Five fascinating ways generative AI is taking over CTV

Did you know two out of three advertisers already advertising on connected TV (CTV) are ramping up ad spend in 2023 by an average of 23%? CTV is rapidly taking over linear TV in terms of viewership and ad spend. As we look ahead to future CTV capabilities, the industry is abuzz with the offerings of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI.

We report on five of the latest trends in CTV stemming from generative AI, investigate how they will change the digital advertising realm as we know it, and make a data-driven pitch for why now is the perfect time for app marketers to start advertising on CTV.

At Ad Age’s State of TV Advertising conference, executives from YouTube and Disney shared that their mutual focus over the next 12 months would be to facilitate innovation around the advertising workflow using generative AI. Disney is keen that AI assist it in reviewing creatives as it scales its number of advertisers. Indeed, more advertisers are entering the CTV space. For instance, 86% of retail marketers plan to increase their CTV ad spend in 2023. Therefore, Disney plans to utilize AI to automate creative reviews, allowing the brand to effectively serve more and more advertisers on its self-service, programmatic platform.

Soon, advertisers will be able to employ AI to make CTV-ready ads via mere text inputs. tvScientific’s CEO Jason Fairchild recently wrote about how AI algorithms will let marketers finesse their ads and creatives by creating multiple versions of an ad, testing a variety of differences such as color scheme, an actor’s gender, clothing, volume, and more. Advertisers can see which combination of creative elements produces the highest performance. Major brands from Roku, the aforementioned Disney and YouTube, and even Amazon are focused on innovating AI tools for ad creation.

In fact, marketers are already turning to AI-generated content for ads. In the image below, AI-powered Midjourney allows markers to generate realistic images based on text commands alone. They can also remix the different variables created to regenerate ads until the ads match their creative needs.

Recently, Brian Albert, managing director of U.S. agency video at Google and YouTube, said that he envisions influencers on YouTube soon utilizing AI to be more reactive in real-time to their audiences. For example, AI can reveal to a content creator how their content is doing as it runs, and the influencer can adjust directly by removing things like extra backgrounds. In short, AI could allow content creators to improve the quality and likeability of their content.

Speaking of ad likeability, what if advertisers could measure and automatically update their CTV ads based on brand outcomes? The analytics platform for brand advertising Upwave recently launched its Persuadability Scores, which measure attitudinal metrics like awareness, consideration, purchase intent, ad recall, and favorability.

These attitudinal metrics are fed into algorithmic bidders to provide real-time, brand outcome-based optimization signals. This allows brand marketing to become more performance-driven and offers advertisers new auto-optimized metrics to prove value to their brand campaigns. When combined with the advanced targeting capabilities of CTV, advertisers can monitor brand impact from their branding campaigns across a wide range of audiences.

Curious about CTV’s targeting capabilities and latest trends? Get our ebook Mastering CTV in 2023: Insights for app marketers.

A new study revealed that ad recall for shoppable ads on TV is high, with half of online adults remembering seeing one. Of these, 39% engaged with a shoppable TV ad, and 70% of those who did purchased the featured product directly or later.

Since the launch of its partnership last year, Walmart ads run on Roku have had tremendous success with their shoppable content​​. This partnership lets viewers put items from ads in their online Walmart carts and buy them directly. Since launching, 57% of Roku streamers have hit the pause button to shop a product online. (Psst—Yes, Adjust has an integration with Roku.)

In another instance, video commerce company Firework is exploring generative AI to drive user engagement and conversions after a livestream ends for an “always on” shopping experience. Users will have access to an AI-powered chat, which will match a brand’s voice and respond in many languages. Based on early data, the company estimates that the AI tool can boost engagement anywhere from 10 to 50 times that of an average livestream.

P.S. Interactive CTV ad formats were recently reported to generate a 600% lift in engagement compared to standard pre-roll video. As interactive ads ask for user engagement, they often get it, and it should be something marketers consider adding to their next campaigns.

If the latest advancements and upcoming potential in the CTV advertising realm don’t convince you, perhaps these three statistics on the current state of CTV will.

1. CTV earns over half of global video ad impressions

A recent analysis revealed that in 2022, CTV made up more than half of global video impressions. This is up by 10.9% from CTV’s 2021 share. Undoubtedly, your target audience is consuming content on CTV, and with the right measurement tools and targeting, you can reach them.

Don’t miss out on one of the fastest-growing advertising channels. With AppLovin’s user acquisition platform, AppDiscovery, app marketers can reach premium CTV supply, accessing hundreds of FAST apps and channels. Additionally, marketers can utilize AppLovin’s in-house creative team, SparkLabs, to get customized, high-performing ad creation.