Boost eCommerce growth with compelling, data-driven Connected TV ads. Watch Ruben Quinones, VP of Client Strategy at Amsive, and our partners at MNTN, explore the evolution of CTV. Discover best practices for evergreen creative, how to measure the impact of CTV campaigns, and more.

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Ruben Quinones (00:02): 

All right. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Whenever you’re watching this, wherever you’re watching this. My name is Ruben Quinones from Amsive, and we are live. We talking today about driving compelling CTV ads, driving, e-commerce growth, something like that. I forget the title. I know it was a little bit long. And thank you for tuning in and like you, I’m learning every day, 20 plus years in this industry and always kind of learning. And I wanted to do that together with you and have a conversation with some great partners that we’ve been exposed to at the agency delivering some great solutions for our clients today. And we’ve been doing e-commerce specifically, and we’ll continue to do so every three weeks. So in case you haven’t been aware, you can go back and watch some prior videos. It’s either on LinkedIn or on the Amsive blog. 

Today, I’ve got Mountain TV as well as Quick Frame which they acquired. And we will actually talk through, I guess, a little bit about that relationship. But I’m excited to talk about Connected TV because it’s been a hot topic over the last few years, especially with the shift from linear to more of more digital in general. And it’s kind of why I’ve asked this partner to join us and have a conversation, not just about connected TV because we’ve been hearing a lot about this, but more about how we can actually have compelling ads on connected TV as well. So I’m going to bring in my first guest and as I do that, please mute your Alexas. I forgot to do that myself because her name is Alexa, so I will bring her on. Hi Alexa or Lexi. I guess I can just use that going forward. 

Alexa Tierney (02:06): 

Hi Ruben, how are you? 

Ruben Quinones (02:09): 

Good. So who are you? What do you do there? And I think I asked you, it was fun fact as well.  

Alexa Tierney (02:15): 

You sure did. Good to be here. Yes. To your point, feel free to call me Lexi because just, less chaos from all the Amazon devices out there. So I am the VP of Customer Success.

Ruben Quinones (02:29): 

I had to say that’s pretty cool. You have this name that—Technology around you, right? I wish I had that. 

Alexa Tierney (02:36): 

I guess so. But you’d be assistant go-to joke for Uber drivers. So that’s the one downside really asking the weather, but happy to be here today. So for just a little bit about me, I lead the CS Growth and partner teams at Quick Frame, which is a video production marketplace. So we do dabble quite a bit in CTV, so happy to be here today. And also a long time member of the Mountain family too. Yeah.  

Ruben Quinones (03:10): 

Fun fact. 

Alexa Tierney (03:11): 

Fun fact. Well, I am actually kind of a musical or was a musical theater nerd, so I always love getting a chance to kind of talk to people and even do these kinds of things. It brings me back to performance days, I guess. I used to do musical theater and improv and acapella. Yeah. So I was the theater nerd in school. 

Ruben Quinones (03:36): 

Nice. All right, very cool. And we’re going to bring on your partner in Crime at Mountains. I don’t know that I properly am introducing him. You are Dan Terek. Welcome, Dan. 

Dan Terek (03:53): 

Hey, good to see you. 

Ruben Quinones (03:53): 

Are you And what do you do there? And yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Dan Terek (03:58): 

Yeah, yeah, so I’m Dan. Most people wish they could turn their Dans off I’m sure out there, but unfortunately we just keep going regardless. 

Ruben Quinones (04:10): 

Yeah. When they say nothing happens, we we’ll say name. Otherwise, 

Dan Terek (04:15): 

Yeah, nothing goes off here. But no, I worked for Mountain. I’ve been with Mountain for about 10 years. I’m senior director of partner strategy here at Mountain. So predominantly working with agencies like yourself. Very cool. 

Ruben Quinones (04:31): 

And before you came on today, I was going to try to compete with you and clearly I can’t. 

Dan Terek (04:39): 

Well, no, this is my fun fact. I just came from Banff. We were in Banff for about a week, and when I got there I was clean shaven. This is what happens when you go to the Canadian Rockies for four or more days. You 

Ruben Quinones (04:55): 

Should have done it before you went, so you can kind of fit in. 

Dan Terek (04:58): 

Yeah, I didn’t really. 

