Bonus: The CTV Blueprint for DTC Brands: Build in Summer, Convert in Q4 (Paramount Ads Manager)

0:00Emily Huo:Emily, welcome to the D2C podcast. I think it's pretty interesting. You are an OG Survivor fan, and now you are at the company behind Survivor, Paramount slash CBS. How does that feel? It feels surreal. That was not planned, by the way. Although when I did sign my contract for Paramount, I double checked that one day this does not make me disqualify for applying to Survivor and it didn't. But, you know, I think this is one of the reasons why Paramount is so unique is that you have these beloved franchises that people really just gravitate towards. And I can't believe 50 seasons later, I'm still watching the same show as I did as a teenager.

0:41Emily Huo:Is it 50 seasons? Yes, we just wrapped season 50. Oh my God, that's making me feel old because I remember Richard. I remember Richard on those first episodes. He was the, yeah, the original Machiavellian. Yeah, that's super awesome. Talk to me about your career because you've built the ad businesses or been part of building the ad businesses at Twitter, Reddit, and Spotify. What's the through line in your career? Definitely. I think of myself as the attention seeker when it comes to my career. So if you think about where Twitter was 15 years ago, that was when social media was just taking off, right?

1:18And same with Reddit too, just early days, people not really knowing how to communicate online using these messaging forms or their online feeds to communicate. And then the tension started shifting more towards audio. And that's where I went to Spotify, to this very podcast itself, right? People were really actively listening to audio and still do. And then when the opportunity for Paramount came about, it was really because how much people were watching CTV. So nowadays, average session on CTV is 99 minutes compared to eight minutes on social. But meanwhile, most marketers still spend the bulk of their budgets on social and only about 9 % of their budgets on CTV.

2:05So I just found that to be a huge opportunity to actually make a dent in this newer industry because with the rise of streaming, it's actually allowed us to build a lot more products that speak more to a performance marketer versus just a brand marketer. Love that.

2:23Emily Huo:And you're also in choosing Paramount, there are other ways you can buy CTV, other platforms, but Paramount is like, has so many of the, as we say, Survivor, you know, it has so many of these like OG TV staples that you can't really get anywhere else. And that I think people would think about it being like, oh, I have to approach that linearly or I have to buy that by calling the station or whatever. But really to be able to apply CTV technology to these all-time classic TV shows is probably where there's a lot of delta there. Exactly. So what, in your opinion, are the big changes that CTV has kind of undergone that have made it such a hot – like right now CTV is like the hottest, as we mentioned in the pre-interview, it's such a hot space right now.

3:09Emily Huo:People are thinking about there's these big acquisitions happening. What do you think has changed in CDB to make it such a hot space right now? I think the biggest shift is the real-time attribution and measurement. And what I mean by that is, yes, TV has been around for almost 100 years, and you can always have run TV ads in the past. But back then, it was just harder to really nail down what happens after someone sees your ad, unless you were investing huge dollars into some third-party measurement tools to allow you to do studies on what happens afterwards. But now with CTV, with that technology and TV watching merging together, there are a lot more turnkey solutions to allow a marketer to track like, hey, when I invest a dollar into CTV, was that dollar actually worth it?

3:57And what did it get me? With Paramount as manager, we actually have a turnkey solution called the Pixel, where it's just a small snippet of code you can place on your website, or you can place it on the thank you for checking out page, so that you can track, oh, those are the people who saw my ad on Paramount Streaming. Now they went to my website, and now they actually purchased something. So we've really closed that loop in the measurement and attribution part.

4:24Emily Huo:I saw a lot of discourse this week on TikTok shop being, a lot of people have this idea of it being a halo platform. How do you think about the term? Do you guys think of yourselves as a direct action platform, as a halo platform, as a bit of both? It's a bit of both. But when someone's first starting out for the first time on Paramount ads or CTV in general, I really think of it more as a halo impact. So meaning I'm not going to tell a brand, hey, turn off all your other marketing channels. I think that would be pretty unwise to do as a marketer or a brand owner. But instead, think about CTV and Paramount as the thing that makes all your other channels more effective.

5:05We've actually worked with an agency who had a B2B client of theirs. And what they did was they tested out this halo effect. So they started running on CTV for first just awareness and the mid-funnel campaigns. And then they used their social media channels to do the retargeting and the final conversion. And what they found was that for those audiences that were exposed to CTV versus those who are not, those who actually got exposed early on had a 313 % more likelihood to complete their lead form for their B2B client than those who never saw their ad on TV. So not only was their, you know, their reach better, because they obviously got more eyeballs through the TV.

