Why Brands Are Embracing Advanced Creative in Their CTV Advertising

Television is speeding toward a 100% digital future. What does that mean for brands? 

It means that the kind of personalized, one-to-one advertising that was pioneered on the internet is now available on your television, the biggest screen in the house. This shift to CTV doesn’t only mean that advertisers are following consumer eyeballs and moving ad buys to CTV. It also means that brands can leverage new advertising formats — which simply aren’t available on linear TV — to boost the effectiveness of their campaigns. 

These new advertising formats are called “advanced creative.” The two key advanced creative formats that brands are embracing are: 

• Interactive ads
• Dynamic creative optimization (DCO)

In Innovid’s CTV Advertising Insights Report 2024, our data demonstrates that these formats are driving powerful results. 

Interactive Ads Drive Strong Engagement

Interactive ads enable consumers to engage on-screen through elements such as expandable learn-more galleries or add-to-cart QR codes, which have an overall scan-rate of 0.02% with several advertisers seeing scan-rates that approach 5%. Shoppable interactive ads allow advertisers to engage in full-funnel marketing via television.

Innovid’s data demonstrates that interactive CTV ads deliver outsized performance: 

• With an engagement rate of 3.39%, interactive CTV ads (including choice-based ads) deliver 7x the engagement of standard video ads. 
• Consumers spend an average of an additional 92 seconds engaging with interactive CTV ads compared with standard pre-roll.

The Power of the Big Screen 

The big screen rules all when it comes to consumer engagement with interactive CTV ads. Interactive campaigns on CTV deliver engagement rates that are 4.6x higher than mobile and 10.3x higher than desktop. On CTV, choice-based ads, which ask a consumer to view an ad before consuming content, are particularly effective in driving engagement when compared to non-choice-based ads.     

Interactive Ads Generate Engagement

Interactive CTV video formats generate over 600% lift in engagement over standard pre-roll video. This figure includes non-choice-based ads, which deliver a lift of 18%, and choice-based ads, which deliver a 4,450% lift. Choice-based ads, which include the video ads you watch to get free Wi-Fi at the airport or to gain access to a show on a streaming platform, generate powerful engagement.  

Number of Interactive Advertisers and Campaigns Increase 

Advertisers are embracing interactive advertising. In 2023, total interactive CTV campaigns increased by 10% and advertisers by 8%. Specifically, the Canvas, Expand, and Overlay interactive formats delivered growth in both the number of campaigns and advertisers.

DCO Enables Data-Driven Creative at Scale

Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) enables advertisers to deliver data-driven creative at scale. With DCO, brands can ensure the most effective creative is delivered to consumers based on signals such as first-party data as well as geolocation, weather, and day part. 

Dynamic creative optimization advertising delivers results. For DCO ads, the additional engagement time earned over standard video is more than 37 seconds. CTR lift for dynamic video is 8% on mobile over standard video. CTR lift for dynamic display is 51% on mobile over standard display. 

For more information on the power of advanced creative, download CTV Advertising Insights Report 2024.