Why CTV?

Ruben Quinones (05:02): 

Banff is beautiful, by the way, if you haven’t been. We were talking a little bit about it. You guys went during the summer, obviously I’ve been there during the winter, so really cool place to go to. That’s in Northern Canada. Is that northwest? Northern. Northwest, okay. That’s not why we’re here. We’re talking about compelling CTV ads, but from an agency perspective, I still always am kind of still making the case for connected TV in some cases.  

We’re a performance marketing company. And so curious what your exposure is to that. And we talked a little bit about it. Again, because of what you do, you probably had a lot of inbound and there’s already interest. But for someone who’s not convinced, why connected tv, let’s start off with that before we kind of talk about compelling creative. 

Dan Terek (05:59): 

Yeah, I mean it’s an interesting question that you’re bringing up too, or interesting comment, at least. We were all here in 2017 when we’re just trying to get our clients, the advertisers to use CTV in the first place was seven years ago. And I think the story I like to, I won’t talk about Mountain specifically, but the story I like to tell about it is 2019 holiday party, we had 104 invitees on the Mountain side and 2023 we’re clearing 500. The growth on connected television as a channel is definitively there. And you can look at eMarketer and you can see all the spending increases, et cetera. What has shifted where I think that the challenge is at this point is how are we leveraging the channel?  

Because we went so long with loose measurement, baseline measurement, things along those lines around CTV, that performance marketing organizations like yourself had a tougher time selling into the clients that were used to a certain level of measurement, a certain expectation around what a digital channel could provide, and could we really tap into that? So now it’s a matter of saying, look, we can go across the funnel. You want to do awareness, fine still is. It’s more capable than ever as a channel of being able to create additional awareness, purchase and time, et cetera. But as far as bottom of the funnel, mid funnel, there’s enough measurement tools, there’s enough capabilities out there where an effective channel in those areas. And that’s the challenge, introducing it in those spots I think specifically. 

Transitioning from linear TV to CTV

Ruben Quinones (07:50): 

Right, right. Lexi, have anything to add to that or maybe from the shift, is it easier for someone from linear to make that transition? I think I would think so, but can you speak to that? 

Alexa Tierney (08:06): 

Yes and no. I think it obviously depends on the type of business, but the nice thing is of course, someone who’s done linear, they know television, but because of that sometimes they almost copy paste that strategy onto CTV. And I think that’s the missed opportunity is not recognizing that it is much more akin to your digital channels than it is to linear tv. And so I think almost if you’re coming from that background, sometimes it’s breaking that habit and recognizing that the placement is comparable. It’s still that brand storytelling moment, but the targeting and measurement is very, very different. And the opportunities with it are different.  

So I think kind of the shift we see and talk more with our customers about is, yes, this placement is that rich storytelling moment, but keep in mind you can be a lot more targeted with your message on CTV on linear. And so honing your creative strategy based on that is something that we definitely recommend and talk a lot about with our partners. 

Ruben Quinones (09:21): 

So maybe you can validate maybe the way I kind of sell it is, well, it’s a lot more, you’re going from more of a placement strategy to more of an audience-centric strategy, which is what you’re hitting, which is targeting, which kind of leads to creative. But there’s this piece of, Dan you hit on it, is that it’s attributable still 20 years in the business, don’t know why.  

We are still having to make the case for what we do on the digital side. I’m like, but you’re buying based off of Nielsen rate. I still don’t understand that. But now with connected tv, there is some measurement. Can you kind of walk me through that? Dan is like, what do you mean by measure? What is available to you? What do you guys do at Mountain to kind of measure the impact of CTV? 

Dan Terek (10:12): 

Yeah, man. I mean, again, it depends on where you want to use it in the funnel, right? Let’s say 

Ruben Quinones (10:20): 

We’re doing paid search and display. How do you work in concert with that? Or because you guys have an analytics integration, right? So talk me through that a little bit, right? There’s some validation of the success of CTV there. 

