For decades, television advertisers have faced a trade-off:
- Traditional linear TV: Delivers broad reach, utilizing the power of sight, sound, and motion on the big screen to capture more focused attention and foster immersive brand-building. However, it lacks the precise targeting modern marketers crave.
- Digital and addressable channels: Offer highly precise targeting and robust measurement capabilities but struggle to replicate linear TV’s unique combination of visual impact and viewer engagement on the big screen.
Connected TV (CTV) bridges this gap by preserving television’s immersive, large-screen experience—where audiences are more attentive to the content—while offering the precise targeting capabilities long associated with digital and addressable channels.
Yet, as the industry evolves, there’s a growing realization that lower-funnel performance marketing—which emphasizes quick wins from in-market shoppers—doesn’t fully support long-term brand growth. Leading brands have increasingly noted that relying solely on performance tactics can limit sustained demand and brand equity.
Within CTV lies a powerful subset: Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). As consumers gravitate toward free streaming options, FAST has emerged as a key focal point for reaching immediate and future buyers. In this article, we’ll explore why focusing only on in-market shoppers risks missing the larger pool of “future-ready buyers” and how FAST platforms enable brands to engage them effectively.
The challenge: Over-fixation on “in-market” shoppers
One common marketing hurdle is “lower-funnel myopia”—focusing almost exclusively on in-market shoppers who are ready to buy immediately. While this can yield quick wins, it also means brands miss opportunities to improve in three critical areas:
- Competition and costs: By chasing the same immediate buyers, brands drive up media costs, especially as programmatic ad spending continues to climb each year.
- Missing out on future buyers: Most consumers aren’t looking to buy right now. In fact, only 5% of potential consumers are active ‘in-market,’ meaning the other 95% represent future-ready buyers open to purchasing soon. Over-focusing on in-market audiences overlooks people who could be primed to purchase soon.
- Inefficient spend on “sure bets”: Over-targeting likely buyers inflates costs for conversions you’d capture naturally. Shifting budget toward brand priming boosts incremental ROI.
Expanding the funnel isn’t just smart – it’s necessary
While many advertisers have prioritized short-term conversions, the data shows a growing imbalance—and a potential risk to long-term brand health. According to The CMO Survey (eMarketer, Nov 2024), CMOs allocated nearly 69% of their 2024 budgets to short-term brand performance, leaving just 31% for long-term brand building. If you’re only engaging consumers when they’re already in-market, you’re effectively joining the race at the final lap—and often paying a premium to do so.
So where does that leave the vast majority who aren’t buying right now? That’s where future-ready buyers come in.
The solution: “future-ready buyers”
So, how can you broaden your reach without resorting to a “spray-and-pray” strategy? Enter category future-ready buyers—consumers who aren’t actively shopping right now but remain open to your product category. They’re not firmly opposed or “locked out” of it. For example, existing electric vehicle (EV) owners may not be in-market this very moment, but they could be ready to purchase another EV when their lease ends or a new model debuts, making them ideal future-ready buyers.
Why they matter:
- Cultivate future demand. Engage buyers early to stay top-of-mind when they’re ready.
- Build a sustainable brand pipeline. Develop ongoing interest instead of repeatedly chasing immediate leads.
- Expand your reach. Broaden targeting beyond active shoppers for long-term growth.
Use marketing data to avoid overspending on future buyers
Identifying future-ready buyers is powerful—but how do you avoid wasting spend on unlikely buyers? Marketing data helps refine your targeting with real consumer insights, maximizing ROI and campaign efficiency.
- Precisely define your segments: Use lifestyle, demographic, and psychographic data to target consumers who are open to your product, avoiding wasted impressions on uninterested audiences.
- Prioritize privacy and compliance: Choose partners who prioritize data security and adhere to regulations, ensuring your campaigns stay both trustworthy and effective.
FAST: The strategic channel for reaching future ready buyers
FAST services, like Samsung TV Plus, have evolved into a crucial medium for advertisers eager to strike a balance between scale and precision.
