TV ad trends: Wednesday ‘highest performing day’ for viewer response

Feb 21, 2020 | Ad tech, France, Germany, UK

41% of advertisers say lack of understanding is key barrier to CTV
Tying TV to business outcomes is a high priority across Europe, with advertisers tracking an average of 5 KPIs, according to a new pan-European study.

TV measuring firm TVSquared has published European-wide TV ad insights. The data highlights some surprising performance results about the best days, timeparts and creative lengths marketers should consider when buying inventory.

Many European brands, and an increasing number of U.S. companies, air multi-country campaigns across Europe.

To identify TV performance trends for the continent, TVSquared analyzed response, cost and audience data from advertisers across verticals, including automotive, direct-to-consumer (DTC), travel and non-profit.

The report ranks performance based on response and cost per response (CPR) rates. Collected across 12 European countries, including UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, the key findings include:

  • Advertisers measured an average of five KPIs for their TV campaigns, with the top three being new clients (60%), sign-ups (57%) and purchases/conversions (50%)
  • 30-second spots won out with a +36% response rate, followed by 10-second spots at +14%. Both creative lengths also proved to be efficient, with CPR rates of 35% and 32% below average, respectively.
  • Wednesday proved to be the highest performing day, with response 4% above average and CPR 7% below average. While Sunday had higher response (+6%), it was less efficient (CPR 10% above average) and came at a premium
  • Daytime dayparts (accounting for the 9:00 a.m.-noon timeframe) had the highest overall performance, but in the five biggest markets – France, Italy, the UK, Spain and Germany – there was variance.
  • The UK audience has the widest spread of response rates, reaching highs of +140% for Morning slots and dropping as low as -72% for Early Mornings – both ends of the spectrum surpassing any of the other 11 countries monitored
    • Across Europe, 30-second ad spots won out in terms of response and efficiency, boasting a CPR 35% below average
    • But the biggest surprise was that 45-second spots saw a response rate of +109%
    • Short, 15-second ads didn’t deliver results, seeing a response rate of -85%

“TVSquared’s global footprint enables us to provide a holistic view for advertisers, which is important for the many brands running multi-country campaigns,” said Mark Hudson, Head of Business Intelligence, TVSquared. “What’s interesting is the creative breakdown where you see that traditional forms, such as 30s, still have strong performance, but short-form ads are also proving to be response drivers. Serving up analytics is part of the process, but it’s only useful if you are making changes on the backend.”

TVSquared’s “European-Wide TV Ad Performance Insights” infographic is available for download.

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