Outcomes Are Best Barometer of TV Advertising: A+E’s Roseann Montenes

NEW YORK – Digital media channels such as internet search and social networks typically prioritize ad-performance metrics such as click-through rates, viewability and video completion rates. Performance metrics in the past few years have come to television networks as advertisers seek to attribute business outcomes to their campaigns.

“We decided that we were going to guarantee against any KPI [key performance indicator] that mattered most to our clients,” Roseann Montenes, head of strategic audience solutions and partnership at A+E Networks, said in this interview with Lisa Granatstein, editorial director of Beet.TV. “What we ended up getting in return was this influx of interest — of showing proof of performance pre-campaign, in-campaign as well as post-campaign.”

A+E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and Walt Disney, has a variety of media brands including A&E, Lifetime, History Channel, FYI, LMN and Vice TV, along with streaming channels.

Montenes said this year there’s greater urgency for television networks to demonstrate their effectiveness based on specific needs of advertisers. That means not every brand is going to measure success in terms of web visits or foot traffic to stores.

“Knowing that budgets are stretched…there is a much bigger need for all of us to show that proof of performance, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all model,” Montenes said. “We have to make sure that every campaign that we’re executing is custom to each unique partnership.”

A+E Networks collaborates with adtech companies to offer automated media-buying tools, an important capability as advertisers seek to manage cross-platform campaigns. A+E Networks in March introduced a tool called InterAction to provide metrics on consumer interactions with brands.

“What InterAction does is allow us to have our own little insurance policy on these advanced, targeted innovation deals,” Montenes said. “On the pre-campaign side, we look up and down the funnel. We start with reach. We look at ad recall. We look at ad receptivity.”

A+E Networks also has a tool called PerforMAX for in-campaign metrics.

“There’s three sides to every story, and we’re able to tell all of those sides of the story in a very clear, transparent manner,” Montenes said. “If a client comes to us and they have got three KPIs, we’re going to meet them with an analysis for three different KPIs.”

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