The Digital Banking Company Chime Wants CTV to Work Just Like Meta

This week I had the chance to sit down with two fascinating guests who are at the forefront of bridging the worlds of digital performance marketing and traditional television advertising. Nick Fairbairn, VP of Growth Marketing at Chime, and Andy Schonfeld, CRO at Tatari, walked me through how they've transformed Chime from a pure digital-first, DTC neobank brand built on social and search into a sophisticated advertiser that runs television campaigns with the same performance mindset they apply to Meta and Google. Their partnership has evolved from small linear TV tests six years ago to a comprehensive full-funnel TV strategy that blends brand building with direct response metrics.

Nick and Andy shared incredible insights into the evolution of performance TV, from navigating the COVID-era inventory opportunities to understanding why linear TV still matters even as streaming dominates the conversation. They explained how Chime approaches television with a portfolio strategy, balancing premium reach moments like live sports with more targeted direct response placements, and why creative and media planning have become the "new targeting" in a world where precise one-to-one identification remains expensive and imperfect. We also dove into the challenges of measuring TV in a fragmented landscape, the role of AI-driven creative, and whether shoppable TV will actually move the needle or remain a marginal innovation.

Key Highlights

Here's a shorter version:

📺 From Walled Gardens to TV: Chime shifted from 80% Facebook/Google spend to treating TV as a performance channel, not just brand awareness.

🚀 COVID's Opportunity: The pandemic opened premium TV inventory at discounts as major advertisers exited, accelerating streaming adoption for performance marketers.

🎯 Performance TV Defined: Measuring full-funnel impact from awareness to account openings using spike attribution, MMM, and Tatari's platform.

⚡ Linear Still Works: Live sports and big moments deliver results at 75% off rate card for brands buying real-time through platforms like Tatari.

💰 The DR Valley of Death: Pure direct response TV hits limits, requiring investment in premium brand moments with longer attribution windows for growth.

🤖 AI and Creative Over Targeting: Paying 2-3x CPMs for precise targeting isn't worth it—creative and smart placement beat perfect identity resolution.

📱 Shoppable TV Reality: Interactive ads and QR codes show promise but remain marginal in business impact; AI-generated creative variations offer more upside.

Resources & Next Steps

🔗 Learn more about Chime

📊 Explore Tatari's performance TV platform

🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts

YouTube Chapter Timestamps

00:00 Opening - Performance TV and Chime's evolution

00:55 Introducing Nick Fairbairn (VP Growth Marketing at Chime)

01:00 Introducing Andy Schonfeld (CRO at Tatari)

01:10 Chime's historic media mix - born on social and search

02:00 The classic DTC journey - 80% in Facebook and Google

02:20 Bringing a portfolio approach to acquisition

02:40 Meeting Tatari and starting the TV journey (2019)

03:00 Initial barriers - cost, creative, and optimization concerns

03:40 Running TV like Meta from day one

04:10 Linear focus in the early days (2016-2019)

04:40 Small doses of TV with incrementality and attribution

05:00 How COVID accelerated streaming adoption

05:40 Major brands exiting created inventory opportunities

06:00 Fire sale opportunities on premium inventory

06:30 Nick's resistance to streaming at first

07:00 The linear purist becomes a 50/50 believer

07:40 Defining performance in TV advertising

08:20 Full funnel measurement - awareness to enrollments

09:00 Getting efficient on walled gardens to fund brand TV

09:40 The DR valley of death explained

10:10 How performance TV measurement has evolved

11:00 Starting lower funnel, then expanding upward

11:40 The $10-15M threshold where DR hits limits

12:10 Going premium - live sports and big moments

12:40 The commitment required to unlock TV's power

13:10 TV driving IPOs and acquisitions

13:40 Helping startups scale through TV

14:00 The state of CTV today - better or more complex?

14:40 Linear vs streaming buying challenges

15:10 Cost prohibitive targeting on streaming

15:50 Creative differences between linear and streaming

16:20 What's missing - the dashboard fantasy

17:00 Why linear still matters - 50% of viewership

17:40 Yankees playoff game example - 75% discount

18:30 You can't buy big moments programmatically

19:10 Relationships still matter in TV buying

19:50 Programmatic CTV limitations

20:30 Media mix modeling and holistic measurement

21:30 Identity and targeting in TV - does it matter?

22:10 Creative as the new targeting

22:50 Why paying 2-3x CPM for precision isn't worth it

23:30 You can't measure it all - need multiple approaches

24:00 Shoppable TV and interactive ads - bullish or not?

24:40 QR codes and send-to-phone - still marginal

25:10 Pause ads opening new real estate

25:40 Amazon remote ads and early testing

26:00 Dynamic AI creative - 100 variations vs two

26:30 Local market creative optimization

27:00 Something's brewing with device and TV convergence

27:30 Wrap-up and thanks