
CTV Advertising refers to delivering video ads to viewers who are streaming content through internet-connected devices. It allows you to place advertisements within the streaming content that viewers watch on-demand, outside of traditional cable or satellite programming.
CTV ads are shown on devices like:
This form of advertising serves ads ‘programmatically’ to specific audiences based on firmographics, interests, behaviors, or even account-level intent data.
This means, you no longer have to buy ad slots during a TV show and hope your target audience is watching.
Instead, you can reach verified decision-makers at companies that match your ideal customer profile (ICP)—whether they’re streaming business news on a smart TV in their office or watching industry content from home.
Example: Let’s you’re a cybersecurity platform targeting CIOs and IT directors across mid-market financial firms.
Instead of purchasing a 30-second ad during a generic TV program, you can run your video on ad-supported streaming apps that executives are watching —e.g., Bloomberg, CNBC, or YouTube TV. You can even filter and target specific company types, roles, and intent signals.
The ad is still on TV, but this time, it’s precise and targeted.
CTV advertising platforms are the technology systems that enable marketers to plan, buy, deliver, and measure ad campaigns across the CTV ecosystem.
In simpler terms, they’re the ‘control centers’ that help you reach precise audiences at scale. They manage everything from who sees your ads to which streaming apps and devices they appear on, all while tracking how those impressions influence pipeline and revenue.
In general, these platforms provide three major capabilities:
With these capabilities your campaigns can engage CFOs watching Bloomberg, CTOs streaming tech documentaries, or procurement leaders catching up on industry-specific content.
Now, don’t confuse CTV advertising with demand side platform (DSPs).
Related → Creating Compelling B2B Ads for CTV | Demandbase
As B2B buyers spend more of their off-work hours streaming content, CTV has emerged as a vital channel for reaching them.
Using a dedicated CTV advertising platform gives marketers the tools to tap into this audience in a way that traditional television simply cannot match.
Here are the primary benefits for any B2B organization:
One of the most powerful advantages of connected TV advertising is access to an audience that is both large and intentional.
For context, in the U.S alone there are more than 250 million CTV viewers, with 1.2 billion households globally owning at least one smart TV. And the growth seems to be consistent at 16% YOY [*].
But unlike traditional television viewers, CTV audiences aren’t just watching whatever happens to be on. They’re actively choosing their content, logging into apps, and engaging with long-form programming that captures their full attention.
Targeting professionals in such a ‘high-focus’ environment—through a content that’s curated by their choice—means they’re far more likely to recall your brand.
Linear TV campaigns rely on assumptions. They target based on audience demographics, geographic estimates, and program-based profiles. All of which are too broad for the complexity of B2B buying.
Meanwhile, CTV platforms use precise identifiers like first-party data and behavioral insights. This allows you to segment audiences by age, region, company size, job function, industry, device type, and even purchase intent.
This level of specificity gives B2B marketers confidence that their message is being seen by the right audience.
And because CTV operates ‘programmatically’, you can continuously refine campaigns mid-flight. You can adjust underperforming audience segments in real-time, while expanding or retargeting high-engagement clusters.
CTV platforms unify what was once a fragmented process. They give marketers a centralized interface to plan, execute, and measure campaigns across dozens of apps, networks, and devices.
This centralization delivers two critical benefits: operational efficiency and measurable accuracy.
Operationally, your team can launch a campaign across Hulu, YouTube TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV from one platform.
In terms of measurements, CTV platforms report on:
With all of these, every view becomes a data point. You can see if people watched, who within your ICP did, and how that correlated with subsequent website visits, or content engagement.
CTV ads appear within long-form, immersive content on the largest screen in the home or office.
Most premium streaming platforms, including Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount+, feature non-skippable ad formats, ensuring that your message is fully delivered— visual, audio, and emotional impact intact.
For B2B, this is a crucial differentiator. Complex messages like showcasing a new SaaS platform or explaining a transformation story require more than a simple ‘here’s our story’ banner.
They need visual storytelling, tone, and repetition to land. CTV gives you that format. Plus it holds the highest viewer attention, especially when compared to desktop and mobile ads [*].
Additionally, unskippable CTV ads operate in trusted content environments. It doesn’t serve your ads next to user-generated videos or questionable content.
Instead, you appear beside professionally curated programs —e.g., business news, documentaries, and technology-focused shows that elevate brand perception.
Jodi Lebow, Director, Global Demand Center at Hexagon.
Related → Why Should You Care About Connected TV? ROKU’s Jordan Rost Shares His Take
While many options exist, the best platforms share several key characteristics. Here is what to look for when evaluating your options:
You want to choose a platform that goes beyond basic demographic or regional targeting.
That means being able to target not just “viewers in the U.S.,” but “IT directors at enterprise SaaS companies who have recently consumed cybersecurity content.”
The more granular the targeting, the more relevant your campaigns become.
Look for platforms that support:
Your CTV platform must be able to ingest CRM data, ABM lists, and firmographic attributes to build audiences from your own target accounts.
Ask critical questions during evaluation:
With these answers, you’ll be aligning your ad spend around verified companies already in your pipeline or showing signs of intent.
Basic metrics like video completion rates and impressions don’t mean anything if they can’t be linked to business outcomes.
That’s why your CTV platform must provide end-to-end attribution visibility, showing how ad exposure contributes to account engagement, opportunity creation, and pipeline acceleration.
Look for platforms with multi-touch attribution and account-level analytics that integrate into your CRM or ABM dashboard.
This lets you measure things like:
Ensure your preferred platform provides access to premium, brand-safe inventory across major streaming services and trusted networks.
Ads shown within respected environments (like CNBC, Bloomberg, or Discovery+) carry more credibility, especially when targeting senior decision-makers.
This ensures your message is seen in trusted, high-engagement environments — places your audience already values for information and entertainment.
CTV campaigns typically run on a CPM (Cost Per Mille) model. However, the pricing structure can vary widely between platforms.
A trustworthy provider should offer:
A good platform should make it easy to optimize spend mid-campaign, reallocating budgets toward higher-performing segments or channels.
Look for platforms that integrate with your multi-channel strategy, allowing you to sync campaigns across display, social media, search, and programmatic channels.
This alignment ensures consistent messaging and cohesive storytelling at every stage of the buyer journey.
For example: A target account sees your CTV ad → clicks your retargeting ad later on LinkedIn → receives a personalized email from your SDR the next day.

