THE HIDDEN COSTS OF OUTDATED OTT BUYS Stop Wasting Budget By Owen Moon, CEO, Dealer Stream Streaming platforms have transformed how consumers watch television. Popular publishers like Hulu, Roku, Paramount+, Peacock, Prime Video, HBO Max, etc. have created massive opportunities for dealerships to reach potential car buyers on the biggest screen in the house. Yet despite this evolution, many dealerships are still buying over-the-top (OTT) as if it were 2016, utilizing low-quality streaming environments combined with heavy online video and display ads that prioritize volume impressions with low CPMs over real performance. The result? Budgets that look efficient on paper but quietly drain ad dollars behind the scenes. At Dealer Stream, we see this all the time — dealerships investing into “streaming TV” but not actually maximizing the true power of connected television. The problem isn’t streaming. The problem is outdated OTT buying strategies. WHAT “OUTDATED OTT” LOOKS LIKE Outdated OTT buying often hides behind attractive pricing. On the surface, it seems like a win with CPMs being significantly lower than premium connected television inventory. Dig a little deeper, and that’s when the cracks start to appear. Bargain-Bin Inventory These buys typically prioritize low-quality streaming placements over premium publishers. Instead of your ads appearing in trusted, high-quality content like Landman, Euphoria, etc., many OTT providers will run our ads in obscure streaming apps with minimal viewership and questionable engagement. No Meaningful Fraud Checks Without sophisticated fraud detection, dealerships risk paying for bot-generated impressions or non-human traffic. While OTT fraud isn’t identical to display fraud, it’s very real. Particularly in Free Advertising Supported Television (FAST) channels and outdated OTT strategies like online video and display, where, on average, over 50% of ad impressions are lost to fraud. Lack of Transparency Some OTT providers offer little to no visibility into which publishers and programs your ads actually ran. Dealerships see impression totals but not the publishers and programs driving them. Without reporting clarity, optimization becomes nearly impossible. Outdated OTT strategies chase cost efficiency, not performance efficiency. WHY THESE STRATEGIES STILL PERSIST If outdated OTT buys underperform, why do they continue? Agency Margin Pressure Some agencies prioritize arbitrage opportunities by buying inventory cheaply and marking it up. When margin 40 MONTANA AUTO DEALER
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