Closing Television’s Real-Time Engagement and Attribution Loop

The promise of delivering interactive television by linear TV companies (the "Holy Grail") has historically been unsuccessful.  Disappointment included it being costly and too complicated to implement.  Largely it was the limited ability to interact with television through restricted remote controls and system functionality that made it challenging for viewers to maneuver and engage.  To close the real-time loop on engagement and attribution with television, advertisers and media companies need one single device used by viewers every day that must have scale, doesn’t require a download and is actively in the viewers' hands as they watch TV.  The answer is no surprise: Mobile, but more specifically using SMS text.

There are ,any significant reasons why mobile SMS text should be used today to close the loop on television engagement and attribution.  Here are just a few reasons why.

• There are 250M U.S. active mobile-users creating an immediate mass audience to engage.
• Texting is more popular than phone calls.
• 177 million mobile users have their device in hand while watching television; with131M often texting, using social media or shopping and buying as they watch television.
• 64% of consumers believe businesses should use SMS Text to interact more often.
• Use of text messaging between brands and consumers will explode in 2019.

Over the last 25 years, with the internet’s ability to create a real-time two-way connection between users and information, digital marketers achieved great ad efficiency through online search engines, ad networks and programmatic media buying.  This complex web of churning user data and transactional data in fractions of a second between server networks enabled digital marketing to become the gold standard in targeting, measuring and optimizing advertising in real-time.

Digital’s ability to produce ROI through real-time transactions and real-time ad optimization propelled a boon in the U.S. which reached e-commerce sales of $500 billion in 2018.  Due to its success in delivering real-time optimization and ROI, digital amassed $111 billion in ad spending annually which recently surpassed television’s annual ad spending of $70 billion.

As digital marketing evolved into an intricate real-time advertising platform, the introduction of streaming video allowed online and mobile users the ability to watch video content on their desktops, laptops and mobile devices.  Streaming content offered advertisers a richer platform that provided ad adjacency similar to television but with the benefits of real-time targeting, tracking and measurement.  In a short time, streaming technology was imbedded in OTT boxes, smart TVs and game consoles, connecting a bridge to the living room allowing viewers to cast their free or low-cost digital streaming services directly to their large screen televisions.

The combination of OTT boxes and linear TV digital boxes created a new category of "advanced TV" opportunities for television advertisers.  Creating better ad targeting efficiency than linear TV, advanced TV addresses commercials to individual households by "estimating" ad delivery through a triangulation of historical web activity, household information, TV box data and third-party data.  But without real-time engagement and attribution data, advanced TV and linear TV become less seamless and less effective when compared to the success of real-time optimization of digital marketing.

Based on the popularity of SMS text and staying away from prior television engagement failures, including apps, an SMS keyword text platform allows for real-time engagement and attribution for television advertisers. This proven model empowers a new gold standard for advanced TV -- one short SMS code for all advertisers, no technical set-up, no downloads required, and with real-time reporting by geography along with up to ten marketing actions (including coupon downloads, phone calls, purchases, web visits, video views and calendar events).

With the limitations of advanced TV and linear TV engagement technology, SMS keyword text can provide important engagement and attribution data immediately and faster to improve television campaign optimization.  It’s never been more opportune for television networks and distributors to offer advertisers real-time television engagement, attribution and consumer activation on a mass scale.

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