Connected TV Advertising: What Separates Results from Wasted Budgets

One in three media professionals say connected TV advertising isn’t very effective. Having worked on campaigns across financial services, CPG, and retail, I can tell you exactly why — and it has nothing to do with the channel itself.

The problem is execution. Specifically, it’s marketers applying the wrong mental model to a medium that combines television’s reach with digital precision. When you treat connected TV like a banner ad with motion, run narrow performance-targeting on a brand awareness campaign, and launch without attribution infrastructure in place, the results are predictably poor. The channel isn’t broken. The strategy is.

With U.S. CTV ad spending reaching $32.57 billion in 2025 — nearly double the 2021 level and roughly 43% higher than online video spend — the stakes are high enough to get this right. Digital video now accounts for 60% of total TV and video ad spend. These aren’t test budgets or experimental allocations; they’re primary media investments that need to perform at the level of a primary channel. The 16% year-over-year growth in 2024 signals that competitors are moving fast, and early movers are securing publisher relationships whilst inventory costs remain relatively contained.

This article sets out the strategy framework that separates effective CTV implementations from wasted budgets, drawing on documented case studies from P&G, L’Oréal, Tecovas, Calm, Chime, and Disney.

What This Article Delivers

The $33 Billion Inflection Point: CTV’s Structural Shift

Growth Metrics That Justify Budget Reallocation

Connected TV advertising outpaces every other advertising channel, recording 16% year-over-year growth in 2024 following a temporary slowdown in 2023 driven by broader advertising market conditions. U.S. CTV ad spending reached $32.57 billion in 2025 — nearly double the 2021 level and roughly 43% higher than online video spend. The channel is on course to surpass traditional TV ad spending for the first time in 2028, which will mark the moment digital distribution becomes the primary vehicle for television advertising rather than the supplementary one.

This growth isn’t occurring alongside traditional television — it’s capturing share from linear budgets directly. Digital video now accounts for 60% of total TV and video ad spend, demonstrating how comprehensively CTV has entered territory that was, until recently, the exclusive domain of broadcast and cable networks. Linear TV is losing pricing power as audiences fragment across hundreds of streaming options, whilst CTV is absorbing higher ad spend and experiencing rising costs precisely because it delivers measurable outcomes that traditional television cannot.

The catalyst for this transition extends beyond demographic cord-cutting. Major streaming platforms made strategic decisions that expanded addressable inventory almost overnight. Amazon Prime Video made advertising the default option in January 2024, instantly creating one of the largest ad-supported streaming audiences. Disney+ had added its ad-supported tier in December 2022, opening premium content libraries to advertisers at scale. These platform decisions created both opportunity and considerable complexity for marketers who must now operate within an ecosystem that differs fundamentally from traditional television buying.

Completion Rates, Cost-Per-View, and Digital Accountability

The performance metrics that define CTV explain the speed of budget reallocation. Connected TV ads achieve completion rates exceeding 90%, making them highly effective for ensuring message delivery and surpassing other digital channels by a significant margin. Brands can obtain a fully completed CTV ad view for $0.01–$0.02 in most cases — a pricing structure that enables both scale and precision in ways that were previously incompatible. Marketers no longer face the binary choice between mass reach and targeted efficiency.

CTV advertising delivers superior viewability and viewer attention compared to other media channels, with enhanced attention duration that reflects the lean-back viewing behaviour of the television context rather than the distracted, multi-tasking environment of mobile or desktop. The big screen commands attention in ways that smaller formats cannot replicate, even when the underlying technology is digital. This matters because attention is the scarce resource that advertising ultimately competes for, and CTV’s structural environment is more conducive to attention than virtually any other digital format.

The measurement capabilities represent the clearest departure from traditional television. CTV enables tracking viewer engagement, measuring conversions across devices, and adjusting campaigns in real time. Dynamic ad insertion means two neighbours watching the same programme simultaneously can see completely different commercials based on their respective profiles — a capability that traditional broadcast could never offer. Advanced attribution models connect CTV ad exposure to online purchases, foot traffic, and CRM revenue using privacy-safe identity graphs and IP-level or device-level data, closing the loop between digital advertising and both online and offline business outcomes.

