The Strategic Value of Programmatic Buying in Linear TV for Healthcare Marketers
‍As TV-related health marketing for linear and connected TV (CTV) evolves, pharma brands have more effective and efficient opportunities to reach hyper-relevant audiences. While traditional broadcast or linear TV has long been a cornerstone of TV marketing due to its broad reach and diverse programming, its lack of granular audience segmentation has made it less competitive than digital-first CTV advertising, which excels at targeting specific healthcare audiences across streaming platforms and other devices. This is where programmatic TV advertising comes into play, giving healthcare marketers the ability to bring digital-style precision and data-driven targeting into linear and connected TV campaigns. This evolution toward programmatic TV advertising is reshaping how healthcare brands plan and buy linear TV.

But, while CTV and streaming services will continue to chip away at traditional broadcast TV viewership, research shows that by 2027, U.S. adults will still spend about two hours of their average daily video time on traditional TV. So, pharma marketers should still consider linear TV advertising as part of their overall TV strategy for reaching relevant health audiences.

Recent advancements in programmatic advertising technology have transformed how healthcare marketers can utilize linear TV and digital ad inventory. This unified buying solution enhances reach and frequency and provides access to new incremental audiences consuming linear TV previously out of reach for digital-only advertisers.

Benefits of Programmatic Linear TV Advertising for Healthcare Marketers

‍It can be far more advantageous for pharma marketers to buy linear TV programmatically instead of via direct buys for several key reasons: 

• Better targeting capabilities: Pharma marketers buying linear TV programmatically can tap into more granular audience segmentation.
• Better budget control: Improved targeting capabilities mean more relevance to the viewer, helping marketers allocate spending more effectively to audiences more likely to convert. 
• Better measurement: While traditional linear TV has held firm to Gross Ratings Points (GRP) as its primary measurement metric, buying linear TV programmatically helps pharma marketers know how many unique viewers saw an ad and if there is a desired outcome from the ones that did.

Linear TV advertising offers several advantages for reaching brand-relevant health audiences, such as the ability to:

• Reach audiences during live televised events: From the Super Bowl to the season finale of a hit series, having access to linear TV ad inventory is handy when viewers tune in for special programming. 
• Access to older populations: As of 2023, the average age of linear TV viewers is 55. Therefore, pharma marketers can better reach older audiences on linear TV and advertise treatment for conditions that commonly impact this population.
• Extend video revenue opportunities: Despite the growth in streaming platforms, linear TV controls most brand revenue. There’s also minimal overlap between audiences who primarily watch CTV and those who stick with linear TV, suggesting a significant opportunity to capture additional viewers who may be less active on digital platforms.

As viewers adopt a hybrid approach to watching television, pharma marketers should combine linear and connected TV strategies to effectively and efficiently optimize reach for hyper-relevant audiences. Advertising on linear TV complements CTV in several ways:

• Linear TV advertising sits at the top of the funnel. It provides access to a broad group of people, making advertising campaigns ideal for brand awareness, perceptions, familiarity, favorability, and purchase intent. 
• CTV similarly opens marketers to many viewers, but many are younger than traditional TV viewers, as referenced above, and have abandoned traditional broadcast TV. In this way, linear and connected TV advertising allows pharma marketers to reach cable and streaming subscribers. You need to use this hybrid approach to know which medium you go with, or else you will miss a significant portion of the general population.

• CTV is a more full-funnel video medium that not only hits upper and lower funnel marketing goals but also serves as a tool for granular metrics such as unique viewers, average frequency, and co-viewing impression lift.
• Thanks to better retargeting and analytics, CTV can amplify the reach of linear TV advertising. Marketers can also reach viewers on over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices (like smartphones, tablets, and desktops) to drive further bottom-of-the-funnel metrics. 

Pharma marketers can enhance audience reach and addressability by unifying linear and connected TV in a single video campaign. Keeping these channels siloed leads to disjointed campaign execution and unsuitable audience viewing experiences. Programmatic advertising, which integrates linear TV advertising within omnichannel campaigns, helps bridge this gap. 

