Q+A: How BrightLine and Magnite are Moving CTV Impressions Down the Funnel with Dynamic Ads

Shoppable CTV and/or interactive TV are umbrella terms for ways that TV media can go beyond awareness and begin moving down the sales funnel via advanced targeting, attribution, and interactivity. Magnite and BrightLine are working together to bring a suite of scalable dynamic and interactive ad formats to advertisers that do just this – move the standard TV impression beyond awareness to drive engagement online and in-store. We spoke to Dan Kelly, Vice President of Global Sales at BrightLine, to learn more about how they see this opportunity developing.

What advancements has CTV made when it comes to advertising opportunities throughout the levels of the sales funnel?

Terms like “retail media” have evolved to be more about advertising opportunities within retailers’ own footprint (in-store and online) and using their shopper data in off-site media environments such as CTV. The digital connectivity of CTV allows retailers to engage with viewers in unique ways, helping to raise awareness and recall and increase the likelihood of sales conversions. Retailers can now enhance messages across media according to a viewer’s location and customize the offering to that location to drive both online and in-store purchasing.

CTV is a great ally in top-of-the-funnel campaigns where tech and data are combined to make those campaigns smarter, driving greater engagement, awareness, and consideration. As we’ve continued to develop that tech and data, new dynamic and interactive ad opportunities are supporting mid-to-lower funnel placements, too.

What retail/shoppable formats are BrightLine and Magnite delivering? And what’s next?

The core of BrightLine’s Accelerator Units are available to Magnite’s clients, including In-Stream Interactive, Addressable, and Expandable formats. Within BrightLine’s list of in-stream possibilities, product scrollers are a popular format for retailers to showcase products for any shopping event. Advertisers of all shapes and sizes use it to feature an interactive catalog of products on screen that can be scrolled through via remote control. These units allow viewers to “window shop” right inside the commercial without the need to grab their phone.

Interactive units allow for product recommendations. More and more brands are mitigating the effects of ad fatigue by making spots fun and engaging with units that poll viewers on their tastes and preferences, which in turn make real-time recommendations for products that might be right for them.

While dynamic deals are commonplace on the web, Magnite and BrightLine also bring dynamic creative to the big screen, allowing geo-addressable creative overlays to highlight the viewers’ closest retailer or local deals dynamically.

While many in the industry are touting QR codes as a means of driving transactions off-device, there’s ample data showing that the onscreen engagement via remote is superior. For instance, in some of our research we saw an example where BrightLine ad units reached an engagement rate of 1.12% on average, or 56 times QR scan rates.

How important has programmatic been in the growth and development of these formats?

With the accelerated demand for interactive and dynamic retail units, having a programmatic offering that can continue to deliver a great user experience at scale is critical. Brands activating programmatically are looking to engage with viewers across the full CTV marketplace. The more viewers are exposed to interactive formats while watching CTV, the more common it will be to interact with the ads.

How do you advise buyers on best practices, given these new options across the funnel?

The key is starting with understanding the goals of a specific campaign or advertiser. For many, the mid-funnel engagement available via on-screen interactivity drives the impact brands are looking for, which is well beyond the top-of-funnel awareness that traditional ad spots serve. An auto brand, for example, may want viewers to engage with specific new features of the latest model, in which case interacting with the vehicle in ways that go beyond a 30-second ad is the right next step down the funnel. Others may be better suited to driving viewers to visit a local dealer event by using a dynamic dealer locator ad unit.

With high video completion rates due to the unskippable nature of the platform, CTV interactive video units offer both the ability to make a branding impact and give viewers the opportunity to engage with the brand.

Can you give us some illustrative examples of how advertisers leverage dynamic ads in a multiscreen environment and the results they’ve seen from doing so?

In recent work with Lucid – highlighted in our ‘State of the TV Ad (Re)volution – 2023’ report – we saw double-digit lifts in brand awareness across various categories, including outdoor living, electronics, pharmaceutical, and energy. For instance; a pharmaceutical brand running a campaign with interactive ads saw a 23% increase in brand lift and 46% bump in ad recall. The impact can extend beyond brand lift as well, with an outdoor living brand seeing a 48% rise in purchase intent. Additionally, a major retailer that recently ran a CTV campaign with BrightLine and Magnite saw a 19% relative lift in message association when running dynamic creative.

As retailers and brands—both endemic and non-endemic—continue to invest in streaming, it’s important that we continue to adapt to their requirements and the possibilities available. Particularly as the focus has increased on shoppable media in video, there’s an opportunity for brands to meet their lower-to-mid funnel KPIs in highly engaged and interactive environments. Working together, Brightline and Magnite are helping both brands and media owners make the most of those opportunities.