5:52But it actually caused them to have a better bottom line results in terms of how many people completed their lead forms and then ultimately reducing their costs per action.

6:03Emily Huo:It makes sense. You mentioned obviously the gap in the amount of time spent on CTV versus something like social. CTV far outstrips it. TV has this sheen of being, it's like the prestige screen in a way, right? We all have our phones on us all day long, but when we're watching TV, we're in a more relaxed kind of moment or we're in a more sort of like our guard is down a little bit more. We're not working. It's like a pure entertainment platform. How do you think about TV versus other screens in the purchase funnel? You're right. It's like the mindset of someone watching their favorite show is very different than the mindset of someone scrolling through their phone, right?

6:42So I come back to the creative a lot. In TV, we have a 30-second unskippable ad format. And you have that full 30 seconds to tell your story as a brand, especially for D2C companies where a lot of times you're not necessarily a household name yet, and you need to actually show the value to your potential customers out there by describing what you do and why your brand is unique and what makes you stand out and why you're better than your competitors. You need that full 30 seconds, ideally on a TV glass, big screen TV versus when you're running a social media ad. The best practice these days for social media is make sure you have your message, most relevant message within the first three seconds of your ad.

7:32That's unfortunately how much our attention span has become when we are scrolling through our phones. And for a DTC brand, three seconds just isn't enough. to tell your story on why you're special and why someone should care about your brand. So with TV, I really think about the value of it being in the ad format itself, in addition to now the tracking capabilities and so forth. But just know that our best practice, you don't have to say everything within the first three seconds because you actually have a full 30 second narrative to tell your story.

8:07Emily Huo:Walk me through what audience targeting looks like on Paramount ads manager versus a platform that everyone's familiar with, like something like Meta? Yeah. You know, a few months ago, I was catching up with a personal friend who works at a Fortune 50 company as a digital marketer. And she said something really funny to me, because even though we talk all the time and they ran, because they're a Fortune 50 company, they run a bunch of TV ads through their agency. And she's like, hey, come talk to us, aka the client, when you have demo targeting, zip code targeting, you know, metro area targeting.

8:39And I just looked at her. I was like, you do know we have all of that now, right? Because we've come so far that there's still this disconnect between what people think we have to offer versus what we actually have. So Paramount Ads Manager actually has all the normal geo-targeting all the way down to the zip code level. We are also having things like the interest in behavior targeting. So you can target things like auto-intenders or gamers. We have demographics targeting such as household income and age, and then content placements where you can target specific genres. We're working on some new capabilities as well.

9:17For example, we now have something called peak audience, which is we're going to serve the ad to those who are most likely going to engage or care about your brand. So that is also just, I consider like a smart tool, right? If you don't want to make all the selections of what my demographics and what my target audience looks like, let the system do it for you, which is I know something that Meta has trained a lot of marketers to do very often. And that's actually, you know, the beauty of having CTV now being driven by a tech approach first approach. It's like we can do that and serve the ad to those users and viewers who most likely care about your brand.

9:57Emily Huo:How do you think, I think one of the best things we can do on this podcast is really just walk through the process of someone who maybe hasn't advertised on CTV wanting to jump into a self-serve sort of ad platform environment. When it comes to targeting, do you recommend brands start with some assumptions and some data that they've maybe taken from other platforms about how to more narrowly target? Or do you recommend a broader target and then sort of optimize towards what your platform is saying is working? That's a great question. I always recommend more of a broader approach to learn what works and what doesn't work.

10:33So the order of operations I would advise would be something like, first, go to your website, which is paramountadsmanager.com and sign up for an account. Before you even launch anything, make sure you install the Paramount Ads Manager pixel just so you can then later do more tracking. You have more visibility into things like site visits and purchases or even lead completion forms. And then when you're actually then setting up the campaign, I recommend actually doing, you know, three or four different types of targeting so that you can at least learn what works and what doesn't work. And oftentimes the brands I work with, they're often surprised because they think, oh, I've got my target audience nailed down through my other, you know, platforms I've ran on.

11:21And this is what the persona looks like. But with TV, it's just a little it could be a little bit different. So I say, OK, that's your target persona. Let's make that one of your targeting groups. But let's also recommend you a couple others. Maybe you don't need to put the age filter on that you normally do because in a TV watching environment, oftentimes people are watching TV with their loved ones. So if you're putting an age filter, you might not necessarily get those audiences that are not the main account holders age as you do with, you know, that wouldn't be an issue when you're doing something with like mobile advertising, for example.

12:02So start broad. After a month, you can then see what works and what doesn't work and then double down on what works.