The Advent of Programmatic and Addressable TV advertising

‍Purchasing ad inventory for streaming and linear TV in one programmatic buying platform empowers pharmaceutical marketers to manage granular reach in a previously unattainable way. It also means pharmaceutical marketers who were once digital-only can access new incremental linear TV audiences—especially for DTC. Applying data-driven programmatic TV advertising to deliver video content to targeted audiences across linear TV and streaming platforms gives marketers more control, precision, and efficiency than typical TV buying. 

As healthcare marketers look to capitalize on programmatic advertising within linear TV, doors are also opened for a new type of offering: linear addressable TV. 

Addressable TV is targeted advertising that enables brands to tailor ads delivered to individual households while they consume linear or connected TV content. It is unique—and beneficial to TV marketing—because it allows marketers to reach hyper-relevant households on top of the granular audience segmentation that programmatic advertising already provides in a channel that has historically only been pre-bought or pre-planned. The technology enables serving an ad to a household aligned with the targeting definition in real-time. Addressable TV leverages geography, demographics, or behaviors via on-demand programming on streaming and, now, on linear TV—all of which can be leveraged in a single campaign. A unified video campaign strategy across channels enhances the ability to resonate with the target audience, given limited consumer attention.

Programmatic buying combined with addressable TV advertising enables brands to tailor ads to specific audiences based on their interests and habits, regardless of scheduled programming and mass audience viewership. This development has paved the path for healthcare marketers to reach more brand-relevant viewers on both linear TV and CTV, resulting in higher ROI as marketers better allocate spend to viewers who are more likely to convert. 

Unlike traditional TV advertising, programmatic and addressable TV advertising provides more detailed audience data signaled by cross-device viewer behavior—such as watched programs, owned devices, and visited websites. With programmatic and addressable targeting for linear TV, marketers can make far more informed decisions and optimize omnichannel campaigns in real-time for better results.

The Significance of Programmatic Linear TV

‍Programmatic linear TV advertising fills traditional broadcast advertising gaps by offering granular audience segmentation, increased ad relevance through programmatic DSPs, and near real-time insights.

1. Granular audience segmentation: Programmatic linear TV advertising offers precision targeting, data-driven ad buying, and enhanced viewing experiences.Healthcare marketers can target relevant audiences using a DSP's de-identified clinical data and condition propensity modeling, moving beyond simple demographics. Precision targeting enables a balance of broad exposure with the precision necessary to engage with brand-relevant health audiences effectively.
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2. Maximize omnichannel reach and engagement: Healthcare marketers increasingly recognize the need to expand their reach beyond conventional channels. Through programmatic TV advertising, they can synchronize their linear TV ads with digital efforts, ensuring consistent messaging across multiple touchpoints and maximizing cross-channel visibility and engagement. Managing budgets and campaigns in one single platform also saves time.
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3. Cookieless targeting: Linear TV activation operates entirely without cookies, allowing brands greater control over their data strategy and improving targeting accuracy. This ensures higher confidence that their ads will effectively reach the intended audience.

Programmatic linear TV is a game-changer for expanding reach and addressability for healthcare audiences, and pharma marketers should prioritize integrating it into their programmatic marketing strategies when possible. 

Selecting the Right Programmatic Linear TV Solution

Considering the above, it’s important to note not all programmatic linear TV solutions are right for healthcare marketers. Ensure you can target and engage hyper-relevant audiences more effectively and efficiently by asking these three main questions of potential advertising partners: 

1. Do they have scalable ad inventory across major networks and content providers?
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2. Do they offer granular audience segmentation?
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3. Do they facilitate omnichannel activation across linear TV, CTV, and other channels to maximize reach and engagement and optimize the overall brand experience?
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4. What brand safety measures are in place to ensure targeted consumer audiences remain protected?

PulsePoint’s platform exemplifies the evolution of TV ad buying by integrating linear TV's broad appeal with programmatic and addressable TV advertising's advanced capabilities. PulsePoint’s users can easily buy traditional broadcast ad inventory while activating the same audience in the same or congruent omnichannel campaigns.

