CTV’s not the future; It’s already your media plan

The evolution of connected TV (CTV) from a promising innovation to a mainstream media channel has transpired faster than anticipated. It has moved well beyond the experimental budgets of just a few years ago.

Where once media planners asked whether to ‘test CTV’, today they ask how best to scale it, optimise it, and integrate it holistically. No longer limited to early adopters, it has transcended into a mainstay in modern media planning.

What makes CTV so strategically potent is its hybrid DNA. It’s a fundamentally unique canvas that blends the creative ambition of television with the accountability and agility of digital. What’s even more remarkable is that CTV’s technological prowess is subservient to how deeply it now mirrors and moulds the shifts in audience behaviours.

Audiences today expect control over content, timing, and even how advertising fits into their experience. CTV is helping shape it. As on-demand viewing becomes the default, marketers need to work with an entirely new blueprint, where relevance and context foster results.

The shift in viewing patterns

Though it has not been an overnight story, the surge of streaming has become an undeniable phenomenon, infiltrating living rooms across demographics and geographies. Viewers now have more control over what they watch, when they watch it, and how they engage with content.

In India, over 23% of households have completely transitioned from traditional TV to streaming, according to Kantar. This change is motivated not just by technology, but also by a fundamental desire for choice.

Audiences are not just watching differently; they're also thinking differently about the content they consume. Viewers are curating their personal prime time, hopping among various formats and genres, driven by a desire for control and convenience.

Traditional TV simply can’t match that level of flexibility. And with subscription fatigue setting in, ad-supported streaming has emerged as an appealing alternative. The audience is maturing. Expectations are higher. They want seamless, immersive experiences with fewer interruptions and advertising that feels more relevant.

This is where CTV stands out with its data-driven capabilities, household-level targeting, and intelligent contextual overlays. It provides marketers with a platform built for precision and personalisation.

The scale and sophistication of CTV

What began as an experimental line item is now commanding substantial budgets in media plans. CTV is one of the fastest-growing areas of digital ad spend, even surpassing traditional TV in some regions with the help of programmatic infrastructure. The trajectory is clear. The increase in smart TV usage, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 households, has made addressable advertising more viable than ever.

But it’s not just its scale that’s making the headlines. The sophistication of the medium is equally compelling. Innovations in audience segmentation and content-level targeting mean advertisers can now speak to their most valuable consumers at the right moment, in the right environment, within the premium, unskippable inventory.

Moreover, CTV has also bridged the accountability gap. Brands are no longer flying blind with GRPs. They are measuring outcomes like site visits, conversions, and engagement, and linking the ad spending back to real business impact.

With privacy-first frameworks, first-party data, and deterministic IDs, CTV provides a stable, future-proof signal in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. For an industry increasingly driven by performance, that changes everything.

Tapping into CTV’s full potential

To hone in on CTV’s promise, marketers, creatives, and planners need to adjust their strategies. Breaking it down, here are some simple steps. 

Campaign planning should evolve beyond the siloed structures of traditional versus digital. The consumer doesn’t see channels; they see content. Treat CTV not as an isolated element, but as a strategic layer in your video strategy. It must sit alongside and be in harmony with your investments in traditional TV, YouTube, and digital video. Planning and buying must move towards unified audience segmentation, where a single custom audience can be activated across platforms with consistency.

Also, invest in creative experimentation. The old rules of storytelling don’t always apply in a lean-back, app-driven, multi-screen context. CTV is rich with innovation levers: interactive overlays, shoppable CTAs, real-time triggers, and gamified formats. The best-performing CTV ads are purpose-built for the medium.

Moreover, bridge the creative and data teams. The buying model is different. The data is different. The signals, the supply paths, and the fraud risks all require updated playbooks. CTV demands a collaborative muscle across creative, media, and analytics teams. Co-join the art of the message and the science of delivery to win.

It is also important to future-proof your measurement stack. With cookie deprecation and privacy-first shifts changing how digital is measured, CTV offers a pathway to continuity. Deduplicating reach across publishers, understanding frequency, and attributing impact across touchpoints are key to making CTV a full-funnel channel, not just one for awareness.

In an age of fragmented attention, infinite content, and limitless choice, CTV offers rare clarity. With dynamic creative optimisation, addressable storytelling, and advanced audience insights, there lies a lucrative opportunity to make advertising feel personal, timely, and effective. Brands, agencies, and platforms that want to navigate in this new media terrain need to face it head-on with clarity, creativity, and control. CTV is not just a format to be planned, but a strategic capability that media planners need to become fluent in. If you’re looking to future-proof your marketing and make your every media dollar count, there’s no time to waste and every reason to lead.

- Arjit Sachdeva, co-founder and CTO of VDO.AI.