12:11Emily Huo:Makes sense. And then for budgeting, what do you recommend? It really varies depending on what you are trying to market and sell. For example, I would advise a different budget for someone selling a$5 t-shirt versus a $3 ,000 couch. the way I would think about investing in CTV and Paramount, actually for, I would think about this for any new advertising platforms that one person is running against is think about your total budget that you have for paid marketing. Carve out about 10 % of it as experimental budget. So that should be the budget that you are playing around with to learn about new platforms.

12:49From there, depending on what you're selling, again, I have seen the sweet spot to be around 5K to 25K a month for a minimum three months. Now, you're not going to, just to set expectations, you are not going to hit your ROAS goals in three days, right? Like it's just not, especially when you are marketing a brand that it's not a household name quite yet. So you do have to build that awareness, play a little bit, work on your mid-funnel campaigns, and then ultimately convert, which is why we recommend the three-month approach.

13:24Emily Huo:What sort of timeline are you looking for? Or what are you looking for? You say, you know, reset your expectations a little bit. What are the leading indicators that people are looking for, for long term success with CTV? The first one we look at a lot is what I call a site visit rate. That means of those who saw the ad on TV on Paramount Streaming, how many of them are then searching for your brand and landing on your website? And depending on which vertical we're talking about, we have benchmarks that we can share one-on-one with you if you are a customer of Paramount Ads Manager. That's usually a good indicator of the mid-funnel approach.

14:02Of course, the awareness piece, you can do so by simply looking at how many eyeballs you're getting. But I like to have a little bit more data on of the eyeballs, how many actually care about your brand. From there, if you sell the pixel on a purchase page, for example, if you have an e-commerce store, usually, you know, in month two, month three, that's when we can start tracking. Like, how are you actually hitting your cost per purchase goals? and if so, great, let's double down. If not, what kind of targeting things do we actually need to optimize for or even what kind of new creatives should we be thinking about?

14:40Emily Huo:Can you give me an example of someone who's kind of started maybe with that 10 % of budget testing kind of rule that you mentioned, but then has been able to, after three months, sort of break out of that and put more and more budget towards CTV? Give me a paint a picture of what success looks like. I'll start with one of our clients' Midwest photo And when they actually started, it was just an awareness play with us. And they actually, you know, were testing with just CTV for the first time, wanting to see how it works. It's not a household name. So they actually had to build their brand awareness from there.

15:16But what they were able to do was once they started collecting a lot more data with their Paramount Ads Manager pixel, they can actually use that pixel to then do retargeting, a retargeting campaign. and then convert those who've actually landed on their website. So they've actually showed interest in their brand and convert them into buyers of their products. So that was how typically it happens is that they start with awareness play, gather the data with a pixel, then use that data to then retarget that high value audience.

15:48Emily Huo:And again, there is going to be an inherent halo when someone sees your product on the prestige screen and then you double that by having them be on a prestige program within the prestige screen, you're going to see probably improved conversion results when you retarget, whether you retarget on Paramount Ads Manager or whether you retarget them on social media. Exactly. So for brands that are, you know, we're just coming to the end of H1 here and brands either, you know, finishing up or planning their H2 currently, I think there's a little bit of trepidation this year around Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

16:26Emily Huo:But talk to me maybe about a brand who's in that planning phase right now, thinking about CTV, wanting to make a splash. How do you recommend they maximize their Black Friday, Cyber Monday returns, their Q4 returns by thinking about it starting now? I think summer is a great time to build awareness of your brand. We have many new shows that just premiered. So for example, Dunnett Ranch season one came on last month. We all have some all-time favorites. RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars season 11 also premiering last month. So people are still watching TV throughout the summer. And this is a perfect time where if you've never tried CTV or Paramount, get in it, dip your toe in the water, set up that pixel and start building that awareness play and start collecting the data with your Paramount Ads Manager pixel.

17:17Then by the fall, where we're gearing up for the Black Friday sales and the holiday sales, you've already built out your awareness, right? So when someone sees your ad, they're not hearing about your brand for the very first time. You can also do things like the retargeting campaigns that I mentioned. So come fall, that's a time where you can really start double down on sales, whether that be as early as back to school, depending on what kind of products you're selling, or waiting until the November period, December period, where it's the holiday spending period. And that also lines up perfectly because in the fall time, we have a whole slew of other shows that we're premiering in the fall, such as Landman season three and some new favorites or we hope to be favorites like Cupertino and Eternally Yours.

