Connected TV Advertising

Your living room TV just became a retail media channel. Two things happened in the last two weeks that most CPG leaders haven't connected yet. First: Amazon Audiences is launching on Netflix. Starting this quarter, brands buying Netflix inventory through Amazon DSP can target viewers based on what they bought on Amazon last week. Not modeled. Not probabilistic. Real purchase data from 300 million shoppers, applied to the most premium streaming inventory in the market. Second: Walmart is rolling Vizio OS onto its Onn TV line, potentially reaching a quarter to a third of US households. Walmart Connect CTV campaigns already deliver 44% new-to-brand buyers with closed-loop attribution from ad impression to in-store purchase. Zoom out and the picture gets bigger. Amazon's ad business just crossed $70 billion TTM. 315 million viewers on ad-supported Prime Video. Ad load doubled to 4-6 minutes per hour. Netflix is targeting $3 billion in ad revenue this year. Retail media CTV is growing 3x faster than retail media search, and retail is already the largest ad category on CTV at roughly 20% of a $38 billion market. The old model: your VP of Ecommerce manages retail media on Amazon. Your CMO manages the TV and streaming budget. Different teams. Different agencies. Different measurement. The new reality: Amazon's purchase data powers your Netflix buy. Walmart's purchase data powers your living room screen. Same viewer. Same data. Same screen. Different budget owners. This is not a media planning problem. It's an org design problem. The brands that unify retail media and CTV under one strategy will compound their targeting, measurement, and creative advantage. The ones keeping trade and brand marketing in separate P&Ls will spend more to learn less. Who owns the CTV buy at your company when it's powered by retailer purchase data? #RetailMedia #CTV #CPG #ConnectedTV #AmazonAdvertising #WalmartConnect

Last Tuesday, I watched a $1M software deal die in real time. The champion texted the AE afterward, "My team killed it. They loved the product, trusted the ROI, but said you felt too 'risky' for a company our size." Six months of perfect demos. Strong case studies. Pricing that made sense. But they'd been focused on one person while eight others were making the real decision. In B2B, deals often die from collective anxiety. Your champion can love your solution, but if the CFO, IT director, and three VPs have never heard of you, you're asking them to bet their careers on a company that feels invisible. What we call "trust" in B2B is actually cumulative familiarity across a buying group. It's not one person feeling confident, it's 6-8 people independently thinking, "Oh yeah, I've seen them around. They seem solid." This is where many B2B marketers leave money on the table. We optimize for the champions and decision makers while the real decision happens in rooms we're not invited to. Connected TV (CTV) helps solve for this. That CFO who questioned your pricing? Last night, they saw your 30-second spot during their favorite show. No laptop multitasking. No ad blockers. Just your brand message on a 65-inch screen while they're mentally relaxed. Your IT director saw your retargeting banner during their morning research. Your LinkedIn ad during lunch. Your CTV spot during their evening unwind. That's not multiple touch points. That's one familiarity campaign reaching different decision-makers in different mindsets. Our data at LinkedIn for Marketing shows this opportunity: - 94% of LinkedIn's professional audience can be reached via CTV, - 71% of CTV viewers aren't accessible through traditional TV, - CTV campaigns are 4.3x more effective at reaching B2B targets. Psychologist Robert Zajonc proved that mere exposure creates preference. We don't need to consciously process your message. Seeing your brand repeatedly in different contexts builds what behavioral economist Rory Sutherland calls "subconscious safety signals." When your champion walks into that second meeting, something's different. Your brand doesn't feel new anymore. It feels familiar. "Oh yeah, I've been seeing their ads everywhere" carries more weight than any case study. Because buying groups evaluate solutions and risk. Start building familiarity across ecosystems. Map your buying group. Understand where each decision-maker consumes content. Then orchestrate exposure across channels so by the time they meet to decide, you're not the unknown risk, you're the obvious choice. Because in B2B, trust is built through strategic, repeated presence across the moments that matter. #B2BMarketing #CTV #Trust #LinkedInMarketing

