Hyper-Local Targeting: Find Local Audiences Anywhere with CTV

The local advertising marketplace hit over $165 billion in 2023 as local, regional, and national buyers competed to bring their messages to local audiences across major traditional and digital media platforms. 

Why has CTV advertising become such a critical piece of reaching local audiences? And how can you reap the benefits of hyper-local targeting on CTV? We’ve got answers.

CTV targeting allows advertisers to narrow in on specific geographies and optimize their campaigns. This means advertisers can drill down to specific geographic targets with ease and precision. That’s just not possible in traditional ad buying based on DMAs and demographics. 

Advertising on CTV allows advertisers to reach exactly the audiences they want to reach, regardless of DMA. 

In fact, CTV advertisers can even target beyond the specific zip code, right down to the targeted household. The implication for local TV advertisers? These hyperlocal marketing strategies can reach audiences anywhere in the country.

That’s exactly what one local TV station in South Carolina (DMA 70) was looking to do when they started offering CTV advertising. The station knew they were reaching on average 430,000 households in South Carolina via traditional linear TV, but that audience wouldn’t be of any use to their new client in the midwest. 

The client was a window and door company with service areas covering multiple DMAs across Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. To reach potential customers in these service areas on linear TV, they would need a multi-station, multi-DMA campaign — the budget would have to include at least three or four local TV stations.

By incorporating CTV into their advertising strategy, the local station was able to identify the client’s core target audience in specific geographical areas outside the station DMA — in the specific zip codes where the company offers services. 

Over the course of 10 months, the window and door company reached nearly 3 million people, averaged 720,000 impressions per month, and grew their unique conversion rate from .08% to .45%. The advertiser’s hyperlocal marketing campaign translated into a 30% increase in the station group’s CTV revenue.

Caption: Client’s target audience lived across several linear DMAs.

Caption: CTV targeting at the zip code level allowed the client to reach prospects across DMAs.

Advertising on linear TV can often present limitations based on cable/satellite providers and networks. 

For example, there are three different cable companies that serve the city of Dallas, Texas, plus two different satellite TV providers. If the local credit union advertises with Spectrum, they’ll automatically miss all of the people in Dallas that subscribe to Astound Broadband or Sparklight cable services, as well as those using DIRECTV or DISH.

Conversely, CTV ads can reach anyone that watches TV via the internet — and that can mean some seriously extended reach beyond a single cable provider.

Premium publishers provide access to buyers targeting audiences over both their owned and operated platforms — but often run into situations where the audiences they generate do not offer sufficient scale to achieve buyer objectives. 

To satisfy this client requirement, publishers can work with demand-side platforms to extend reach across third-party inventory. For example, local TV station sellers will often extend the audience reach they can deliver by bundling in similar audiences in CTV. 

An up-and-coming DTC brand partnered with Neiman Marcus to sell their luxury CBD skincare products at 21 select Neiman Marcus stores. As their first foray into retail, they needed to knock it out of the park.

The brand wanted to drive sales in advance of the holiday season — especially in the markets where Neiman Marcus carries their products.

Unfortunately, linear TV and social media were off limits due to legal restrictions on CBD. The brand needed another strategy to target custom, hyper-local audiences with full-funnel campaigns they could accurately report on.

Local CTV ads increase in-store sales

The luxury skincare brand worked with Madhive to stream CTV commercials with an embedded QR code to cannabis-friendly audiences local to target Neiman Marcus locations. The QR code was a direct-response vehicle that drove viewers to a Neiman Marcus landing page with the offer.

The campaign drove more than 10M impressions across premium publishers including Fox, ESPN, FX, AMC, and Bravo, The CW, Food Network, Bravo, and HGTV. The creative included advanced QR code technology from Flowcode, which had a 96% video completion rate (VCR) and a 4% click through rate (CTR) — nearly 400% higher than the average CTR on Facebook. 

Overall, the campaign drove more than 150,000 shopping sessions across neimanmarcus.com and the brand’s eCommerce site. But beyond eCommerce, Neiman Marcus also saw an influx of in-store purchases at target physical locations — up to 3.4X sales in key DMAs.

Even national brands should be drilling down to reach hyper-local audiences. To make the most of your next hyper-local marketing campaign, keep the following tips in mind.

1. Keep regional trends and seasonality top of mind. Hyper-local advertising gives you the ability to be hyper-relevant...or not. Did you know there are over thirteen terms used in the US for cold-cut sandwiches on a long roll (subs, grinders, hoagies, po-boys, etc.), depending on your geography? In addition to language differences, different regions across the country also have differences in socioeconomic status, cultural diversity, weather patterns, etc. Understand these differences and use them appropriately to connect with your local audience.

2. Find a CTV platform that can deliver local precision at national scale. Many adtech solutions were made for national audiences with limited granularity at the local level. To take advantage of hyper-local targeting, make sure to find a CTV partner that can drill down into the smallest of towns and scale very specific audiences…all across the country.

3. Measure beyond impressions. CTV lets you accurately measure cross device performance and tie outcomes to your campaigns. And if you’re sending viewers to physical stores, dealerships, restaurants, or offices, you can also measure foot traffic as a result of your campaign (remember, Cannaluxe could accurately attribute in-store sales at Neiman Marcus to their CTV campaign). 

Related content:How to Evaluate CTV Advertising Platforms

Hyper-local targeting will elevate your campaign performance. But CTV and OTT are not-set-it-and-forget-it channels. Make sure to check out our next post:

How to Elevate Your CTV Advertising: Optimize In-Flight