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What is OTT advertising and how is it different from CTV?

OTT is the delivery, CTV is the screen. The difference changes what you can measure.

OTT is the delivery method and CTV is the screen, so every CTV impression is OTT but not every OTT impression is CTV. Over the top means video delivered over the open internet instead of through a cable or satellite subscription. Connected TV means that video landed on a television.

Why the distinction is not pedantic

An OTT impression on a phone behaves nothing like one in a living room. On a phone the ad is small, often muted, held by one person who may be half watching. On a TV it is full screen, audible, and frequently watched by more than one person. Same content, same app, completely different value per impression.

Vendors know this. When a proposal quotes a CPM for OTT without breaking out device type, ask what percentage of impressions will be delivered to a TV screen. If the answer is vague, the cheap CPM is cheap because a lot of it is mobile.

What changes in measurement

  • Mobile and desktop OTT can carry a clickable element. TV cannot, so a CTV buy has no click to report. Anyone showing you CTV click through rates is showing you something odd.
  • CTV identity is household level, tied to the IP address. Mobile OTT can be tied to a mobile advertising ID, which retargets more precisely.
  • Cross device attribution stitches a TV exposure to a later phone or laptop visit through the shared household IP. It works, but it is probabilistic. Treat it as directional.

How to use both

For awareness in a defined market, weight heavily toward CTV inventory and accept the higher CPM, because that is the impression you are actually paying for. Use mobile OTT as a lower cost extension of frequency, not as the core of the plan. Ask any vendor for a device type breakdown in reporting. If they will not provide one, that is your answer about the buy.

Related: What is CTV advertising and how does it work?, How do you measure results from streaming and display campaigns?, YouTube ads vs CTV: which one should you buy?.