Demandbase stands out as the first and only Connected TV (CTV) advertising solution designed specifically for B2B marketers. This is powered by the proprietary Piper B2B DSP, a demand-side platform built from the ground up for B2B audience identification and targeting.
It connects ad delivery directly to known business accounts and verified buying committees. This means marketers can deliver high-impact video ads on premium streaming platforms like Hulu, Pluto, Tubi, Sling, and Roku.
With Demandbase CTV, you can identify and engage the specific accounts, buying groups, and decision-makers that are in-market, researching your category, or actively showing intent.
Plus, every impression is tied to account-level data, ensuring that your budget directly supports generating new pipeline and sales.
Key features
What customers say about Demandbase
Jay Civitillo, Market Development Manager at Caregility
Kate Coppola, Senior Advertising Manager, Brand and Digital Marketing at Unisys.
Oleg Solodyankin, CEO of Ignitium
Pricing
Demandbase offers custom pricing based on campaign scope, ad spend, and data volume. But you can get the CTV solution as a bundle with the Demandbase One platform, which combines advertising, data, and sales intelligence capabilities into a unified GTM suite.

The Trade Desk (TTD) is a programmatic demand-side platform (DSP) in the world that powers advertising campaigns across Connected TV, display, mobile, and digital audio.
The platform features an open, omnichannel ecosystem, providing access to the largest library of premium streaming inventory. This includes partnerships with major publishers like Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, and YouTube TV.
It also combines first-party CRM data, ABM lists, and third-party intent data to build granular audience segments. This ensures CTV ads are served only to the most relevant business decision-makers.
Key features:
Pros
Cons
Pricing
The Trade Desk operates on a transparent CPM-based pricing model tied to the volume of media spend, data usage, and targeting complexity.
This is calculated using its ‘hybrid rates’ pricing model which combines a percentage of media cost (%) with a maximum CPM (cost per thousand impressions) cap.
The exact details of this aren’t exactly clear, and can vary based on geography and inventory type. But most advertisers can expect:
And even their customers find their model a bit confusing too:


