Basics of Traditional TV Advertising: a Beginner Guide

This guide will help you understand the fundamentals of TV advertising, with a focus on traditional TV methods that have proven successful for decades. We'll break down everything you need to know to create a campaign that reaches your target audience and achieves your business goals.

What is TV Advertising?

TV advertising is the practice of promoting products, services, or brands through commercials that air on television networks and cable channels. From driving sales spikes to building long-term brand awareness, TV advertising delivers measurable results at scale.

Types of TV Advertising

There are several different types of TV advertising, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. These types are organized by delivery method and coverage area:

Delivery Method:

Linear TV advertising (Traditional TV)

Commercials that air on traditional broadcast and cable channels at scheduled times. This is classic TV advertising - the kind that interrupts your favorite shows on networks like ABC, ESPN, or CNN.

Streaming TV advertising

Ads delivered during streaming programs on platforms like Peacock, Disney+, or Roku. This category includes:

• CTV: Streaming delivered specifically to internet-enabled TVs
• OTT (Over-the-Top): Streaming delivered to any device – TVs, laptops, tablets, or mobile devices

Learn more about the difference between OTT and CTV

Coverage Area:

National TV Advertising

Reaches viewers across the entire United States through major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) and cable channels (ESPN, CNN, HGTV). Best for brands with nationwide distribution who want to build mass awareness quickly. While the total investment is higher, the cost per thousand viewers (CPM) is often lower than local buys, making it efficient for reaching millions of potential customers.

Local TV Advertising (Spot TV)

Targets specific cities or regions by purchasing airtime on local stations. Perfect for businesses serving specific markets (like regional retailers, local services, or testing new products in select cities). For example, a chain with stores only in Texas can advertise just in Dallas, Houston, and Austin markets without paying for wasted coverage in other states.

Direct Response (DR) Advertising

Flexible, performance-based advertising that airs when networks have unsold inventory. Common for products sold directly to consumers (think infomercials or "call now" offers). While these spots can be preempted by higher-paying advertisers, they're cost-effective for testing creative or driving immediate action. You only pay when your ad actually airs, making it low-risk for budget-conscious advertisers.

TV advertising Metrics: How to measure effectiveness?

TV advertising effectiveness is measured through reach (unique viewers), frequency (views per person), impressions (total views), and business outcomes like website visits, sales lift, and app installs. Most TV advertising results can be tracked within 30 minutes of airing for immediate response, or up to 30 days for longer-term conversions. Here's more detailed breakdown:

TV Ad Reach

Ad reach refers to the number of unique viewers in your specific target audience who saw your ad at least once during your campaign. A high reach means your ad has been seen by a large amount of your target audience, which is beneficial for building brand awareness among your most promising prospects.

Frequency

Frequency is a metric defined by the number of times an individual has been exposed to your ad. It's essential to keep track of frequency to ensure you're not overexposing your audience, leading to ad fatigue and decreased effectiveness. We are big advocates of prioritizing reach over frequency because the most effective way to drive lift is seen when moving an audience’s frequency from 0 to 1.

TV Ad Impressions

Your viewership is determined by the number of people who watched your ad. The impression metric is an essential metric for measuring the scale of your campaign, but one unit of impression may drive one unit of reach or one unit of frequency, so it’s important not to simply fixate on impressions.

Website Traffic from TV Ads

You might not know for certain if someone visits your website as a direct result of your TV ad. However, you can measure spikes in visits to your website in a given time slot after airing your ad. It’s a type of measurement based on correlation, for sure – but a pretty solid one. If your ad airs at 9:05 pm and, for the following 30 minutes, your website gets a spike in traffic, the only logical conclusion is that your ad worked – and even more so if this happens regularly.

TV Advertising ROI and Sales Lift

How do you calculate ROI from TV commercials? Track sales above your expected baseline after ads air. While TV advertising attribution isn't as straightforward as digital advertising, monitoring sales lift remains crucial. Look for patterns in purchase increases that correlate with your TV campaign schedule to measure true business impact.

App Installs

Just like website visits, app installs are a correlation-based metric. For example, if your TV ad promotes a new app for your company (say, an app that helps you find coupons for beauty products) and app installs spike after airing the ad in a given time slot, it can be considered a measure of success.