Dan Terek (10:38): 

I mean, we have a few different integrations, but we’re talking lower funnel and we’re talking about paid search, certain ways to use meta, and we compare ourselves in there a lot. Then we have a direct integration with GA four on our end. So you don’t have to go outside the way that you’re used to looking at connect to television or the way that you’re used to looking at your performance marketing channels. If that’s how you want to use us, you can use CTV in that same way in order just to drive conversion. You can use a lot of the same audiences out there. You can use your first party audiences with retargeting, your CRM files, et cetera. Those are all available. And you can see it straight in GA four in the same way that you can meta and the same way you can search. Can you click on it? No, but is it still arrived there? I mean with certain parameters to make it a little bit more akin to that, then yes.  

Ruben Quinones (11:43): 

Absolutely. Right, right.

Measuring the impact of CTV

Dan Terek (11:45): 

Going up the funnel, you have MMM solutions, you’ve got your rocker boxes out there that were fully integrated with as well. And I want just to say, but we have rocker boxes, you’ve got plenty of mm m solutions. There’s ent, ai, which is relatively inexpensive in a way to really measure conversion lift. So if you’re looking at, I want to make sure that this is new to file conversions, but I still need my conversions to be profitable. My primary concerns top line revenue.  

Great. This is where no commerce pressing ai, all these types of measurement systems, AB testing as far as your audience holdouts concerned, are available to you and become less and less expensive over time. And then if you want to do awareness, great. upwa, everyone uses Lucid. I mean, I love Lucid. I think Upwa is a little better personally, but those are available at not huge costs 

Ruben Quinones (12:46): 

Either, right? So the lower funnel, from what I’m hearing, headlines GA four integration for the last click, let’s call it last click, where when you say upper funnel, mid upper funnel, you have the solutions like Rocker box or some of these other players that can show you view throughs. And I guess there’s a lift as well in your other channels that you can see lower.  

But depending on where you’re thinking about this in the funnel, you have different solutions that can help make a case for it. But you should see obviously more leads flow in over time because it should be making an impact. And I kind of made a case if we don’t have time to go through this case study that you guys have been graciously going to be able to share today, if we are not able to do that, we’ll do that in another session depending on time. But let’s talk about creative, right?  

So I’m just going to say Alexa, because I want to know how many Alexas actually are turning on Alexa. Alexa, Alexa, Alexa. What? Talk to me about how brands can make sure my Alexa just went off. How can brands make sure that their assets are optimized for connected tv? And actually sorry for the railing a little bit, the measurement piece, you can also measure by creative, correct? 

Alexa Tierney (14:21): 

Yes, exactly. So to your point, anytime we’re talking with a customer or we collectively try to recommend kind of twofold. One, there are of course best practices, which I can speak to a bit, right? What are the things that you just want to make sure your CTV ads include, especially if you’re trying to optimize for conversion performance or traffic. But then also we’re always going to say you should test because you can AB test and actually track and measure which variation in your test is driving a better visit rate or conversion rate, and ultimately, where are you seeing the best bang for your buck from a content standpoint.  

So leading with best practices, but then ultimately every brand’s going to have different results depending on what you test. And so testing and iterating is as important in your CTV strategy as it is with search and social, which people are obviously very, very used to doing. They’ve been doing that for years, and even you guys are experts in that. The same thing applies to CTB, but again, knowing that each brand’s different, each audience might have different things perform better or worse. There are a few things that we always just by and large see are going to help move the needle. And some of it may seem super basic, but you’d be surprised some of it’s new for people. But I think do mind if 

Ruben Quinones (15:56): 

I shared this slide please by all, but this was great breakdown, almost kind like a checklist of, and hopefully have the right slide up. There we go. Yep, there. Check your work. Kind of walk us through this. 

Alexa Tierney (16:08): 

Yeah, exactly. So I won’t worry about reading through all of it bit, but I think some of the key things, oh, 

Ruben Quinones (16:16): 

That’d be fun if you actually read through it. Go ahead. 

Alexa Tierney (16:20): 

Yeah. I think one of the key things for people to remember if you are making this TV commercial is to think about yourself as the user. When you’re sitting back and you’re watching a show on tv, what are you doing right? And you are engaged in that show. You’re going to be watching the ad, it’s nonskippable, but you probably also have your phone, right? You’re probably also sitting on the couch next to your significant other. You’re trying to move the dog off the couch, so you’re not always or the 

Ruben Quinones (16:51): 

Cat. The cat. 

