The CMO leaned back in her chair and smiled. "So you're telling me I can run TV ads that actually tell me if they worked?"
It was 2019, and I was pitching connected TV advertising to a brand that had spent $40 million on linear TV the previous year. They had no idea which half was wasted—the old advertising joke made literal. Brand studies. Correlation guesses. Nielsen panels. That was their measurement.
I showed her a dashboard from our first CTV test. Impressions by household. Completion rates by demo. Conversion tracking to their app and website. Attribution down to the individual creative.
She bought in that day. Within a year, they'd shifted 30% of their TV budget to CTV. Within two years, it was 60%. The results weren't just measurable—they were better.
That was the beginning of my obsession with the channel that's quietly revolutionizing advertising.
The Revolution Hiding in Your Living Room
Connected TV is any television that streams digital content over the internet. Smart TVs. Roku. Amazon Fire TV. Apple TV. Your PlayStation. That's CTV. And it's fundamentally different from the television advertising that came before.
For decades, TV advertising was a blunt instrument. You bought demographic estimates and hoped the right people were watching. You couldn't target individuals. You couldn't measure conversions. You couldn't optimize in real-time.
CTV changes all of that.
What Makes CTV Different
I often explain CTV as television with a digital brain. You get the premium, full-screen, lean-back viewing experience of TV. But you also get targeting, measurement, and optimization capabilities that TV buyers never dreamed of.
The Advantages That Matter
- Premium attention: Non-skippable, full-screen video in brand-safe environments—people actually watch
- Real targeting: Reach specific audiences based on who they are and what they do, not just what show they're watching
- Actual measurement: Track impressions, completions, reach, frequency, and downstream conversions
- Incremental reach: Find the cord-cutters that linear TV can't touch anymore
- Cross-device attribution: See the CTV ad, convert on mobile or web, measure the connection
The Terminology Matters
CTV is the device—the connected television. OTT (Over-The-Top) is the delivery method—streaming over the internet. Linear TV is traditional broadcast and cable. When we talk about CTV advertising, we mean reaching viewers watching streaming content on connected television devices. The distinction matters because the buying and measurement mechanics are entirely different.
How to Buy CTV
Unlike linear TV's upfront/scatter model, CTV offers multiple buying approaches. I've used all of them, and each has its place.
Programmatic CTV
Buy inventory through DSPs in real-time auctions. This is where I spend most of my CTV budget now. Flexibility to optimize daily. Precise targeting. Scale across publishers without individual negotiations. It's how digital buying should work—applied to TV.
Direct/Guaranteed Deals
Negotiate directly with streaming platforms for guaranteed placements. I use this for tentpole campaigns where I need premium positioning and rate predictability. More expensive, less flexible, but sometimes the placement matters enough to pay for it.
Publisher Direct
Work directly with content publishers like Hulu, Peacock, or Paramount+ for exclusive placements and custom integrations. The white-glove treatment. Custom opportunities. Also the most manual and least scalable.
Targeting That Actually Works
This is where CTV gets exciting. Effective campaigns layer multiple targeting strategies:
- Demographic targeting: Age, gender, household income, presence of children—the basics, but now actually accurate
- Geographic targeting: From national down to ZIP code—test markets, local campaigns, regional strategies
- Behavioral targeting: In-market signals, purchase intent, lifestyle interests—people actively considering your category
- Contextual targeting: Genre, content rating, show type—be where your audience's mindset aligns with your message
- First-party data: CRM matching, retargeting existing customers, lookalike audiences from your best users
- ACR data: Automatic Content Recognition tells you what people actually watch—target based on viewing behavior
"I remember the first time I showed a linear TV veteran our CTV targeting capabilities. She stared at the screen for a full minute. 'You mean I can target people who've searched for my competitors and are watching cooking shows in Austin?' Yes. Yes you can."
Measurement That Proves Value
For years, TV advertisers accepted that measurement was fuzzy. CTV doesn't allow that excuse anymore.
The Metrics That Matter
- Impressions: How many times your ad was served—actual count, not estimate
- Video Completion Rate: What percentage watched the whole ad—typically 95%+ on CTV
- Reach and Frequency: Unique households reached and how often—household-level precision
- Cost Per Completed View: How efficient is your spend on actual attention
Going Deeper
- Brand lift studies: Did awareness, consideration, and intent actually move?
- Foot traffic attribution: Did CTV exposure drive store visits?
- Website and app attribution: Track conversions on digital properties back to CTV exposure
- Sales lift: Measure actual purchase impact
- Incrementality testing: Isolate what CTV truly drove versus what would have happened anyway
Creative That Wins on the Big Screen
CTV isn't mobile. It's not social. The creative rules are different.
- Front-load your message: Grab attention in the first 3 seconds—even non-skippable ads compete with phones
- Design for the screen: High-resolution assets, readable text—it's a 65-inch display, treat it like one
- Clear CTAs: Viewers can't click, but they can remember—make the action obvious and memorable
- Test multiple lengths: :15, :30, and :60 variations perform differently by context and objective
- Sound-on environment: Unlike mobile, CTV viewers usually have audio enabled—use it
- Frequency capping: Seeing the same ad eight times in one evening destroys sentiment
Where This Is Going
The trends I'm watching that will define CTV's next chapter:
- Shoppable CTV: Interactive ads with QR codes and second-screen experiences—buy what you see without leaving the couch
- Ad-supported streaming growth: Netflix, Disney+, Max—everyone's launching ad tiers, creating massive new inventory
- Unified measurement: Cross-platform standards are emerging, finally letting us compare CTV to everything else
- AI-powered optimization: Machine learning driving creative selection and targeting decisions in real-time
- Privacy-first identity: Clean rooms and cohort-based targeting as individual tracking gets harder
That CMO from 2019? Her brand is now a CTV-first advertiser. They still run some linear for reach, but CTV is the performance engine. Every dollar measured. Every impression accountable. Every campaign optimized.
The living room revolution is here. The only question is whether you're riding it or getting left behind.