Google Display & Video 360 (DV360) is Google’s enterprise-grade DSP within the Google Marketing Platform ecosystem, designed to manage programmatic media buying across display, video, mobile, audio and other channels.
It gives you access to the global Google inventory including YouTube TV, Hulu, and Sling, enabling wide-scale visibility among professional audiences.
But the major advantage is the integration with other Google apps such as Ads, Search, and Analytics 360. With this ecosystem, marketers can align brand campaigns with performance outcomes. They can also track how CTV exposure influences search lift, website engagement, and account-level actions.
Key features:
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Because pricing depends so much on scale, targeting, and supply, Google does not publish a fixed “entry price” for DV360. You should expect to negotiate based on spend and targeting complexity.
You’ll also pay for platform access (often bundled via agency/Google partnership) and any premium data or measurement add-ons.

This is Amazon’s demand-side platform that enables advertisers to buy programmatic display, video, audio and CTV inventory across Amazon’s owned properties (such as Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV) and third-party publishers.
Initially, it was developed with a strong consumer focus, but it has since evolved into a complete omnichannel CTV solution, offering B2B marketers access to its premium streaming inventory.
Amazon has also formed strategic partnerships with Roku, and Netflix, to access large scales of streaming-household inventory.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Amazon DSP offers three main pricing modes:
Also, the minimum spend depends on whether you are using self-service (lower threshold) or managed service (higher threshold) modes.

StackAdapt is an ai-powered, self-serving (with optional managed service) programmatic advertising platform that supports Connected TV alongside display, video, audio, native, and even in-game formats.
While it serves both B2B and B2C, its audience activation toolkit makes it particularly well suited for B2B marketers in mid-market organizations. For example, you can upload first-party data, layer it with lookalike models or intent-driven signals, and deploy ads in high-quality streaming environments via CTV.
For many B2B teams that are newer to CTV or lack the heavy infrastructure of large DSP platforms, StackAdapt is a practical choice. You get CTV access, multi-channel flexibility and AI optimization in one platform.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing
StackAdapt uses flexible pricing models tailored to your campaign objectives, including CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), and CPE (cost per engagement).

OpenX is a supply-side platform (SSP) that powers programmatic ad inventory across web, mobile, and app channels. Unlike the DSPs we’ve discussed, OpenX’s initiative called TV by OpenX is particularly interesting for CTV buyers.
Through this program, OpenX has committed to eliminating non-TV content (like gaming, UGC, mobile apps) from its “CTV” inventory definition. It also removes resellers from key supply paths, and provides direct access to premium devices and verified streaming placements.
What this means is, when you buy through OpenX’s CTV offerings, you’re buying into a curated, transparent supply-path.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing

MNTN is another self-serve, performance-first CTV advertising platform that enables B2B marketers to launch, optimize and measure streaming-TV campaigns.
It focuses on quick activation, clear measurement and a workflow that feels familiar to paid search or social. MNTN lets you target audiences using first-party data or intent segments, deliver video ads on major streaming networks, and then tie exposure to site visits and conversions.
Its ease-of-use is also a compelling factor. Because many B2B organizations struggle with moving from digital ads to TV-like environments, MNTN reduces the friction:
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing

Brandzooka is an ad tech platform designed to make premium video and CTV ad buying accessible—especially for smaller brands and agencies.
For B2B teams, Brandzooka offers an interesting value proposition: you get access to premium streaming services (such as Hulu, Peacock, Pluto TV) and a platform that lets you activate campaigns with lower budget thresholds (starting from ~US $1,000) and with fewer contract hurdles.
That said, while it may not offer the advanced account-based workflows of specialized B2B CTV DSPs, its ease of use and access-friendly model make it a viable option.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing


Verve is a global ad-tech company whose DSP offering enables programmatic media buying across mobile, web, digital out-of-home (DOOH) and CTV.
It offers cross-screen consistency, contextual precision, ID-less targeting, and transparent supply quality. This makes it a good option for B2B marketers who are navigating privacy shifts and want to expand reach in a more flexible way.
For instance, instead of solely relying on deterministic first-party account lists, Verve augments campaigns with contextual and location-based signals. This enables outreach to professional audiences across screens even when explicit identity data is restricted.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Specific pricing tiers depend on inventory quality, geographic region, targeting complexity, and data usage.