Alexa Tierney (16:53): 

Yeah. You’re not always super actively attentively watching. So with CTV, when you’re making that spot, you want to make sure that you’re tapping into audio and visual cues. That’s one of the most important things. So one of the main things is when you’re starting out, most ad recall is going to happen in the first few seconds. We see that definitively, right? That’s when you’re capturing someone’s attention.  

So even things bright colors, catchy music, something uplifting, humor, joy, those elements are always going to be a little bit more of a driver of attention honestly, and ultimately tend to perform better. So using those first few seconds with something that is attention getting is going to help ensure that the person sitting on the couch is actually now paying attention. You’ve got ’em.  

The other thing that we say and see over and over again is, again, because you’re not necessarily paying attention to every second of that ad, you want to give the user as many opportunities to know who’s talking to them as possible. 

So some, I think brands make the mistake of waiting until the very, very last second of the ad to just, that’s when they show their logo or that’s when they show their end card call to action. And unfortunately when you do that, it gets missed a lot, right? Someone’s looking away in that second, or again, shoving some animal off the couch. You may miss it, and that’s a wasted impression. So we recommend keep that logo or even your URL present throughout the whole ad.  

It doesn’t have to be in your space, but something that helps show that person that’s on the other side, on that couch, what to do. You’re guiding them through this journey and you want them to know where to go and who’s talking to ’em. The other key thing, I’m jumping around a little bit on here, but the sound piece is really key because again, you’re doing multiple different things. So having voiceover to support your story, having something that’s actually you’re audibly hearing, that call to action is just going to help reinforce your message and make it that much more likely that someone’s going to take action.  

Those are some of the key things that I think help really make a difference from a performance lens. And when we do have advertisers testing this truly AB testing this, they’re normally going to see that that is where they’re seeing more visit and conversion lift than the alternative. So hopefully that’s helpful and at least some key, like you said, checklist items to make sure you’re really hitting the mark.

The role of QR codes in CTV

Ruben Quinones (19:52): 

Yeah, I always say it is always stick to the Ws, right? Where who are you, what do you do? Why go with you maybe, right? And what do you want me to do next? 

All the elements or the ingredients of a good ad, and that doesn’t fall off the table for a connected TV ad or just telling in general where sometimes I see missing ingredients, great ad, but I’m like, I don’t even know who you are exactly or what you want me to do. I get this question a lot and wasn’t necessarily there, but QR codes, what is the deal with that? Should you be using them? There’s this big confusion in the marketplace. What do you guys do? What do you guys recommend? 

Alexa Tierney (20:40): 

Yeah, between both of us, we hear it all the time. Hear all the time.  

Ruben Quinones (20:47): 

What is the QR code? No, I’m just kidding. It’s that scribbly thing right in the square. But yeah, what do you guys see and what do you recommend for that? 

Dan Terek (20:54): 

So look, man, I’ll just speak to the data that we have on this. Again, we were able to track visits in, I think a unique way in the field. You got to come back to the site with the next amount of time. You didn’t touch another paid media source. Great. Now you’re registered visit is successful, at least if we’re going to pass it to the GA four, when we look at that, 

Ruben Quinones (21:17): 

If someone’s on their device, there’s going to be a link there anyways, right? Am I right? They don’t need a QR code. 

Dan Terek (21:23): 

The behavior is to search the brand. If you put in a QR code, if you put in a vanity URL, whatever it is, it’s not, it’s going to be a fraction of the people that you’re actually driving. So all of this action’s going to take place outside of this one very specific result that you’re looking for. You’ve got to be prepared for that. They’re going to come to your homepage regardless, and they’re going to Google you first regardless, because people are more accustomed to the QR code now, but it’s still kind of a pain. It’s easier to Google. We’re more programmed to do that than we are to, 

Ruben Quinones (22:05): 

I think it was that stupid Super Bowl ad that kind of, it was absolutely. What was the company that did that? 

Dan Terek (22:12): 

It was a Bitcoin company or it was… 

Ruben Quinones (22:14): 

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Alexa Tierney (22:16): 

I think one thing that’s key, and you think about it, so Dan obviously touched on it from an attribution standpoint, but even from a user experience standpoint, the reason the Super Bowl one kind of worked or was interesting was that was there for what, a full 60 seconds. So at least in that scenario, their whole focus was on playing around with the QR code.  