Our platform offers programmatic advertising for linear TV in a way that streamlines the ad-buying process. It has three main advantages. 

1. Scalable linear TV ad inventory: Beginning with AMC, which reaches 11 million households and is paired to Comcast’s household device graph with over 32 million households reached.
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2. Granular audience segmentation capabilities: Our precision targeting for consumer populations leverages Bespoke Audiences made up of customized, clinically-informed consumer segments modeled with proprietary, real-time digital activity data.
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3. Omnichannel reach/ engagement: PulsePoint offers omnichannel activation, reach, and granular campaign measurement integrated into one technology platform. We provide instant visibility into omnichannel campaign results so marketers can evaluate channel-level impact and influence simultaneously to help further refine campaign—and overall marketing—strategy. We also power all our campaigns with our Real-Time Intelligence Loop, which provides immediate results that pharma marketers can leverage for more informed decision-making.

Integrating programmatic and addressable TV advertising into linear TV through platforms like PulsePoint transforms healthcare marketing by helping marketers reach the right audience at the right time and with the right message, all while optimizing spending and enhancing the overall impact of their campaigns. Through PulsePoint’s programmatic healthcare advertising platform, healthcare marketers can synchronize their linear TV ads with digital efforts, ensuring consistent messaging across multiple touchpoints and maximizing cross-channel visibility and engagement. 

Looking ahead to the future of TV advertising for pharma brands

As healthcare marketing demands more precise targeting and measurement, PulsePoint’s platform stands out by seamlessly segmenting hyper-relevant audiences effectively and efficiently and activating them across multiple channels, including linear TV. This capability was once non-existent in traditional TV advertising but is now pivotal in crafting more relevant and scalable marketing strategies. Healthcare marketers can achieve better campaign outcomes by leveraging programmatic TV advertising alongside CTV and gaining deeper insights into ad effectiveness across channels. Looking ahead, PulsePoint’s healthcare marketing platform will continue to help healthcare marketers combine CTV and linear TV to reach more precise audiences. By leveraging programmatic TV advertising alongside addressable and connected TV strategies, pharma brands can maximize reach, control spend, and gain deeper insights into campaign effectiveness.

‍Contact us for more information.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is linear TV advertising?

Linear TV advertising enables advertisers to reach audiences on traditional, live TV programming during highly influential moments. Advertisers have two options when buying linear TV inventory: buying ad space directly from publishers, or buying ad space through a programmatic DSP (demand side platform) that offers publisher inventory via pre-negotiated programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals.

What are the benefits of programmatic advertising on linear TV?

In addition to quicker access to premium inventory via pre-negotiated PG deals, buying linear TV programmatically offers more granular audience segmentation, better budget control, and more comprehensive campaign measurement compared to direct buys. Healthcare marketers can target relevant audiences using a DSP's de-identified clinical data and condition propensity modeling, moving beyond simple demographics. Advertisers can also synchronize their linear TV ads with digital efforts, ensuring consistent messaging across multiple touchpoints and maximizing cross-channel visibility and engagement. Managing budgets and campaigns in one single platform also saves time.

What is addressable TV advertising?

Addressable TV is targeted advertising that enables brands to tailor ads delivered to individual households by specific locations, demographics, or behaviors while they're watching linear or connected TV (CTV) content in real-time.

What are the benefits of addressable TV advertising?

Addressable TV allows marketers to reach hyper-relevant households on top of the granular audience segmentation that programmatic advertising already provides. Programmatic buying combined with addressable TV advertising enables brands to tailor ads to specific audiences based on their interests and habits, regardless of scheduled programming and mass audience viewership. This development enables healthcare marketers to reach more brand-relevant viewers on linear TV and CTV, resulting in higher ROI as marketers better allocate spend to viewers who are more likely to convert. Unlike traditional TV advertising, programmatic and addressable TV advertising provides more detailed audience data signaled by cross-device viewer behavior—such as watched programs, owned devices, and visited websites. With programmatic and addressable targeting for linear TV, marketers can make far more informed decisions and optimize omnichannel campaigns in real-time for better results.