18:06Emily Huo:You mentioned campaigns that target different parts of the consideration funnel. I think one of the big things that people always wonder about CTV versus something like social is how creative works. So give me your sort of best advice for what kind of creative you're thinking about for different parts. I guess there's two things. There are different parts of the consideration cycle. And then there's also seasonal creative as well, where you're building towards like a big sale and how much you're talking about your offers and your sales in your Q4 CTV versus now. Talk to me about CTV Creative. I think about it as does the end viewer know who you are yet?

18:43Yes, no. Like if you're a household name, I would say you can go straight more into the sales, the strong call to actions with driving to a purchase, right? But if no one has heard about your brand, spend that first campaign really thinking about how to tell your story. So telling you the value of your brand. And if you don't have a 30 second polished creative yet, which many of our brands that we work with don't because they're advertising on TV for the very first time, we actually have free built in tools within the Paramount Ads Manager self-serve ads platform that allows you to create one from scratch.

19:21So that's the beauty of AI. Also, the technology, again, it's much easier to execute on a 30-second TV cam ad format than it was even two years ago, right? So it's much quicker and we don't charge anything additional as long as you are running a Paramount Ads Manager campaign with us. So step one, if you don't have the household name recognition, think about using your creative to tell your story. When you've actually have some household name recognition, or we know that, hey, the folks that you are targeting have actually seen your ad and have heard of your ad and your brand before, then you can be a little bit more salesy and actually have a strong call to action, such as, hey, discount code, visit my website to purchase XYZ.

20:13We have this Black Friday sale and so forth. So depending on where you are in that journey, I would recommend different types of creatives.

20:21Emily Huo:And then when it comes to those awareness building creative and sort of telling the story of your brand, are the brands that are doing that best kind of positioning that around like an explainer video or more of like a founder, you know, to camera telling their story with some visuals added in? I've seen both. So the explainer videos are very easy to create. And again, our tools actually allow you to do that pretty easily. that I would say you can probably get off the ground within a day or two max. The two camera founder stories, obviously that does require more of a production shoot. So if you have the resources to do so, you can certainly do that.

21:03But the idea here is that you do want to explain the value of your brand to someone who's never heard of it before. So whether that's explainer or founder, I think that ultimately does the same thing. It's just more the how and of how to do it, right? So because the founders one requires more reproduction setup.

21:20Emily Huo:I guess with a platform like Paramount Ads Manager, the scale you can reach, there's probably just an unbelievable amount of scale available. Can you talk to me? You mentioned like 10 % for budget testing. Do you have any examples of brands that have really moved that number up when they found success? And what are the upper ends of maybe the percent of budgets that brands could be thinking about CTV once they really find a good fit? Well, I go back to the stat around 99 minutes per session on TV compared to eight minutes on social, right? So it's actually like 12 times more per session on TV, CTV than social.

22:03So if you really wanted to invert that equation, you could do that very easily and by doing 80 % of your budgets on CTV. But the thing is, at the end of the day, I don't think it's wise to go all the way down that path quite yet until you've actually proven some success, right? At my core, I'm a performance marketer. I would never just say, hey, throw your, you know, 90 % of your budgets on Paramount and then call it a day. I know there are realistic expectations of what ROAS needs to be, what kind of numbers you need to show your CFO and so forth. So I would recommend for someone who's first starting out, let's do a three-month test.

22:42Let's really define the metrics of what makes your brand successful on TV. And then let's move that 10 % to 15%, 15 % to 20%, 20 % to 25%. And then we'll find the optimal mix of how much you should be spending on CTV versus how much you should be spending on search versus how much you're supposed to be spending on social. It's more of an art than a science, but the science helps back it up.

23:09Emily Huo:With the measurement tools that you guys have kind of built out here, maybe just talk to me a little bit about, you mentioned the pixel, but talk to me about how measurement works or how you guys think about measurement specifically. I'm interested specifically in halo effect stuff too, and where, when you do see a halo effect, where you should be looking for that halo effect, whether it's Amazon or direct site visits or what? I'll talk more about the halo effect since we talked about the pixel for a little bit already. So the halo effect, the way I would think about setting up a test is the easiest, most cost affordable way to do so is what I call a geo holdout group.

23:47meaning you there are some markets where you run with tv and then other markets where you don't run with tv so then you can actually track okay for the markets who run with tv in the next you know month that my conversions improve or not right because then you can really do that true a b testing uh so if you work with paramount as manager we'd advise you on how you can set that up across Paramount and also how you should also set that up across your other like ad platforms too. So cheapest way because it requires no third-party tools whatsoever. Now there are third-party measurement partners out there such as House that do this automatically for you so you don't have to think about this but of course you then have to pay for the third-party measurement costs yourself.