A lot of folks, they may try to put it in the last few seconds of their ad. And again, I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember the last time I was watching TV and I was like, oh gosh, let me race to get my phone out so I can get the QR code. That’s not how we work. And so at the very least, if someone’s really intent on trying it, they want to test it again, test anything, but at the very least make sure it’s present throughout the whole spot because otherwise, nope, no one’s going to use it. And then to Dan’s point, not only are you missing it from an attribution standpoint, you’re also not thinking about what that end user’s actually doing when they’re watching this content. Not, 

Dan Terek (23:24): 

It was unique. It was unique. 

Ruben Quinones (23:26): 

It’s not like you’re going to go ahead and copy that, and if you did, you’re going to PR issue. It’s like, why are you copy them? 

Dan Terek (23:34): 

Somebody’s like, Hey guys, we’re doing a Super Bowl. Amazing. What’s the budget? $5. Great, great. We can work with this. We can work with 

Ruben Quinones (23:43): 

This. But I’m saying literally the things bouncing around, everybody knows that it’s from that. You can’t copy that. So that was unique in and of itself, or you can use a QR, it has to be very, a unique angle to it. It’s either a continuation of something or there’s an incentive for it. But what I’m hearing the headline is don’t expect that to be this big driver, and at the end of the day, maybe it’s just taking up space that you normally, it could be a distraction, 

Alexa Tierney (24:14): 

Could be a distraction.  

Ruben Quinones (24:16): 

The focus should be that it’s driving branded search, which can be part of the voiceover or the creative, whatever you integrate. Again, what you shared as that checklist is really what you should be focused on. I think primarily QR is probably more secondary is what I’m hearing.

Alexa Tierney (24:33): 

Absolutely. It can be a compliment maybe or something if you really want to test it, by all means. But yeah, it’s not going to be the driver and it’s not going to capture your total picture of what that ad is actually doing for you. So as long as people have the right expectations, then hey, test everything. But yeah, generally it’s not going to be the silver bullet. Certainly. 

Ruben Quinones (25:01): 

Yeah. And I guess these elements that you provided, I guess does it work like a landing page or copy where listen, just change one iteration of it, or meaning it could be the same creative voiceover, but maybe the messaging has changed or there’s a different voiceover, there’s that piece, but then there’s totally different creative. What are you seeing more of and really is what’s the best practice around that? 

A/B testing strategies

Alexa Tierney (25:33): 

Good question. And you mean specifically for true A/B testing?  

Ruben Quinones (25:39): 

Yeah, it’s like if you’re going to go through the effort of producing a spot, what do you see as the best testing framework in CTV, I guess all of that, but what have you seen? This is a good test. 

Alexa Tierney (25:51): 

Yeah, no, great point. I would say a few key things, and almost the very first part of it is almost jumping to the end and saying, what’s the action I’m going to take as the marketer after this test? Because a lot of people forget that step or miss that step, which is, what am I going to try to change or know from this test that’s going to change my creative from here?  

Actually isolating: What’s the variable I’m trying to assess? Am I trying to see whether a certain type of talent resonates and performs better with my audience? Am I trying to see whether a funny tone gets more traction than something a little more serious? You have to think about at the end of this test, what would it change in my creative or my messaging going forward? Normally you’re not going to see major, major swings in performance from very minor changes in an ad, right? 

At the same time, you want to balance it and not change everything all at once, or you won’t know what difference, what was the thing that actually changed the performance that actually moved the needle. That’s the best piece of AB testing, I think is really just actually sitting down and kind of mapping out what am I trying to test? How am I going to measure success?  

Kind of go back to the basics of the scientific method a bit. And then you can go about, all right, now I’m going to think about then getting that in practice creatively. Let me see, work with a team to do that concepting and figure out what makes sense. 

Ruben Quinones (27:42): 

But it’s safe to say you don’t have to have a totally different creative spot. You could do testing elements of an existing. 

Alexa Tierney (27:51): 

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s also really going to depend on someone’s budget. And I think a lot of people are afraid or think that to get CTV commercials, you have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and that limits them, and you really don’t, right? So to your point though, depending on the budget, maybe you work to test some variations that are, Hey, it’s pretty much the same ad, but I’m changing the voiceover. Like you said, I’m using male versus female voiceover.  