SmartyAds is a full-stack programmatic advertising platform. It offers a DSP, SSP, and access to global ad inventory across mobile, video, rich media, and CTV, and OTT (over-the-top).
It provides an interface that allows you to manage CTV line items alongside other channels in a unified workflow. This makes it a flexible, scalable solution for advertisers that want to manage ad campaigns across channels with unified tools.
SmartyAds can also serve as a cost-effective entry or supplemental option for CTV advertising. It gives you access to big-screen reach, programmatic buying and multi-channel orchestration. And you never have to worry about the overhead and commitments of more enterprise-focused DSPs.
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing
| Platform | Key strengths | Best for | Measurement and attribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demandbase | Only CTV platform built specifically for B2B. Also connects ads to verified accounts and buying committees via Piper B2B DSP | Enterprise GTM teams that want to directly link CTV performance to pipeline and revenue. | Full pipeline attribution, opportunity influence, ROI tracking |
| The Trade Desk | Massive reach, premium CTV inventory, AI-driven bidding, Unified ID 2.0 identity graph | Global B2B brands needing broad reach, scale, and cross-media consistency. | Cross-channel attribution, reach & frequency reports |
| Google DV360 | Part of Google Marketing Platform. Unifies YouTube, display and CTV | B2B organizations already invested in Google stack needing cross-screen measurement. | Deep analytics via GA360, post-view tracking, brand lift |
| Amazon DSP | Access to Fire TV, Prime Video, Twitch, all powered by Amazon’s first-party insights | B2B marketers seeking data-driven precision and household-level reach with premium inventory. | Reach, conversions, offline-to-online attribution |
| StackAdapt | Multi-channel platform (CTV, display, native). Also includes great AI optimization | Mid-to-large B2B teams seeking CTV integration inside existing programmatic workflows. | Unified analytics dashboard, conversion rates tracking |
| OpenX | Direct CTV supply (TV by OpenX), strong data partnerships (Experian, etc.) | B2B advertisers prioritizing transparency, quality supply, and brand-safe placements. | Publisher-level transparency, impression verification |
| MNTN | “Performance TV” model with self-serve simplicity. Verified Visits attribution | GTM leaders seeking pipeline visibility and performance tracking through CTV. | Full-funnel attribution (site visits, conversions, ROAS) |
| Brandzooka | Self-serve platform with low budget minimums and quick activation | SMB or growth-stage B2B brands testing CTV proof-of-concept or pilot campaigns. | Real-time reporting, engagement metrics |
| Verve | Focus on contextual, ID-less targeting across CTV, mobile and DOOH | B2B advertisers needing cross-channel continuity and privacy-based targeting. | Contextual engagement analytics, brand safety metrics |
| SmartyAds | Full-stack DSP/SSP ecosystem, self-serve and AI optimization. | B2B teams exploring entry-level or low-cost global CTV campaigns. | Real-time analytics, transparency reports |
The days of television being a ‘one-way’ awareness channel are over. It’s now switched to Connected TV, and is driving both brand equity and measurable pipeline impact.
But most CTV platforms were built for consumer brands. They’re not compatible for the complex buying groups in B2B.
We figured we might as well change that.
Demandbase brings the precision of account-based marketing to the most immersive screen in your house.
And this is powered by our proprietary ‘Piper’ B2B DSP, which enables you to deliver video campaigns that reach the right accounts already in-market and showing intent. Plus it connects every ad impression to downstream activity, closing the gap between awareness and revenue.
Here’s what one of our customers had to say:
Robert Bramley, Demand Generation Manager (UK & Ireland) GoCardless
GoCardless unifies sales and marketing to deliver 11X ROI with Demandbase
For the first time, B2B marketers can treat television like a performance channel.
You can build brand authority while fueling pipeline velocity. And all of this from a single platform that unites data, targeting, and measurement in one place.
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