Marketers are selling themselves short if they rely on pixel attribution alone for CTV. For one recent CTV campaign, we worked with our client’s CRM analytics partner, Fueled, to match users who were served ad impressions against those that had converted on the website. The point was to see how many purchases could be tied back to CTV impressions, so as to not solely rely on pixel based DSP reporting as the source of truth. Over the course of 30 days, the campaign recorded 2,482 attributed unique hompepage visitors via pixel tracking, but 8,777 verified visitors through CRM analysis...nearly a 4x difference! At checkout completion, pixels logged 109 conversions, while CRM-verified data identified 1,252 actual purchasers. That means over 90% of real sales were never credited in pixel-based attribution! Why the gap? Because CTV introduces a fundamental shift in how attribution works. People see an ad on a connected TV but complete their purchase later on a different device, their phone, tablet, or laptop. Pixels were originally designed to measure direct, same-device activity against which both the impression and conversion occurred. While most platforms now use cross-device graphs to bridge that gap, those graphs rely on probabilistic modeling and partial identifiers. Their accuracy is often overstated, and they can’t compensate for the scale of signal loss we’re seeing today. Compounding this are modern privacy dynamics: browsers like Brave and Firefox block tracking scripts, iOS strips campaign parameters off URLs, and many users exit before a “thank you” page fires a conversion event. Each of these weakens the connection between ad exposure and the eventual sale. As James Borow recently said "pixels are for targeting, not measurement". That’s why Conversion APIs (CAPIs) have become critical. Instead of depending on browser-side events, CAPIs send verified conversion data directly from the advertiser’s server to the media platform’s server, bypassing browsers entirely. Each transaction is transmitted with hashed identifiers, email, phone, or customer ID, enabling privacy-safe reconciliation between ad impressions and downstream purchases. Platforms like Meta, Shopify, Google, and The Trade Desk now treat CAPIs as the backbone of modern attribution. For CTV in particular, where conversions don’t happen on the same device, server-to-server data exchange restores visibility and gives marketers a true view of how their media performs across screens. Big thanks to Fueled and founder Sean Larkin for partnering with us on this initiative, and exciting to see Fueled’s new CAPI integration with The Trade Desk rolling out this week.

Will most TV ads soon be social ads? When I started at Meta, one of the biggest jobs was getting advertisers to adapt TV ads for social. Now this is reversing. Companies like Streamr.ai are using AI to turn Reels ads into TV ads. This shouldn't be surprising. Gen AI is collapsing creative costs. Connected TV is adding targeting and measurement. Suddenly, millions of businesses that were locked out of TV by production fees now have access. For TV companies, the opportunity is vast. Platforms work with tens of millions of advertisers. Most TV broadcasters work with hundreds or thousands. It's not hard to see where growth will come from. That’s why tools like ITV’s new GenAI Ads Manager exist, letting small businesses create TV ads in seconds. The implications are fascinating. Your TV ad break may start to look a lot more like your social feed. Which raises deeper questions. If TV becomes scalable like social, does the creative shift too? Less showmanship? More salesmanship? Or does something else happen? Social becomes the place where brands learn what works. And TV becomes a canvas where those lessons get applied?

Trade Desk vs. Google Ads in CTV Advertising:A Comparative Analysis Connected TV (CTV) advertising has emerged as a powerhouse in the digital marketing landscape, with platforms like The Trade Desk and Google Ads vying for dominance. Both platforms offer robust solutions for CTV ad campaigns, but their performance, penetration, and regional market share differ significantly due to their unique strengths and strategies. Performance: Which Platform Reigns Supreme? In terms of sheer ad spend and reach, Google Ads holds an edge in the CTV segment. With YouTube as its flagship CTV offering, Google leverages its massive user base—over 50% of ad-supported streaming watch time in the U.S. occurs on YouTube CTV for adults 18 and up (Nielsen, 2022). This scale, combined with Alphabet’s extensive data ecosystem (Google Search, Android, etc.), enables highly targeted, non-skippable ads that deliver impressive completion rates, often exceeding 95%. Google’s integration of CTV buying into its Google Ads platform further simplifies access for advertisers, driving higher ad spend—projected to exceed $30 billion in the U.S. in 2024. The Trade Desk, however, excels in precision and flexibility. As a leading demand-side platform (DSP), it offers advertisers access to a vast, unified CTV inventory marketplace, including premium content from major networks and streaming services. Its AI-driven tool, Koa, optimizes campaigns for light TV viewers and cord-cutters, often resulting in higher engagement rates. Data from The Trade Desk’s Q2 2023 campaigns showed a 50% higher likelihood of driving website visits with top-quality inventory, suggesting superior performance for specific KPIs like conversions. While its CTV ad spend trails Google’s in volume, its focus on programmatic efficiency and first-party data integration makes it a favorite among performance-driven marketers. Penetration and Regional Market Share Regionally, Google Ads dominates North America, particularly the U.S., where CTV penetration reached 88% of households in 2023. YouTube and Google TV command a significant share, with Roku (44% of ad views) and Hulu trailing behind. In Europe, Google’s penetration is strong in markets like the UK, but it faces competition from local broadcasters and slower CTV adoption. The Trade Desk, meanwhile, has deeper penetration among programmatic buyers globally. In the U.S., it partners with Roku and Disney, bolstering its 40%+ share of programmatic CTV spend. In APAC and LATAM, its agnostic approach to inventory gives it an edge over Google’s walled-garden model, with growing traction in markets like Australia and Brazil (41% CTV reach in LATAM). Conclusion Google Ads leads in volume and broad reach, thanks to YouTube’s scale, while The Trade Desk shines in precision and programmatic dominance, especially in emerging regions. Advertisers prioritizing mass awareness favor Google; those chasing efficiency lean toward The Trade Desk.