Or maybe it is different kind of music and script. Those are things that aren’t going to cost a lot more to have those variations made very different than shooting in multiple different locations to create different concepts in totally different spots. So you can get kind of scrappy with how you are testing as long as, again, you’re thinking about what is that element that I’m really trying to separate out and evaluate what works best for my brand. 

Ruben Quinones (28:59): 

And remind me, because that’s what Quick Frame does production. Can you tell me a little bit about that for agencies and marketers? 

Alexa Tierney (29:08): 

Sure. Yeah. So it’s interesting. We are not doing the production in house. We are lucky enough, I think, to partner with thousands of far more talented creatives than we’d be on our own. I’m not the creative person, I just work with ’em. But we’re a marketplace really for video production. So we have thousands of, we call the makers in our network that specialize. There’re shops that maybe specialize in animation or more like live action, traditional TV commercial formats.  

We have makers that are extremely talented when it comes to social UGC. So depending on the type of content you want made, the type of video you want made, we’re kind of a matchmaking service for that where we’re going to match you to the right production team for that, ask for that project and support along the way. That’s how we ended up really being in the Mountain ecosystem.  

I was actually on the Mountain side at that time when we started working with Quick Frame, but it was to help make it easier for brands to get CTV creative and to do so without spending a fortune to do so, without having to go through the traditional big creative shop process that could take six months and $500,000 just to get one commercial. That doesn’t work for most brands or agencies. 

Ruben Quinones (30:44): 

I don’t want the creatives to get mad at me, but have you come across an AI generated one yet? I mean, I would imagine that’s going to start becoming more prevalent, but I’m sure you guys have come across that yet. 

Alexa Tierney (30:55): 

Great question. It really is an exciting time. I think a lot of people are also scared about it, but I think what we are at least seeing to date is more that there are AI components, not necessarily a fully AI driven spot. And I think there’s several reasons for that. Some of that is that there’s still a lot of kinks to work out, I think is the practical application of that, the rights to it, et cetera. But you are seeing a lot where people, there’s AI generated voiceover, there’s AI editing solutions. So those types of elements are starting to be in play more.

The big thing is always making sure that the brand is very aware of that, right? And you have to really make sure that everyone knows that that’s the case, because some folks really don’t want that yet. It’ll be interesting to see, I think over the next couple years, how that evolves because you have so many great technical solutions. Mountain’s even been developing that as well, where it helps to either polish or lead with some concepting and ideation, but very rarely are we seeing it where it’s completely replacing the entire production. It’s just not there yet, I think in practice. 

Ruben Quinones (32:23): 

And then would you say that’s kind of why there was this merger in that you guys identified this was a barrier of entry into connected TV for maybe brands that wouldn’t have necessarily done linear, but connected TV could have a more efficient buy, but maybe having or doing the creative was this barrier of entry. I would imagine that’s why you guys got it together as far as, 

Dan Terek (32:48): 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I don’t want to speak to the determination process behind, okay, don’t have, I was not in that room. But as far as removing a barrier, absolutely, that’s been, and I’m sure you’ve seen it, right? There’s the two major barriers traditionally to connect to television.  

One, I don’t have the budget. Even if you do have the budget for a new channel, I don’t have the budget for the creative. Those have been tremendous obstacles. I will say this, you have social channels out there, social platforms that their entire, everything they do is based around the end user, not the advertiser, the person that’s actually using the platform to communicate with friends and see what the family member’s up to, et cetera. And you have these social platforms saying, Hey, algorithmically everything we’ve done all the testing, video works best, that’s it. Video works best.  

And you still have all these advertisers out there being like, but can I throw up my billboard on Yahoo Finance and is going to have the same impact? Video is necessary at this point. It’s the best way to engage and it’s the best way to speak to your client. 

Still has been an obstacle over the last few years. You’ve seen the cost of that reduce more and more and more people getting more clever about exactly what Lex was speaking to, just using iterations of the same footage in different ways. But yeah, I mean at this point, we’ve got programs out there. We’re working through some of the organizations that we partner with, like Amsive, you can have access to video at no cost, high quality stuff.  