Three Pillars of Effective CTV Execution

Pillar One: Precision Targeting Without the Over-Targeting Trap

Here’s what actually works: recognising that CTV is not a banner ad with motion. This distinction sounds obvious, yet it’s the root cause of most campaign disappointment. The channel permits mobile-level targeting precision, and that capability tempts marketers into applying performance-channel logic to a brand-building medium. The result is campaigns that aim for awareness but use narrow targeting that actively undermines reach, scale, and the mental availability that television advertising is uniquely positioned to build.

One in three media professionals say CTV isn’t very effective, and the data consistently points to the same explanation: brands aim for brand awareness but use narrow, performance-style targeting that limits the reach brand awareness requires. Marketers apply short-term performance metrics to a long-term brand channel and digital habits to a television context. Over-targeting poses genuine risks by reducing brand awareness and limiting customer acquisition opportunities — specifically by excluding the future buyers who aren’t yet in-market but would be reached by a broader audience definition.

The solution isn’t abandoning targeting altogether. It’s calibrating targeting precision to campaign objectives. Brand awareness campaigns should prioritise reach over narrow segmentation, accepting that many exposed viewers won’t convert immediately. That’s not a failure; that’s how television advertising creates value. Performance campaigns can target more precisely, but should maintain sufficient scale to drive meaningful volume. The discipline required is matching the tool to the objective rather than defaulting to maximum precision because the technology permits it.

How P&G and L’Oréal Use Retail Data for Audience Precision

Major CPG brands have found the right balance between precision and reach by integrating retail data partnerships rather than relying solely on platform-provided audience segments. Procter & Gamble embraced connected TV combined with retail data to narrowly target ads on TV screens in living rooms, focusing on specific audience segments such as multicultural families or frequent buyers with mobile-like precision. This approach delivers targeting capabilities previously available only on mobile platforms whilst maintaining the impact and completion rates of television — the combination that makes CTV genuinely different from any channel that preceded it.

L’Oréal shifted from traditional TV to connected TV advertising, working with NCS to access aggregated loyalty card data that evaluates CTV campaign effectiveness by matching first-party data with shopper data and streaming network identities. This integration enables measurement that connects advertising exposure to actual purchase behaviour, providing the closed-loop attribution that traditional television could never deliver. The implementation demonstrates that first-party data partnerships solve the attribution challenges that make many marketers hesitant to shift television budgets at scale.

These implementations from leading CPG brands validate the strategic shift from linear to connected television. When companies with sophisticated measurement capabilities and enormous television budgets reallocate investment, it signals genuine performance advantage. The fact that both P&G and L’Oréal solved the attribution challenge through retail data partnerships rather than platform-native measurement tools suggests that external data integration is often the more reliable path.

Pillar Two: Hybrid Buying Models That Access Premium Inventory

Programmatic buying alone is insufficient for long-term CTV success. This challenges the common assumption that automated exchanges represent the natural evolution of media buying — the right approach for a digitally delivered channel. The reality is that winners combine data, technology, and direct publisher relationships rather than relying exclusively on programmatic infrastructure.

Traditional SSP models in CTV have become too commoditised to drive real innovation or value in the supply space. After years operating in the CTV supply space, Tatari shifted away from traditional SSP models and pivoted to build dedicated direct sales automation infrastructure, moving toward direct media execution for premium CTV inventory. The company found that incremental improvements in programmatic efficiency no longer translated to meaningful performance gains, and that the differentiation had shifted to factors programmatic exchanges struggle to provide: contextual premium placements, transparent pricing, and strategic publisher partnerships.

The future of CTV buying lies in deciding when programmatic versus direct approaches make the most sense for specific needs. Each model offers distinct advantages, and the most effective connected TV advertising strategy allocates budget based on campaign objectives rather than ideological commitment to a single approach.

