What is CTV advertising and how does it work?
Video ads on internet-connected TVs, bought by audience instead of by time slot.
CTV advertising is video that runs on an internet-connected television, bought by audience rather than by time slot. The C stands for connected: a smart TV, a Roku, an Apple TV, a Fire Stick, a game console, anything that pulls streaming video onto a TV screen.
How the buy actually works
Instead of buying 30 seconds inside a specific show at a specific hour, you define an audience and a geography, and a demand side platform bids for individual ad slots as they become available inside streaming apps. The unit of targeting is usually the household, identified by the IP address the TV is on, not an individual person. That matters: you are reaching a living room, not a cookie.
Most CTV inventory is non-skippable, which is the channel's real advantage. Paramount reports a video completion rate of about 96 percent on the Paramount+ platform, according to its own internal 2024 US data published on Paramount Ads Manager. People finish these ads because they cannot skip them and the show is waiting on the other side.
What you can and cannot target
- You can target: geography down to zip code or a drawn polygon, household income and demographic segments, third party interest and purchase data, and lists of your own customers matched to households.
- You cannot reliably target: a single named person in a shared household, or anyone by search intent in the moment. CTV is not a demand capture channel.
What it costs
Paramount Ads Manager publishes 2026 guidance putting competitive CTV CPMs between $20 and $40 for standard inventory and $40 to $60 for premium, with most entry level campaigns starting between $25 and $65 CPM. Do that math against your budget before you get excited. LevelUp's minimum for CTV and OTT is $10,000 per month in ad spend for a tight single market, and $15,000 or more for a full metro.
Related: What is OTT advertising and how is it different from CTV?, Is CTV advertising better than cable or broadcast TV?, What creative do you need for a CTV, OTT, or display campaign?, platforms we manage.