And I don’t know, I think that’s been a turning point for us in being able to really give advertisers more access to CTV as a whole, and it’s one of the big obstacles being reduced. 

Ruben Quinones (35:05): 

I guess I wanted to talk, and again, I maybe meandering a little bit in that with e-commerce specifically, because so many e-commerce sites out there for the brand, I come across a lot of brands that I’m like, wait, who are you? What do you do? And oh, you’re selling, oh, that’s a Williams Sonoma, or that’s like you think of the bigger brand. So it’s almost like Google Ads has become this. If you’re commoditized, it’s hard to stand out, right? It’s kind of going back to the case for CV is that it allows you this opportunity, especially whether you’re an e-commerce brand or you’re trying to activate something that you’re in a very crowded marketplace. This is a more unique buy to have as part of your portfolio, let’s say. I guess I’m making that point. I’m not a question. Good point. 

Dan Terek (35:58): 

It’s a crowded marketplace with less data to go off than ever before. iOS has made sure of that for a lot of the two behemoths out there realistically. So targeting isn’t as effective. CPMs are on their eyes, and it’s really hard to stand out in those areas specifically. You have to be looking at new channels. You have to be looking at contribution over attribution, and you have to be developing videos and developing methodologies to really speak to your clients effectively and not just use a product carousel in order to try to draw them back or bring them to the stage in the first place. 

Ruben Quinones (36:44): 

Yeah. 

Dan Terek (36:45): 

Yeah. 

Alexa Tierney (36:46): 

That’s such a good point. Truly. I mean, if you look at Gen Z and beyond, they’re not buying it. They expect relevant messaging to them. They expect to feel like they’re part of the conversation. So I totally agree, Dan, at some point you have to make sure that you’re listening to that and you’re leaning into that and you’re truly trying to have a relevant conversation with them. And that video is one of the best ways to do that, right? Taps into more of the senses than you’re going to get with other placements. More memorable. 

MNTN case study: Rumpl

Ruben Quinones (37:28): 

Back to the creative piece, and let’s actually talk about Rumpl. Who are they? What do they do as a setting? And I’ll just bring up one slide, we’ll speak to their creative and what they’re using, but I would love to have you guys back if you’re okay with that, to talk more about that brand and what you guys did to them quickly. Who are they and what do they do and 

Alexa Tierney (37:49): 

Great. Yeah, wonderful brand, first of all. Not only very cool product, but just really cool group of people that we’ve partnered with for many years. So Rumpl’s a brand primarily kind of outdoor gear, and they’ve really made a name for themselves with these outdoor blankets. They’re very aesthetically driven, so there’s a lot of different prints, a lot of different designs for these. And they partner with a lot of other retail brands to create kind of special versions and stuff as well. So cool brand.  

They really kind of carved a niche for themselves in that way, but they were one of the first customers that really bought into on the Mountain side, the cas or creative is a subscription model that we have, which is a Mountain quick frame kind of combo package, if you will, where we’re, I think Dan mentioned it earlier, but you’re able to essentially bundle your ad spend with creative. 

So you’re getting the CTV commercials made at no additional cost, which is pretty exciting. And I think the key thing there is that where Rumpl– Rumpl really leaned in was to say, we’re going to really treat this just like every other digital channel we’re going to test often. We’re going to create new variation, we’re going to run different spots and create different spots for our upper funnel prospecting audiences versus our lower funnel retargeting audiences. 

And we’re going to really speak to these users and have a story, treat them differently and test and iterate on a regular basis. So they did a really good job of tapping into the benefit of CTV as a Ann Evergreen digital channel. 

Ruben Quinones (39:53): 

Perfect segue. You didn’t even know I was going to bring up the slide, maybe did, right? But I’d like to have you guys back to talk about the performance of this. We’ll run out of time, but since we’re talking about creative, you talked about, hey, not treating it just like a campaign in the traditional sense, but really another channel. So you were alluding to this, but talk me through this about as far as the design, the shelf life and stuff like that. 