Google's latest announcement from NewFront highlights a crucial evolution in how we should be thinking about Connected TV (CTV). It's no longer just streaming – it's a dynamic space for live events, podcasts, short-form video, and more, capturing massive consumer attention. At Google’s NewFronts this week we showcased how we’re stepping up to meet this evolution with significant enhancements in Display & Video 360, creating a true one-stop shop to reach audiences in all these moments: Expanded Reach & Partnerships: Now reaching 98% of US CTV households with the most watch-time inventory of any DSP, including enhanced integrations with Netflix and direct integrations with Tubi and Spotify. Plus, access to Roblox's engaged gaming community. Live Inventory Integration: Buy across more tentpole moments like live sports (including NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube 🏈) and shows, with live inventory growing 50% YoY. Turning Viewers into Buyers: We’re also launching a comprehensive commerce and retail media solution in Display & Video 360 that connects commercial intent to purchase across a diverse ecosystem, offering powerful audience segments and end-to-end sales insights. The Power of Google AI: A new AI-powered buying experience is being integrated throughout campaigns, offering smarter inventory selection, easy campaign setup, quick help & improvements, and instant reports – all tailored to your business goals. The shift in CTV viewing habits is undeniable, and Google is providing the tools within Display & Video 360 to not only meet your audience where they are but also to effectively turn those viewers into valuable customers. It's time to rethink your CTV strategy. Read more in the full recap from Marta Martinez: https://bit.ly/3SpKYUL #CTV #ConnectedTV #DigitalAdvertising #ProgrammaticAdvertising #DisplayVideo360 #GoogleAds #VideoMarketing #AIinMarketing #RetailMedia #Commerce #GoogleNewFront

The 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗧𝗩 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀! India’s CTV growth trajectory is clear: there are more than 𝟵𝟲𝗠 𝗖𝗧𝗩 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀, a number that’s 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝟭𝟮𝟬𝗠 𝗯𝘆 𝗺𝗶𝗱-𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟳. A lot of this growth is tied to OTT: more streaming apps, more subscribers, more content, more engagement.  But there's a quieter force shaping the market that few talk about.  𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗧𝗩 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲, 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗘𝗠𝘀, 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀. Before anyone clicks into an app and picks something to play, the home screen has already done the steering through recommendation rows, default tiles, and convenient app placements. The smarter and more personalised these interfaces get, the more viewers will trust them to lead the way.  This is because of how people want to watch today. They want the classic TV experience, where they sit back and start watching, rather than searching across multiple apps to find something to play.  𝗢𝗘𝗠 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗽. FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels will further contribute to that experience, lowering the barrier to entry and drawing more viewers into the CTV ecosystem. So, while many optimise their ad strategy for apps, TV makers or OEMs like Samsung, LG, Xiaomi are quietly reshaping brand discovery.  𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗧𝗩 / 𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴: ✅. Streaming becomes the default entry point into television. ✅. FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels emerge as a bridge between traditional channel surfing and on-demand viewing. ✅. Advertisers gain access to TV-scale reach combined with digital-style targeting and measurement. ✅. Audiences expect content discovery to be personalized rather than programmed. As CTV scales across India, the home screen could become one of the most valuable positions a brand can hold. Which brings me to the following question: 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗧𝗩 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁? Keen to hear how others are thinking about this. #ConnectedTV #FAST #CTV #CTVadvertising #adtech