Direct Publisher Relationships: Tecovas, Calm, and Chime

For brands relying on distinct storytelling for category differentiation, direct media buys on CTV provide reach and relevance that programmatic alone struggles to replicate. Western boot brand Tecovas used direct ad placements on high-profile sporting events including NFL playoffs, NCAA football, WWE Monday Night Raw, and MLB World Series, alongside programmes like Yellowstone to leverage natural brand fit with Western-themed content. The implementation drove brand lift and bottom-funnel results, achieving reach and relevance that programmatic alone couldn’t replicate. The contextual alignment between a Western boot brand and Yellowstone is the kind of brand fit that programmatic targeting can approximate at best — the direct buy guarantees it.

Meditation app Calm used premium direct ad supply on CTV to access inventory not available through programmatic channels, delivering reach that other channels couldn’t provide. The decision to pay a premium for direct access reflects an understanding that the most valuable inventory — the programmes and moments that command genuine viewer attention — is rarely available at auction prices that reflect its actual impact. Direct relationships provide access to that inventory and enable the transparent pricing and first-party data partnerships that programmatic exchanges cannot facilitate.

Financial technology company Chime scaled beyond programmatic-only buying to expand reach efficiently, marrying data, technology, and relationships rather than relying solely on automated buying. The hybrid approach successfully expanded reach by combining programmatic with direct publisher relationships, demonstrating that the two models complement rather than compete. For a financial services brand where conversion cycles are long and attribution is complex, the willingness to invest in CTV despite measurement challenges signals confidence in the channel’s brand-building contribution — a confidence validated by the hybrid model’s ability to deliver scale without sacrificing premium placement quality.

Pillar Three: Attribution and Measurement That Connects Exposure to Outcomes

CTV attribution is harder than digital ad attribution because it lacks the deterministic, click-based data that digital channels provide and relies instead on probabilistic data matching and walled-garden reporting. Conversions from CTV ads often happen later and on a different device, creating a significant data gap between ad exposure and business outcomes. This measurement challenge is one of the most significant barriers to scaling CTV investment for performance-focused marketers, and it must be addressed before launch rather than after disappointing results force retrospective analysis.

Cross-device tracking can be achieved through three distinct approaches. Publisher-provided identity graphs from platforms like The Trade Desk or LiveRamp enable probabilistic matching between CTV exposures and downstream conversions — broad reach but with uncertainty introduced by probabilistic methods. First-party data through logged-in household graphs on Smart TVs provides deterministic links when viewers authenticate their devices, delivering the highest accuracy but covering only authenticated households. Offline conversion uploads match CRM data back to exposed households, enabling measurement of in-store purchases and other offline outcomes that close the attribution chain for brands with physical retail presence. Most sophisticated programmes use multiple methods rather than relying on a single source, understanding that each approach offers different coverage and accuracy tradeoffs.

Three Attribution Models for Different Campaign Objectives

Matching attribution methodology to campaign objectives is the difference between measurement that drives decisions and measurement that produces misleading reports. Probabilistic attribution for upper-funnel brand campaigns uses statistical modelling to credit conversions based on exposure likelihood, acknowledging that not every conversion can be deterministically linked but providing directional insight into campaign contribution. This is the appropriate model for awareness campaigns where immediate conversion isn’t the goal and the influence of television exposure on long-term brand consideration is what you’re actually trying to measure.

Time-decay attribution for consideration-stage campaigns assigns more credit to touchpoints closer to conversion whilst still crediting early CTV views. This model reflects the reality that television advertising often creates initial awareness that later digital touchpoints convert, making pure last-touch attribution systematically undervalue CTV’s contribution to the buyer’s journey. Algorithmic attribution uses machine learning to assign fractional credit across all touchpoints dynamically, representing the most sophisticated approach and working best for mature programmes with rich historical data. Multi-touch attribution tracks how CTV ads contribute across the entire buyer’s journey, not just last-click conversions, providing a more complete picture of how television exposure influences consideration even when it doesn’t directly trigger immediate action.

