To Reach Persuadable Voters, Look to CTV: Report
Voters are increasingly migrating to CTV for their ad-supported content – and persuadable voters are even more likely to do so, according to a new report.
The data, released Monday by political ad tech firm Cross Screen Media, offers an early look into how voters’ TV consumption habits are changing and how campaigners can reach them. Here are four takeaways from the report:
CTV Has More Reach Than Linear
Streaming has been on the rise for years, and it’s now the go-to platform for the vast majority of voters.
Eighty-three percent of registered voters nationwide are reachable via ad-supported CTV, according to Cross Screen Media’s report, while 68 percent are reachable via linear TV. Even more notable, however, is the fact that 18 percent of registered voters are exclusively reachable via CTV.
Just 4 percent of voters are only consuming linear, while 64 percent are reachable across both platforms.
Persuadable Voters Are More Likely to Consume Streaming Only
When it comes to persuadable voters – the 8 percent or so of voters who aren’t locked in for one side or the other – CTV carries even more weight.
More than one in five persuadable voters – 22 percent – are reachable only via ad-supported CTV, the Cross Screen Media report finds. Meanwhile, a scant 3 percent can be reached through linear TV exclusively. Ignoring or downplaying streaming could have big implications for campaigns interested in tapping into the well of persuadable voters, the report argues.
“A weak CTV strategy poses the greatest risk to missing the voters who could tip an election,” it says.
Not All Markets Are Created Equal
Of course, persuadable voters aren’t a monolith. According to Cross Screen Media, there are some big differences between CTV consumption across states.
Take Texas, for instance, where 93 percent of persuadable voters are reachable via CTV. The situation is similar in states, like Tennessee and Georgia, where 90 percent of persuadable voters are consuming ad-supported streaming content.
States like Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska, on the other hand, have significantly lower reachability rates via CTV, at 59 percent, 62 percent and 64 percent, respectively. The key takeaway: “There is no universal CTV playbook for every state,” according to the report.
For its part, linear has the potential to reach the most persuadable voters in Hawaii (91 percent), New Jersey (82 percent), New Hampshire (81 percent) Rhode Island (78 percent) and Massachusetts (78 percent), while states like Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming offer the least reachability. Less than 50 percent of persuadable voters in each of those is reachable via linear TV, according to Cross Screen Media.
TV Isn’t a Catchall
It’s worth noting that some voters simply aren’t reachable on the big screen. Thirteen percent of registered voters nationwide – and 14 percent of persuadable voters – are nonconsumers of both linear TV and CTV, Cross Screen Media’s report concludes.
And depending on the state, that number is even higher. In Alaska, for instance, 35 percent of persuadable voters aren’t reachable via linear or CTV. There’s a similar dynamic in Wyoming, where 31 percent of persuadable voters are nonconsumers.
But those voters still matter, the report notes, advising campaigns to prioritize tactics like peer-to-peer texting and direct mail to reach them.
“These are adults who will vote, and who are up for grabs, and yet campaigns won’t be able to reach them on the big screen,” the report reads. “However, any campaign that can identify them immediately has an advantage.”