LinkedIn just made a move that should have every B2B marketer paying attention. They've partnered with The Trade Desk as their first DSP partner for connected TV ads. LinkedIn's audience data. Layered into CTV buys. Through the biggest independent DSP on the planet. That means a cloud computing company can now serve streaming TV ads only to IT decision makers. A SaaS brand can target CMOs while they're watching Netflix with the sound on and attention up. Then retarget those same people in their LinkedIn feed the next morning. This is a full funnel B2B done properly. And the timing is fascinating. The Trade Desk is under pressure, stock down 50% in a year. The fallout from the Publicis audit is still making noise. Amazon circling. Yet LinkedIn chose them as partner number one. That tells you something about where the industry sees TTD's infrastructure sitting, regardless of the headlines. Here's what most people will miss, though. This isn't just about CTV. It's about B2B brands finally accepting that brand awareness matters. That in an LLM first world where buyers are discovering solutions through AI before they ever hit your website, you need to be memorable before you're searchable. TV does that. Programmatic CTV with LinkedIn's professional graph underneath it does that at scale. US CTV ad spend is forecast to hit $37 billion this year. B2B has barely scratched the surface of that number. The brands that move now won't just be early. They'll be the ones who own the conversation while everyone else is still debating whether TV is a "B2B channel." It is. LinkedIn just made it official. If you could precisely target one job title with a CTV campaign for your brand tomorrow, would you choose the decision-maker or the budget holder? #ConnectedTV #B2BMarketing #TheTradeDesk

The Amazon Ads + Disney partnership is a major shift. Here’s why it matters for brands: Let’s say you just launched a plant-based surface cleaner. You want to reach eco-conscious households and drive real online sales, not just views. Before this partnership: You could advertise on Disney+ or Hulu, targeting broad segments like “household decision-makers.” But you’d have no insight into shopper behavior, and no way to link ad exposure to product sales on Amazon. Now, with this partnership: 1. Smarter Audience Targeting Use Amazon DSP to reach: - Viewers streaming Disney+ or Hulu content related to home, family, or wellness AND - Shoppers who recently browsed or bought eco-friendly cleaning products on Amazon This overlap is matched via AWS Clean Rooms and Disney Compass, all privacy-safe. 2. Premium Ad Delivery, Contextually Placed Your ads appear in: - Hulu’s “Home & Living” or “Family” content - Disney+ originals favored by sustainability-minded viewers - ESPN content adjacent to fitness and wellness You control sequencing, frequency, and cross-device delivery. 3. Full-Funnel Measurement Track: - Searches, page views, carts, and purchases - New-to-brand vs. repeat buyers - Conversions within a defined attribution window The result: You can connect CTV impressions to actual outcomes. You’re engaging the right audience and measuring real results.

Over the past few years, TV has evolved from a brand awareness channel into an important part of our omnichannel growth strategy at MANSCAPED. I recently had the chance to discuss that journey on a podcast, and a few points stood out that I thought were worth sharing.   When we first invested in TV, the internal conversation wasn't simply about "brand awareness." We needed a channel that could build trust, demonstrate product quality, tell our brand story at scale, and still deliver measurable business results. We've seen TV play both roles. As our measurement has evolved, so has our confidence in the channel.   Here are a few highlights from our conversation: - We expected to perform in male-skewing and sports environments. We knew we could lean on some of the female-skewing networks during the holiday season, but what we didn't expect was how well female-skewing networks would perform. Partners and gift-givers are a huge part of the purchase equation for us and being able to lean into that audience and develop brand/product awareness through TV reshaped our planning in a real way. - Years of disciplined testing across sports, entertainment, and cultural moments gave us the confidence to invest at the Super Bowl level. Having a partner in Tatari that could connect performance data to those investments helped validate what we were seeing and ultimately strengthened the business case. - The hardest internal challenge isn't the media, it's the measurement conversation. TV doesn't look like Meta in the dashboard. Last-click alone rarely tells the full story. Building our measurement framework requires close collaboration across our internal teams and with Tatari. Looking beyond last-click attribution to branded search, blended CAC, assisted conversions, and halo effects gave us a much more accurate understanding of TV's contribution. There are additional insight nuggets, including how we think about the linear vs. streaming split and what always-on actually looks like in practice. Check out my interview, here: https://lnkd.in/ghPJ3tXf