Building a Measurement Framework

A practical CTV measurement framework requires three components that must be established before campaigns go live. Goal alignment maps each campaign to a primary KPI, ensuring that measurement focuses on outcomes that matter rather than vanity metrics that look compelling in reports but don’t drive business value. Documented attribution logic standardised across the organisation creates consistency in how credit is assigned and prevents different teams from using incompatible methodologies that make performance comparison unreliable. Automated reporting showing incremental lift and cross-channel contribution — rather than simple exposure counts — answers the fundamental question of whether CTV advertising created outcomes that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise, or simply reached people who would have converted regardless.

Offline attribution closes the loop between digital advertising and physical conversions, measuring foot traffic and in-store sales directly tied to CTV ad exposure. For CPG brands and physical retailers, this capability changes the attribution conversation entirely. The combination of cross-device tracking, appropriate attribution modelling, and offline measurement creates a framework sophisticated enough to justify CTV investment to finance teams who remain sceptical of channels they can’t measure in the same way as paid search.

Three Strategic Mistakes Killing CTV Performance

Mistake One: Treating CTV Like Display Advertising

CTV is not a banner ad with motion, yet too many marketers continue treating it as though it were. The strategic misalignment manifests in unrealistic performance expectations, excessively narrow targeting, and measurement frameworks that miss television’s brand-building value. Marketers apply short-term thinking to a long-term channel, using performance metrics for brand campaigns and digital habits to a television context. This explains much of the disappointment that one in three media professionals express about CTV effectiveness — the channel isn’t failing; the strategy is misaligned with how television creates value.

Even when delivered digitally, television advertising builds mental availability and brand consideration over time rather than triggering immediate conversions. Expecting CTV to perform like paid search or retargeting display sets up inevitable disappointment. Brands that emphasise reach, awareness, and brand building are more successful over time than those focused on immediate performance metrics. The path from CTV exposure to conversion operates differently than lower-funnel digital channels; television creates the brand equity and consideration that other channels then convert.

Why narrow targeting undermines brand awareness goals deserves particular attention. When you target as narrowly as mobile advertising permits on what is functionally a television channel, you sacrifice the reach that brand awareness requires. Over-targeting reduces brand awareness and limits customer acquisition opportunities by excluding future buyers who aren’t yet in-market. The future buyers who would have been reached by a broader audience definition — the ones who aren’t yet in your conversion funnel — won’t see your advertising when you optimise solely for immediate conversion likelihood. This creates a strategic trap where short-term efficiency comes at the cost of long-term growth.

Mistake Two: Ignoring Fraud, Transparency, and Data Consistency

Connected TV advertising risks repeating the mistakes of display advertising if the industry doesn’t address commoditisation, fraud, and lack of transparency. The display advertising market’s trajectory provides specific warnings: automated buying created efficiency but also enabled fraud at scale; lack of transparency about placement and viewability eroded trust; data inconsistency across platforms made performance measurement unreliable. CTV faces identical structural risks, and early warning signs suggest the channel is following a similar path unless marketers demand better standards.

CTV advertising involves complexity because native inventory is sold directly by CTV platforms whilst in-stream inventory is sold by CTV platforms, streaming services, and multiple intermediaries, creating data consistency challenges. Advertisers typically must combine multiple suppliers to reach their CTV audience but face difficulties receiving consistent data from various platforms. When different platforms report impressions, completion rates, and conversions using incompatible methodologies, comparing performance across publishers becomes unreliable — and optimisation decisions based on inconsistent data lead to budget misallocation that favours platforms with generous measurement conventions over those delivering genuine performance.

