The cheapest good attention left is on linear TV

It seems like everyone is piling into connected TV right now. The pitch is always premium this, premium that. Premium inventory, premium audience, and a price to match.

If you've read what I've written about channel distribution, you know I think growth comes from finding underpriced attention. By that test, the cheap end of linear TV is one of my favorite buys in the whole mix.

Only the leftover spots are cheap

Linear isn't automatically cheap. We've bought spots on the big sporting networks and paid up for them like everyone else.

The buy I love is the leftover inventory, the unsold spots networks dump cheap because nobody reserved them. We've been getting in at a few dollars per thousand views. You can reach your target audience for almost nothing.

You could look at that and say it's cheap because it's junk. I'd look closer before you decide that.

Why it stays cheap

It's cheap for a simple reason: it's unsold inventory. Networks have slots nobody booked, and a few dollars beats airing them empty. That's where the low price comes from.

Normally a price that low gets found and bid up until the deal is gone. That's what happens to any channel you can turn on instantly. I can launch a Meta campaign in five minutes. Same with YouTube. Even most connected TV I can buy close to real time. Everybody can, so everybody piles in, and the price gets bid up.

Linear doesn't work like that. You buy ahead. Your creative has to fit the network's rules. It goes through approvals and scheduling. There's lead time and there are hoops. That friction keeps most buyers out, which is why the cheap inventory stays cheap instead of getting bid up. The hassle is what protects the deal.

TV changes how people see you

TV ads are considered more trustworthy by viewers.

A new brand on Meta still carries doubt. Is this real, or is it a dropshipper who never sends the thing. People have been burned enough that they come in wary. TV doesn't carry that. People know it takes more to get on air than it does to boost a post, and fair or not, that reads as the real thing. It rubs off on you.

It lifts everything at once

This matters most if you sell in more than one place. When we ran TV, the lift showed up well beyond our own numbers. Our products moved faster in stores. Searches for us climbed on Amazon and Google. Everything moved up at the same time, and there aren't many things you can spend on that do that.

If you only sell on your own site, the case is weaker. Much of that lift lands in places you can't capture, retail and marketplaces you're not in. TV pays off most when you're omnichannel.

How to actually run it

Think in chunks. Six months minimum, holiday to holiday. Whatever you spend on TV now won't show up for four or five months.

The first time we ran it, we started in June. All summer you couldn't see it in the top line. Then holiday hit and it was a clear step up, well past what the channels we were already running could explain. If we'd judged it in August, we'd have killed it.

That lag is what makes TV hard. You need the budget room to let it sit and work. Same problem as YouTube. If you're already running your main channels at max, like a lot of bootstrapped brands are, you don't have the room, which puts you right back on the basics. Tighten your site and sharpen your storytelling so every dollar on Meta and Google does more first. The room you find there is what pays for the brand building over here.

What makes the ad work

The creative matters as much as the buy, and TV creative is its own thing. We've run good ones and bad ones, and the difference comes down to recall.

You're not closing the sale inside the spot. You want one thing: for someone to remember who they saw and think, huh, that's interesting. Then when they run into you again on Meta, or go search you, it connects.

Three things have stood out for getting that.

First, one feature per ad. The instinct is to cram everything in, the whole lineup, every benefit. Don't. Pick one thing and let it land. People remember one idea, not five.

Second, your brand or product name has to come through more than once. People are half watching. Say it a single time and they miss it. Repeat it enough that it sticks even if they only catch part of the spot.

Third, it has to work with the sound off. Plenty of people mute the break or step away, and the ad still has to register. If your brand only lands when someone's listening closely, you've lost most of the room.

It keeps paying off

Every channel has an immediate effect and a delayed one. TV's delayed effect runs longer than anything else we use.

We measure it with a one-question post-purchase survey: where did you first hear about us. TV keeps showing up there long after the spot aired. If you want to go deeper, tools like Tatari are built for it.

Just know TV will never look good in a last-click report. It doesn't close the sale the same day, and it won't get the credit when someone finally buys. It works upstream, putting more people in the market looking for you, which makes every channel after it cheaper.

The takeaway

I like video for reaching new customers, and I like the cheap version even more. Linear isn't glamorous and it's a pain to run, which is exactly why it's still cheap.

It won't be right for everyone. If you've got the money to invest and the patience to wait two quarters to see it work, cheap linear is one of the best buys left in the market.