Advanced TV Ad Attribution: Tracking Conversions and Events

Modern TV advertising measurement goes beyond basic metrics. Here's how to implement sophisticated attribution:

For Linear TV Campaigns:

• Track direct website visits within 15-30 minutes of ad airing
• Implement 30-day attribution windows for lower-funnel events
• Connect upper-funnel visits to later conversions from the same households

Attribution Best Practices:

• Use probabilistic modeling for linear TV advertising
• Apply deterministic attribution for CTV campaigns
• Combine multiple data points for accurate measurement

For example, if a viewer visits your site within 15 minutes of your TV spot airing, then makes a purchase within 30 days, you can confidently attribute that sale to your television advertising campaign.

How TV Ad Buying Works

When you're ready to purchase TV advertising, you'll encounter three main buying methods:

Upfront Market – Purchase ad inventory months in advance for the upcoming TV season. Best for brands wanting premium placements at discounted rates who can commit to long-term spending.

Scatter Market – Buy ad spots closer to air dates with more flexibility. Ideal for brands needing to adjust campaigns based on real-time performance or market conditions.

Remnant Inventory – Last-minute unsold inventory at discounted rates. Perfect for testing TV advertising or maximizing reach on limited budgets, though spots may be preempted.

Most successful TV campaigns use a combination of these methods – securing key placements through upfronts while maintaining flexibility with scatter buys.

Buying remnant inventory

Remnant inventory is the leftover ad space networks that didn't sell in the upfront or scatter market. It's often available at discounted rates and can be a cost-effective option for smaller businesses. However, remnant inventory comes with less certainty about whether or not the ad will air since the network may pre-empt it depending on demand. Most often, remnant inventory is used by direct response campaigns (like teleshopping commercials, for example).

Advantages and Disadvantages of TV Advertising

Traditional TV comes with a lot of pros and cons. As mentioned before, it might not be a good fit for everyone - but if you're at least considering it, you should familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses.

Advantages

Mass reach: TV has the potential to reach a large audience rapidly, making it an excellent choice for brand awareness campaigns.

High engagement: People tend to pay attention to TV ads more than other forms of advertising, as they are often well-produced with attractive visuals and storytelling techniques.

The biggest screen in the house: Despite high smartphone usage, the TV remains the biggest screen for pretty much everyone. It usually shows non-skippable video that occupies the full screen.

Credibility: As a well-established medium, TV holds trust and credibility in the eyes of consumers.

Disadvantages

High cost: TV advertising can be expensive, especially during prime time slots or on popular channels. However, keep in mind that this is not always true – in many situations, running TV ads can be just as cost-effective or even cheaper than many other digital channels, such as paid search or paid social, which have become extraordinarily competitive over the past few years.

Limited targeting options: While some TV networks allow targeted advertising based on demographics, traditional TV advertising does not generally offer audience targeting of the same level of specificity as online advertising.

Delay in measuring success: Traditional media doesn't offer real-time metrics, making it difficult to track the immediate impact of ad campaigns. Nonetheless, with the advent of ACR technologies and automated report processing, measuring the impact of TV can be done much faster than in the past.

Is TV Advertising Right for Your Business?

TV advertising has evolved far beyond traditional linear broadcasts, yet it remains one of the most powerful ways to reach audiences at scale. Whether through traditional linear TV, CTV, or OTT platforms, TV advertising continues to deliver unmatched reach and engagement.

Consider these facts:

• US households spend upwards of 4 hours daily watching TV across all formats
• 73% of households watch both linear and streaming content
• 78% of consumers trust TV ads more than any other advertising medium

The key is choosing the right TV advertising approach for your goals:

• Linear TV advertising - Best for mass reach and brand awareness campaigns
• CTV advertising - Ideal for targeted, measurable campaigns on streaming platforms
• OTT advertising- Perfect for reaching cord-cutters across all devices

TV advertising offers a way to differentiate in the market, build true brand affinity, create trust, and drive conversions when customers are ready. Simulmedia's TV+ platform unifies all these TV advertising methods into one AI-powered solution, making it simple to reach your audience across every screen.