Here’s why:
- Engaged audience: Viewers access free, premium content in exchange for ads, making them receptive and attentive.
- Advanced targeting: FAST offers precise segmentation beyond traditional TV, helping you reach Samsung consumers both in-market and future buyers effectively on the biggest screen in the household.
- Positive viewer experience: Free content creates a relaxed viewing environment, increasing ad attention and recall.
Samsung TV Plus and Experian Marketing Services: Scale meets precision
Samsung TV Plus offers expansive reach and contextual targeting aligned to viewer interests. Experian Marketing Services complements this by identifying consumers most likely to buy, leveraging demographic, lifestyle, and intent data—helping you effectively engage future-ready buyers.
Putting it into practice: A use case
Scenario
An electric vehicle (EV) brand, EVolution Auto, wants to reach eco-conscious consumers who aren’t shopping for a car right now but might consider one soon. They also want to track how ads influence brand consideration and sales over time.
Approach
- Identify future-ready segments
Using Experian data, EVolution Auto focuses on “eco-conscious drivers”—people interested in sustainability who are likely to be open to an EV in the near future. - Activate on Samsung TV Plus
The brand places targeted ads on channels with environmental or tech content. With millions of monthly users and a relaxed viewing experience, EVolution Auto’s spots get more visibility, boosting ad recall.
Outcome
By pairing Samsung TV Plus’s broad reach with Experian’s precise audience data, EVolution Auto achieves measurable lifts in brand consideration, website traffic, and dealership visits—effectively priming future EV buyers and driving long-term sales momentum.
Building a future-proof strategy
Exclusively targeting in-market consumers can limit your brand’s long-term potential. By focusing on those not currently shopping—but still open to your category—you widen your future buyer pool and keep your brand top of mind. FAST services like Samsung TV Plus, paired with Experian’s marketing data, offer a powerful way to balance scale with precision–delivering strong engagement today while priming your brand for long-term growth. By shifting your focus toward tomorrow’s buyers today, your brand doesn’t just stay relevant—it sets the stage for sustained market leadership and growth.
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Advertisers continue to increase their spending across addressable TV, connected TV (CTV), and digital. According to IAB's "2021 Video Ad Spend and 2022 Outlook" report, digital video ad spending is expected to increase by 26% to $49.2 billion in 2022. Understanding who consumers are and how to best reach them in their preferred channel is becoming more complex. Damian Amitin and Colleen Dawe discuss how a seamless identity strategy can address the complexity of the emerging TV space. The evolution of identity resolution Around ten years ago, the idea of digital “identity resolution” or “Device Graphs” was born. This idea connected cookies and MAIDs to understand when many IDs were the same person or household. In more recent years, our industry began to connect that initial understanding to the CTV ecosystem. But, a large part of the TV ecosystem existed in silos, like first and third-party audience data, and the growing advanced TV market. The goal of identity resolution has always been to understand the consumer better. To achieve more accurate targeting and measurement in the CTV ecosystem, we must incorporate the following: What we know about the household and consumer from an ID perspective Who the consumer is as it relates to audience data, as well as the wealth of first-party data in the advanced TV space We know the cookie is a flawed way to collect data. While Google delayed the deprecation of third-party cookies, there are other challenges that we face right now. Such as the glaring gap in Safari traffic and the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) turning to “opt-in." Understanding consumer behavior across devices and platforms continues to challenge marketers and publishers. These challenges are creating the need to find more stable identifiers. Though the cookie remains valuable, it has an uncertain future. This has led advertisers to place bigger bets on the combination of addressable and CTV. The overlap in addressable and CTV data leads to fragmentation Personally identifiable information (PII) makes up the majority of addressable TV households' data. Part of the attraction to CTV is that their IDs remain universal, persistent, and stable. Analysts project that CTV ad spending will hit $23B in 2023. Consumers now have an average of 4.7 streaming subscriptions per household. It’s no surprise then, that Disney+, HBO, and Netflix released or announced ad-supported tiers. Addressable TV and CTV are often thought of as distinct markets across the industry. But, in the context of identity, we