companies use the theme of a channel and its TV shows, matching the ads to the programs. By doing so, they’re adhering to a specific target audience with their insight into the viewers’ interests. Then, the companies sell those ideas back to the viewers via ads, creating a high return on investment (ROI).

Broadcast Television

Broadcast television is free programming that delivers local news stations, sports, children’s programming, and more. There is no additional charge to households for these stations, unlike cable, which allows 99% of US homes to access this basic programming.

Like cable television, TV commercials on broadcast television are very effective at building brand awareness for a company. Although many have begun to replace broadcast TV with free or inexpensive streaming options, it’s still a great way to target a vast audience.

Broadcast television has the trade-off of reaching the most people, but with the least amount of contextual targeting options.

Connected TV Advertising

Connected TVs, more commonly known as Smart TVs, access the internet, allowing viewers to stream their favorite shows. Connected TVs can directly download different streaming apps like Hulu or Paramount+, allowing users to stream content without the need for any additional hardware.

As opposed to cable television that delivers ads during set time slots, connected tv ads are not locked into specific programs or time slots. Instead, connected TV advertising platforms can use data they’ve collected about the users and their behaviors to determine the best ads to show them when they stream content.

OTT Advertising

OTT (Over-the-Top Television) advertising is essentially the same thing as connected TV advertising; however, you use external hardware like AppleTV or Amazon Firestick instead of streaming content with a smart TV. Like connected TV advertising, OTT ads are also served to users based on behaviors, interests, and demographics.

Although one can reach a large demographic with OTT advertisements, these platforms are best for brands looking for that difficult-to-reach millennial or Gen Z audience.

How We Measure TV Advertising

Like many other TV ad agencies, we can measure the success of TV advertisements using a few different tactics. First, if you are advertising using connected TV or OTT, you’ll be able to gain significantly more insight into your ad’s performance than you would via a cable or broadcast TV campaign.

We utilize several third-party tracking tools to better measure the success of our connected TV campaigns. As these ads are served over IP address, we are able to match the location of where an ad runs to any other devices that end up on your website or even making a purchase on your website in a 1 to 1 manner.

If you are advertising using cable or broadcast television, that technology digests the time commercials ran, the market the commercial ran in, and other factors in order to initiate website lift attribution analysis and determine the performance of your TV ads.

Two additional methods we employ are using a custom phone number and/or a custom website landing page on each of your different ads. For example, if you are running one TV spot on ESPN and one spot on MSNBC, you may place a unique phone number and website address on each ad. This way, as you receive website visits or phone calls to these pages, you can confidently attribute them to a specific ad.

Improve ROI With Remnant TV Advertising

Remnant TV advertising is essentially the same thing as traditional TV advertising. The main difference is that when buying remnant ad space, you’re buying inventory that the channel or platform could not sell at the last minute. Because the channel does not want to miss out on potential profits, they end up selling the space at a significant discount.

As a TV advertising agency, we have bought millions of dollars worth of media for our clients. When we buy remnant TV ad space, we are still buying slots on popular channels like FOX, MSNBC, ESPN, and Disney+, and our ads still run during popular programs like Sports Center, Hannity, and All In With Chris Hayes. The most significant difference between standard TV ad buys and a remnant TV ad buy is that with remnant ads, you can reach far more people with your ad with the same budget.

If you still have questions or want to know more about how our remnant TV advertising, remnant radio advertising, or any of our other advertising services can work for your brand or business, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation. Browse our portfolio and drop us a line on our contact form to start the conversation.