Ad fraud and invalid traffic represent significant sources of wasted spending in CTV advertising that require active prevention rather than the assumption that premium content environments are inherently fraud-free. Most platforms keep data siloed, restricting brands’ ability to target consistently across different streaming platforms and making it nearly impossible to execute consistent strategies across the full CTV ecosystem. The combination of technical complexity and rapid channel growth creates opportunities for bad actors to inject fraudulent inventory into the supply chain — a pattern that replicated exactly in display and is now visible in CTV.

Mistake Three: Relying Solely on Commoditised Programmatic Models

Traditional programmatic SSP models in CTV have become too commoditised to drive real innovation, and the future lies in direct media execution rather than standard exchange technology. This challenges the assumption that programmatic represents an inevitable evolution that supersedes traditional media buying. The commoditisation of SSP technology means that incremental improvements in efficiency no longer translate to meaningful performance gains. When every platform offers similar targeting capabilities and similar inventory quality, differentiation shifts to factors that programmatic exchanges struggle to provide: contextual premium placements, transparent pricing, and strategic publisher partnerships.

The Tatari pivot from SSP to direct media execution infrastructure is the clearest documented example of this dynamic. After years operating in the CTV supply space, Tatari found traditional SSP models too commoditised to drive real innovation and built alternative infrastructure combining technology efficiency with direct media relationships. Pure programmatic buying delivers speed and broad reach but sacrifices access to the most valuable inventory and transparent insight into where ads actually run. The winning connected TV advertising strategy incorporates both models, allocating programmatic budget to high-volume campaigns where efficiency matters most and reserving direct relationships for premium placements where context and brand alignment justify premium pricing.

Case Studies: CTV Strategy in Practice

P&G and L’Oréal: Retail Data Partnerships at Scale

Procter & Gamble pulled back on traditional TV advertising and embraced connected TV combined with retail data to narrowly target ads on TV screens in living rooms, reaching specific audience segments such as multicultural families or frequent buyers with mobile-like precision. The implementation successfully shifted budget from traditional TV to CTV whilst maintaining the targeting capabilities previously available only on mobile platforms. This is the model that makes CTV genuinely valuable for CPG: television’s big-screen impact combined with retail data precision that broadcast could never achieve.

L’Oréal shifted from traditional TV to connected TV advertising, working with NCS to access aggregated loyalty card data that evaluates CTV campaign effectiveness by matching first-party data with shopper data and streaming network identities. The retail data integration enabled measurement connecting advertising exposure to actual purchase behaviour — the closed-loop attribution that traditional television could never deliver. When companies with the measurement sophistication and television budget scale of L’Oréal validate a channel by restructuring their buying around it, that’s signal worth paying attention to.

Tecovas, Calm, and the Case for Contextual Alignment

Western boot brand Tecovas used direct ad placements on high-profile sporting events including NFL playoffs, NCAA football, WWE Monday Night Raw, and MLB World Series, alongside programmes like Yellowstone to leverage natural brand fit with Western-themed content. The implementation drove brand lift and bottom-funnel results, achieving reach and relevance that programmatic alone couldn’t replicate. The Yellowstone placement is instructive: programmatic targeting could theoretically reach the same viewers demographically, but wouldn’t guarantee placement during the specific programme that creates natural affinity with a Western boot brand. That contextual premium is what direct buying secures.

Meditation app Calm utilised premium direct ad supply on CTV to access inventory not available through programmatic channels, delivering reach that other channels couldn’t provide. Both the Tecovas and Calm implementations demonstrate the same principle: when brand identity and content environment align naturally, direct buying amplifies message effectiveness in ways that audience targeting alone cannot replicate. The premium pricing of direct inventory reflects this amplification; the question is whether the contextual lift justifies the cost difference, and for brands where narrative and context matter to positioning, it typically does.

