How a trusted auto accessory brand drove 32% savings with CTV

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Expand reach to new audiences while maintaining CPA efficiency

A prominent American home, auto, and pet accessories brand operates in a highly competitive market. To fend off low-cost imitators, the brand needed to drive high-quality traffic to its website. This made strategic brand-building an essential part of its latest campaign. 

Having previously relied on linear TV and direct response advertising to reach potential customers in the U.S., the brand and its agency, Pinnacle Advertising, recognized the need to evolve their approach to keep pace with consumers’ changing media consumption. 

Pinnacle knew it needed to create a connected TV (CTV) strategy that complemented its client’s existing broad-based advertising to help drive full-funnel results.

SOLUTION 

Harnessing the power of CTV measurement to drive upper-funnel results

Pinnacle devised a strategy that involved running an awareness campaign through The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform experience using CTV inventory. The programmatic CTV campaign ran in tandem with its client’s linear TV investments. 

By adding CTV to the media mix, Pinnacle was able to apply audience data and implement precise targeting — capabilities that were not possible with the client’s reliance on traditional media buys. The agency used a layered targeting approach — utilizing our data marketplace to build out multiple audience segments — to reach consumers who were in the market for a new vehicle, had recently purchased one, or had a propensity to be interested in automotive products. This included using its client’s first-party data to create a campaign seed, which represent the brand’s most valued customers. The campaign seed enabled our AI-powered platform to reach new customers who demonstrated similar attributes and were more likely to convert. 

With incremental reach reporting, the agency maximized both the client’s CTV and linear TV budgets to help improve overall household reach. Pinnacle was also able to monitor the cost per website visit closely — its key upper-funnel campaign KPI — during the campaign’s flight and use insights to proactively adjust bids in real time. 

RESULTS 

Extending reach with cost-efficiency

The campaign exceeded the brand’s upper-funnel performance benchmarks, delivering strong efficiency gains. Most importantly, by embracing a more data-driven approach across its CTV buy, Pinnacle’s client saw a 32% decrease in cost per website visit. The campaign also delivered a 5% increase in household reach, demonstrating the power of adding CTV to drive upper-funnel results. 

These results illustrate that complementing linear TV with CTV is valuable for extending reach and improving performance. Pinnacle and its client plan to make CTV a key pillar of their digital strategy as they continue to see improved upper-funnel results.

Discover how adding CTV to your media mix can help improve reach and performance. Contact us or reach out to your account manager at The Trade Desk today.