What is scatter TV advertising?

In advertising, the scatter market refers to all of the advertising inventory that is not bought at the Upfronts. This market of unsold inventory can be bought and placed closer to the air date. There tends to be less risk involved with buying in the scatter market than the Upfronts. The performance of a network or a show becomes more clear the further into a season it gets, which in turn clarifies predictions on how an ad will perform – especially regarding reach and target audience makeup – and, accordingly, a fair price for placement. While this is sometimes cheaper, it’s more often simply less risky.

It is most common that both sellers and buyers invest their budget in a mix of the scatter tv advertising scatter market and the Upfronts.

While the Upfronts are physical events where deals are negotiated, scatter tv advertising scatter market placements are made with the help of a TV buying platform or demand-side platform (DSP), which bids in real time and sources from a wide inventory – whose size is based on their level of access to networks.

What does programmatic mean in scatter advertising?

Thanks to programmatic buying ad technology, advertisers can rely on reputable TV buying platforms to gain access to a large portion of the scatter market and on short notice, which improves bidding efficiency. It’s a win-win with programmatic buying: while the network who needs to fill ad slots gets the opportunity to fit an ad in, the advertiser can find a placement that fits their budget and ensures with greater accuracy a certain level of meaningful reach and engagement. At the tail end of the scatter market is remnant advertising, or ad placements made fairly close to air date.

Using programmatic, data-driven technology, companies like Simulmedia can assess the entire scatter market landscape for opportunities that increase return on investment (ROI) and boost accuracy of predictability of outcomes.

Our proprietary TV+® platform includes direct integrations with over 250 linear and connected TV (CTV) networks and publishers to maximize cross-channel reach and streamline buying for advertisers and agencies. Aside from the Upfronts, the scatter market can be complicated to navigate without the right technology to compare and contrast all of the possible options. Balancing options with ad slots, platform, and TV audience targeting parameters, our TV+ platform and its data-driven approach means all of the possible options can be run through a patented algorithm. What you’re left with is a clear picture of the most cost-effective way forward to place your ad, and a strategy that covers all variables for audience targeting and cross-channel TV placement.