What you need to know:

• Engage TV has created a BVOD and CTV platform tailored to regional markets, and will go live in 50 regional centres over the next 12 months.
• It's aiming to convince real estate agents and local stores and firms to sign up for a cheap CTV ad subscription, attempting to woo them away from Facebook with local targeting capability.

Small businesses in regional Australia will be able to target TV ads by postcode, gender, or segments as part of a new subscription-model advertising arrangement for connected TV.

Engage TV has partnered with Ads On Tap to give 50 regional markets access to affordable CTV inventory.

“If you’re a real estate agent in Noosa, taking out a linear TV ad would cover 15 franchises,” Lee Stephens, CEO of Switch Digital – owner of Engage TV, said. “If you’re a pet shop in Shepparton, you want to make sure the right people are seeing it. You don’t want to cut a regional market too fine, but you want to do better than the broadcast footprint.”

CTV will be 30 per cent of all TV advertising by 2025, PwC has predicted. Since running a spot promoting the service in Shepparton, Bendigo and Ballarat in regional Victoria, leads have come from a farm machinery business, a furniture shop, delivery shops and a water tank sales office.

Stephens said he is in discussions with media owners and advertising agencies that service rural Australia to scale the service across the 50 regional centres.

CTV can already target by postcode, with real estate agents using it to sell high-end homes in Melbourne.