CTV has long been viewed as the inroad to audience-based targeting on the biggest screen in the house. A decade into the CTV revolution, CTV has yet to deliver on this promise. At the same time, marketers are now looking to CTV for brand building, but they’re still approaching the channel with performance-based tactics.
Brand awareness is marketers’ top objective for their CTV ad spending
– 2025 Gracenote CTV advertising survey
User-based targeting is great for delivering performance, but people don’t watch TV ads the way they watch ads on social media. That’s why, for the road ahead, marketers should be complementing their audience-based strategies with initiatives that engage people who aren’t already customers.
That means focusing on what people are watching in addition to who’s doing the watching. This will help marketers better meet their top objectives and achieve the scale that audience-based targeting can’t deliver on its own.
How brands can tap into the growth of live sports on FAST channels
The ongoing addition of live sports to FAST channels is a notable opportunity for brands because of their real-time appeal with sports fans.
How contextual targeting can help marketers reach the scale they need in CTV to build their brands
By tapping into the visibility that contextual signals provide, brands can overcome their top challenges in CTV advertising and find the scale they’re looking for.
Content metadata provides critical context as CTV advertising goes programmatic
The granularity of program information is becoming increasingly important across CTV channels as advertising goes programmatic.