should look at them through the same lens. Millions of households still consume TV and video content via a set-top box or through apps on CTVs. This is in addition to what they consume on their laptops, tablets, and phones. Of the top 11 cable and satellite providers, 65 million U.S. households still have a box in their homes. On the other hand, approximately 96 million U.S. households have at least one or more Smart TVs and streaming services. With about 126 million total U.S. TV households, that’s a lot of overlap. There are still significant numbers of both addressable and CTV homes. How can we address fragmented TV consumption? Through a holistic and comprehensive approach to identity. An approach that captures addressable TV, CTV, and digital identifiers. An approach that captures all audience attributes inside of a single identity graph. This is the ideal approach for publishers, AdTech vendors, and brands. Discover how to unlock holistic identity How can we achieve a holistic identity? Through a three-pillared approach: First-party data onboarding Digital identifiers Consumer data First-party data onboarding Bringing offline data from a brand’s consumers is very valuable due to the quality of the data. Because the data is being collected right from the source, you know it’s accurate. It provides the foundation you can build your identity strategy from. Digital identifiers Once you create a foundation with first-party data, you need to connect it. Either with an internal or licensed digital ID graph. Then you can understand the connections between all devices within the household. Consumer data After you know which devices tie to a single consumer, you'll want to act on that knowledge. The next step is to partner with a data provider that can help you understand your consumers. Establishing this partnership will help improve targeting, measurement, and the customer experience. To achieve a well-rounded customer view tomorrow, we need to start today The three-pillared approach bridges the gap between the offline and online worlds. This provides a well-rounded view of customers and audiences. However, the ability to tie these aspects of identity together still presents several challenges. To achieve the three-pillared approach today, you need to use many vendors and fragmented data sources. Often with conflicting data. As we look forward, the tools to do this are becoming more advanced and unified. The players in our ecosystem should adopt a seamless identity strategy. One that provides a privacy-safe yet full-picture solution. That means capturing and unifying all devices within a household. While also understanding the consumer behaviors and profiles behind those devices. As TV becomes more sophisticated, our data and services will enable you to unlock a holistic identity. Chris Feo, SVP of Advanced TV and Platforms, spoke with Broadcasting & Cable about how our data powers measurement, audience insights, and results for businesses within the TV space. "As more and more companies enter the general TV space, whether you're a publisher, an advertiser or anyone in between that's doing measurement, insights, analytics, our data or our services will play a role in some part of that value exchange." – Chris Feo, SVP of Advanced TV and Platforms, Experian Marketing Services Keep up with your customers and their data Once we create an informed identity strategy, we can begin to understand the makeup of each household and the individuals within. In this new world, personalizing the experience for an audience is key. Where do they prefer to spend their time? What type of content are they most engaged in? Only then can we as an industry provide an optimal experience for each consumer. All while driving greater ROI for advertisers and publishers. Are you ready to know more about your customers than ever before? Let's get to work together to achieve your marketing goals. Contact us to learn how we can connect the complex dots of identity resolution. About our experts Damian Amitin, VP of Enterprise Partnerships, Experian Marketing Services Damian Amitin is the VP of Enterprise Partnerships and joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. Damian is a senior sales and partnerships executive, specializing in the identity resolution and marketing data ecosystem. Damian helps brands, publishers, and technology vendors enable enhanced ID resolution through The Experian/Tapad platform to attain a 360 view of the customer across targeting analytics, attribution, and personalization. Colleen Dawe, Senior Account Executive, Experian Marketing Services Colleen Dawe is a Senior Account Executive on the Advanced TV Team within Experian Marketing Services. With 15 years of experience working within the television ecosystem, Colleen works with clients to bring the value and expertise of Experian to support their objectives in the areas of data, identity, activation, and measurement. Get in touch
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