Chime’s Hybrid Model and Disney’s 157 Million Viewers

Financial technology company Chime scaled beyond programmatic-only buying to expand reach efficiently, marrying data, technology, and relationships rather than relying solely on automated exchange buying. The hybrid approach successfully expanded reach by combining programmatic with direct publisher relationships, demonstrating that sophisticated CTV strategy requires multiple buying models operating in complementary roles. The programmatic layer provides reach and efficiency for the majority of impressions; the direct relationships secure the premium placements that anchor brand positioning and drive disproportionate impact.

Disney built a substantial ad-supported streaming portfolio across Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, reaching 157 million ad-supported viewers across three platforms. The company is positioned to capture 10% of U.S. CTV ad sales, demonstrating significant market share concentration amongst the largest content providers. Disney’s scale illustrates both opportunity and challenge for advertisers: the reach across premium content justifies premium pricing, but the platform’s dominance creates dependency that limits negotiating leverage. Advertisers must balance the value of accessing Disney’s audience against the risk of concentrating too much budget with a single supplier whose pricing power increases as they consolidate market share. Hulu and YouTube grabbed leading shares of streaming ad time in 2024, further concentrating the supply side of the market in ways that require careful portfolio management.

Implementation: Three Steps to Launch

Step One: Define Your Objective and Match It to the Right Buying Model

Begin by clarifying whether your primary objective is brand awareness, consideration, or conversion. This decision determines appropriate targeting precision, creative approach, and buying model — and it must be made before anything else, because every subsequent choice follows from it. Brand awareness campaigns should prioritise reach through a combination of programmatic buying for volume and direct premium placements for brand positioning. Narrow targeting undermines reach goals, so resist the temptation to over-segment audiences even when the technology permits it. The fact that you can target narrowly doesn’t mean you should.

Consideration campaigns benefit from moderate targeting that balances reach with relevance. Use first-party data and retail partnerships to identify audiences demonstrating category interest, but maintain sufficient scale to drive meaningful exposure. Hybrid buying models work well here, combining programmatic efficiency with direct placements during content that aligns with your brand positioning. Conversion campaigns can target more precisely, focusing on audiences demonstrating purchase intent through behavioural signals, but must maintain realistic expectations about attribution and conversion timeframes. CTV rarely drives immediate conversions in the way that paid search does; measurement frameworks must capture assisted conversions and incremental lift rather than last-click attribution.

Step Two: Build Cross-Device Attribution Infrastructure Before Launch

Implement cross-device tracking using publisher-provided identity graphs from platforms like The Trade Desk or LiveRamp, first-party data through logged-in household graphs on Smart TVs, and offline conversion uploads to match CRM data back to exposed households. Build a measurement framework that includes goal alignment mapping each campaign to a primary KPI, documented attribution logic standardised across the organisation, and automated reporting showing incremental lift and cross-channel contribution. This framework ensures consistency and prevents different teams from using incompatible methodologies that make performance comparison unreliable. When the framework is in place before launch, the data you collect from the first campaign informs every subsequent one.

Step Three: Establish Fraud Prevention and Data Consistency Protocols

Implement fraud prevention protocols before wasting budget on invalid traffic. Work with verification vendors that provide CTV-specific fraud detection — not repurposed display advertising tools that weren’t built for the CTV environment. Require transparent reporting about where ads run, not just audience demographics. Audit completion rates and engagement metrics for anomalies that suggest non-human traffic. When platforms resist providing standardised reporting, recognise that lack of transparency often conceals poor performance or fraud, and treat resistance to transparency as a disqualifying characteristic in supplier evaluation.

Establish data consistency protocols that standardise how different platforms report performance. Define completion rate methodology, specify viewability standards, and require consistent conversion attribution windows across all suppliers. Monitor native versus in-stream inventory performance separately: native inventory sold directly by CTV platforms typically delivers higher quality than in-stream inventory sold through multiple intermediaries, though pricing reflects this quality difference. Understanding inventory type helps optimise budget allocation and sets appropriate performance benchmarks for different suppliers. These protocols aren’t optional compliance exercises; they’re the operational foundation that makes performance data reliable enough to act on.

