The TV attribution firm analysed 15 months of performance data from analysed performance data relating to 1.9 million spots, representing $138 million in ad spend and 749 billion ad impressions between 1 January 2018 and 31 March 2019 18 US-based DTC brands across the retail, food delivery, subscription services and travel categories. Response, cost and audience data from the TVSquared ADvantage platform was evaluated by TV buy elements, including network, daypart and day of week, for campaigns that ran on broadcast, cable and satellite.

Among the key findings was that morning ads delivered a 105% response rate, compared with 37% for daytime, 15% for prime time and a fall of 20% for overnight. The top three most popular KPIs were purchases and conversions (33%), registrations (17%) and first vs. repeat customers (10%).

Across genres, children's entertainment, talk shows and Spanish language content all performed strongly, offering a response rate uplift of more than 175%. The report also found that while upfronts reported new ad formats —from NBCU’s shoppable ads to Hulu’s ad-supported shift with spots designed to target binge-watchers —30-second ads were found to be the best performing. They generated response rates 50% above average, coming in four times higher than any other ad length.

“As digital natives, DTC brands eat and breathe data for every aspect of business, and they recognise that TV can deliver both scale and performance,” commented Mark Hudson, TVSquared’s head of business intelligence, who spearheaded the DTC TV Advertising Performance report. “Understanding optimal days, dayparts, programmes and creative strategies gives them the analytics they need to drive the best outcomes.”