Connected TV as a Performance Marketing Channel

Allocate 2026 budget to CTV early while CPMs remain low.

Current high-teens CPMs are comparable to social; increased demand will raise prices, so early movers gain arbitrage.

Why: Secular growth in streaming supply will eventually balance with demand, tightening pricing.

"CPMs continue to come down… but if you're planning 2026 budgets, now is the time."

Think of Connected TV as a full-funnel performance channel, not just brand awareness.

CTV combines the reach of television with web-level personalization and can drive both upper and mid-funnel actions when used with sequential targeting and retargeting.

Why: Audience behavior has shifted—streaming now exceeds linear TV time, attention is 8× higher than social and 16× higher than display, and CPMs have fallen into the high-teens.

"You need to think about Connected TV as a full funnel channel. Think about it as a performance channel as well."

Use deduplicated, cross-channel attribution to understand true channel contribution.

Marketers often see inflated outcomes when summing individual channel reports; a neutral platform shows each channel’s actual lift.

Why: Without deduplication, budget decisions are made on overstated performance, leading to mis-allocation and lower overall ROAS.

"when I look at the performance of each of the channels individually, and when I look at my outcomes, the data doesn't match. I'm always head-scratching."

Bridge household CTV identifiers with web identifiers via an identity graph.

Link the streaming-device household ID (e.g., Apple TV) to individual web cookies or mobile IDs to enable retargeting and closed-loop measurement.

Why: Identity linkage is the prerequisite for treating CTV as performance media—without it you cannot retarget, attribute site visits, or tie purchases back to TV impressions.

"build an identity graph which teaches your identities between household and your web identifiers."

Repurpose existing social assets for CTV—creative is no longer a barrier.

Six- or eight-second social clips can be packaged into CTV spots with QR codes; generative AI further lowers production hurdles.

Why: Eliminates the historical need for six-figure TV shoots and accelerates testing and iteration cycles.

"If you have social content, right, you can easily use that as source content to create CTV ads."

Deploy AI agents to shift spend across channels within guardrails.

Set rules (e.g., ±10% budget moves) and let agents re-allocate based on deduplicated performance data across display, social, and CTV.

Why: Reduces manual busywork, speeds reaction time, and maximizes marginal ROAS while keeping human oversight.

"give the ability for digital marketers to be able to not just create campaigns, understand this performance, and then be able to drive the optimizations under certain guardrails."

Layer granular audience segments onto CTV buys.

Access thousands of pre-built or custom segments (auto ownership, income, intent) to narrow from broad reach to qualified reach.

Why: Drives CPM efficiency and higher conversion rates compared to broad linear TV or restricted social targeting.

"we offer, as an example, audience segments that are a few thousand audience segments that you can use"

Deliver consistent creative across CTV, display, and social in sequence.

Use CTV for high-impact awareness, then retarget the same users on display or social with direct-response offers.

Why: Reinforces message, leverages high CTV attention, and captures action moments on secondary devices.

"when you think about the channels in concert, and you deliver a consistent message, and you reinforce that message across multiple channels"