The 2025–2028 Landscape: CTV Overtakes Traditional Television

Rising Costs in Premium Categories

Connected TV advertising is projected to reach $33 billion in 2025, positioning the channel to surpass traditional TV ad spending for the first time in 2028. This crossover moment marks the point where digital distribution becomes the dominant model for television advertising, and linear TV becomes the secondary channel. The growth trajectory suggests that by 2028, the majority of television advertising budgets will flow through digital channels offering targeting, measurement, and optimisation capabilities that traditional television cannot match.

Advertisers are pivoting away from riskier content contexts including news, politics, and some social media, shifting spend toward perceived safe zones including arts, lifestyle, live events, and sports — pushing up prices in premium content categories. This brand safety migration concentrates demand in specific content verticals, creating pricing pressure that mirrors traditional television’s premium for sports and live events. Overall media inflation is forecasted at 2.5% for 2025, but CTV inflation runs higher than that average as the channel absorbs shifting budgets from multiple sources: linear television, display advertising, and increased overall marketing investment. Rising costs in premium categories require careful portfolio management: maintain pressure on CPMs through competitive bidding and hybrid buying models, and focus premium placements on campaigns where contextual alignment drives disproportionate impact.

The 60% Digital Video Share

Digital video now accounts for 60% of total TV and video ad spend, demonstrating how thoroughly CTV has penetrated what was once the exclusive domain of broadcast and cable networks. This majority share signals that connected television is no longer an experimental channel or supplementary tactic — it’s the primary vehicle for television advertising amongst sophisticated marketers. The 60% share reflects both push and pull dynamics: traditional television’s declining reach and weakening measurement pushes marketers toward alternatives, whilst CTV’s superior targeting, completion rates, and attribution pull investment by delivering measurably better performance. The combination creates momentum that accelerates the transition beyond what either factor would drive independently.

For senior marketers, the 60% threshold represents a decision point. Organisations that haven’t yet developed connected TV advertising strategy sophistication face increasing disadvantage as competitors refine targeting, optimise attribution, and secure premium inventory relationships. The window for learning through small experimental budgets is closing as the channel matures and execution complexity increases. Early movers gain experience and establish publisher relationships whilst inventory remains relatively affordable; late movers face rising costs and intensifying competition for premium placements as supply-demand dynamics shift in publishers’ favour.

Frequently Asked Questions

From Experimental to Essential: Making CTV Work for Your Budget

The $33 billion figure and the 60% digital video share are useful context, but they’re not what should drive your CTV investment decision. What should drive it is a clearer view of what the channel can and cannot do — and the discipline to execute accordingly. I’ve seen the same pattern repeated: a capable channel undermined by the wrong mental model, narrow targeting applied to a reach-dependent objective, and measurement frameworks bolted on after disappointing results rather than built before launch.

The brands that perform on CTV — P&G, L’Oréal, Tecovas, Calm, Chime — aren’t performing because they have larger budgets or access to capabilities unavailable to others. They’re performing because they matched their objectives to the right buying model, integrated external data partnerships to solve attribution challenges, and built measurement infrastructure that captures how television actually creates value. Those are replicable decisions. They require discipline more than budget.

The 2025–2028 window matters specifically because the channel is in a transitional phase: growing fast enough that early operational experience translates to sustained advantage, but not yet mature enough that the inventory dynamics have fully shifted in publishers’ favour. Rising costs in premium categories are a signal, not a deterrent — they indicate that sophisticated marketers have already determined these placements deliver value worth paying for. The question is whether your organisation builds that determination through its own measurement or waits until the cost of learning has risen along with everything else.

No fluff: build the attribution infrastructure first, align targeting precision to campaign objectives rather than to what the technology permits, and evaluate every programmatic allocation against the direct inventory that it excludes. That’s the framework. Everything else is execution.

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Disclosure: This article was produced using AI-assisted writing tools. The underlying research was gathered, analysed, and verified by human researchers. Final editorial review, fact-checking, and quality control were performed by human editors.