What is CTV advertising? Streaming TV ads explained for buyers

Connected TV, or CTV, is any television that reaches the internet, either built in, as with smart TVs, or through a device such as a streaming stick, set-top box or games console. CTV advertising is the video ads that play inside the streaming apps viewers open on that screen: ad-supported tiers of subscription services, free ad-supported channels, live sports apps and network apps.

You will also see OTT, which means over the top. OTT covers all video delivered over the internet, on phones and laptops as well as TVs. When advertisers talk about CTV they usually mean the TV-screen part, because that is where the full-screen, sound-on, often non-skippable ad experience lives.

Linear TV is the traditional schedule: a programme airs at a set time and ads are bought as spots in it, often months ahead, with audiences estimated from panels. CTV ads are served one impression at a time to a specific household's TV. That changes three things for a buyer.

• Targeting: you can choose audiences by location, interests or your own customer lists rather than only by programme.
• Buying: impressions can be bought in auctions or deals through software, often with lower entry budgets than a linear schedule.
• Measurement: because each ad is served to a known household, platforms can connect exposures to later site visits or purchases and run comparison tests.

Online video on phones and computers is often skippable, small and watched with the sound off. CTV ads usually play full screen in a living room with the sound on, and many formats cannot be skipped. That is why CTV is often planned with TV creative and judged against both TV and performance goals.

Three groups sell CTV inventory. Streaming services and TV networks sell their own, sometimes through their own self-serve tools. Exchanges and supply-side platforms pool inventory from many apps for programmatic buyers. And platforms built for advertisers, from multi-channel DSPs to CTV-first performance platforms, package that inventory with targeting and measurement. The four types of platform are explained on the platform types page.

Advertisers usually come to CTV from one of two directions. TV buyers come for audiences that have stopped watching scheduled television and for the ability to target and measure households. Performance buyers come from search and social for a large screen, attentive viewing and a new pool of customers that their usual channels no longer reach at a cost they accept. The two groups judge success differently, which is why the same platform can look right to one team and wrong to another.

Before comparing platforms, decide what the campaign must prove, which streaming services matter to your audience, whether your team or the platform's team will run it, and what budget terms you can accept. Those four answers narrow the field faster than any feature list, and they are the core of the finder on this site.