How to Maximize the ROI in OTT Advertising

OTT advertising can turn your content into a reliable stream of passive income. However, it takes time to set up your content and get it published across as many platforms as possible. To maximize your ROI, you need to cultivate as many advertising opportunities as possible while also minimizing the work you have to put in. By exposing more of your content to ads, picking partners intelligently, and publishing everywhere, you'll maximize your content's potential earnings.

How to Maximize ROI in OTT Advertising

Leverage Ads Across Your Entire Content Library

The more content you have, the more ad revenue you can expect to receive. Look to leverage your entire content library. The now-gigantic Cartoon Network started out by simply posting reruns of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons that it held in its portfolio. Likewise, look through your entire content library and find a place for it. Even deleted scenes or abandoned episodes could be interesting for your fans. Bloopers and commentary are other ways to keep people coming back for more.

If you have older content, consider giving it some upgrades. AI upscaling tools can bring older footage up to modern standards with minimal effort. This helps retain viewers so that you can score more ad revenue from ads that roll in the middle of the episode. Also, consider adding subtitles in other languages to encourage more international viewership. By having ads on all of your content, you'll increase the value of your entire catalog.

Target Potential Ad Partners

Most OTT platforms give you the option to let the platform decide which ads roll on your content. However, some platforms also allow you to provide your own advertisements. With this approach, you'd negotiate a rate for your ad space directly with an advertiser, create an ad, and run it on your content for an agreed amount of time. This can be more lucrative than just letting the platform decide what ads your viewers get.

Platform algorithms don't always target viewers precisely. However, you know your audience better than anyone. When you work directly with advertisers, you can leverage that data to get better rates for your ad time. Furthermore, you open up possibilities for sponsored content or product placement for your future productions.

Publish Your Content on Multiple Platforms

If your content can earn revenue on more than one platform, then why would you limit yourself to a single option? Unfortunately, many creators make that very mistake. Each platform adds an extra layer of work since the video needs to be reencoded and tagged with all of the description data necessary for upload. Nevertheless, you're leaving opportunities on the table by sticking to a single platform. With a media cloud, you can post everywhere with minimal effort.

A media cloud allows you to upload your content once and then send it to every supported platform without extra steps. This makes it easy to get your content everywhere and get ad revenue from multiple sources. To learn more, schedule a callback from Lightcast to speak to an online media strategist today.