Alexa Tierney (40:26): 

Sure. Well, one thing, again, I think that, but Rumpl understood and that with this kind of CAS offer we’re able to do is help ensure that you’re not running the same spot indefinitely because that doesn’t work. We hear ad fatigue and shelf life, and a lot of people probably think, oh, marketing mumbo jumbo, delightful. But it is real after a certain amount of time. And normally we find past 90 days your CTV ads are becoming less and less effective, sometimes even sooner than that.  

I think when Rumpl tested, they were trying to keep things within that, let’s say 73 day average shelf life. Because what they saw was that beyond that, their ROAS would drop, right? Their conversion rates would be dropping. And so part of that then was just consistency in refresh and new content and tapping into quick frame for new variations and concepts. 

But then they also, I think did a really good job of being specific to their different types of audiences so they could target different types of users, which is again, something different than you can do on linear because on CTVI can isolate and say, you know what? I want to send a message to the people that are always very outdoorsy and I’m going to send them this. But then there’s the folks maybe like me who want to be more outdoorsy. They might have some different aspirations or some different interests. And so Rumpl tried to tweak their creative slightly for each of those types of audiences so that it was that much more relevant to them. 

Ruben Quinones (42:15): 

So this was same, we’re not playing it here, but same creative for the most part. But it was tweaked what was tweaked, essentially what was tweaked.

Alexa Tierney (42:24): 

So I don’t remember exactly without watching it— 

Dan Terek (42:30): 

Scene exposure, how long each scene was listed, scene order on each of them, what was included, what was not. We take the 30 and we take elements of it and turn it into the 15 second video. Got it. And kind of have different levels of 15 second videos and cards, differentiated logo placement differentiated. 

Closing thoughts and takeaways

Ruben Quinones (42:51): 

Interesting. You listed off a whole bunch right there, right? Because you always think 15 versus 30 and let’s call it a day. You’ve seen order voiceover. I think we talked a lot about that prior to this, but essentially we have a lot to play with that is not just about having a whole different creative spot. Exactly. So I’d love to dive into this even more if you guys feel that you had a good experience with me. We can do this again maybe before Q4, as I think there was probably a larger investment in Q4 and we could talk about more about investments and another angle of connected tv. But I’d love to dive into this further. But with that, I’ll start off with you parting thoughts before we leave for the weekend or for the day, depending on when you’re watching this. But Alexa, what can you leave us off with as we end this? 

Alexa Tierney (43:51): 

Great question. Remember to hydrate before the weekend. But also, I think, I guess the one parting piece is that especially for folks who’ve never done connected TV or tested it, it’s not something to be afraid of. It’s actually simpler than you think. And that’s one of the things I think I really enjoy in my job and I think Dan does too, which is making this a lot more accessible for brands who haven’t done it before.  

And so whether that’s just kind of having a quick combo partner like Amsive to talk about the opportunity or not, I highly encourage it because it’s at a point where it is a lot more accessible and it’s just a great way for brands to try to reach their audience in a more engaging way. And especially in today’s market, you got to keep doing that to stay humming. So that would be my main.  

Ruben Quinones (44:52): 

Behind your name. One more time, I’ll bid you farewell as well. Thank you Alexa for joining us and appreciate your time. 

Alexa Tierney (44:59): 

Thank you. 

Ruben Quinones (45:00): 

And we’ll talk soon. And Dan parting thoughts? 

Dan Terek (45:03): 

Yeah, I’ll speak for the Mountain platform specifically with this stat, but conversion rates increase 22% for paid social or paid search, 9% for paid social after adding connected television. You haven’t used it yet. It will bring you your best Q4. It will assist you in that matter. But it’s July, mid July. You have to start right now. 

Ruben Quinones (45:31): 

Yeah, yeah. Alright. Good way to end it. Appreciate it, Dan. Appreciate you joining us and we’ll talk soon as well. And with that, alright, we have another one in the books and we have another one in three weeks. So appreciate Mountain joining us for this session around compelling CTV ads in three weeks from now.  

If you haven’t already signed up, it’s already up on LinkedIn. We are going to have SEL secrets eCommerce growth. Hope you’ve been enjoying this. Make sure to kind of let me know if you have a topic in mind as far as some challenges that you’re seeing in the marketplace.  

Otherwise, we’ll keep humming along with what we’re seeing and continue to share it with you. So whenever you’re watching this, wherever you’re watching this, thank you for tuning in. I’ll see you next time. 

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