CTV is rapidly growing in media portfolios (in fact, it’s projected as 2025’s fastest-growing channel).
B2C and D2C brands have already moved budget into CTV for its combination of big-screen storytelling and digital targeting. But can it work for B2B? You can probably guess what the CEO of a CTV company will say, but there are a lot of layers to this answer.
My goal with this post is to help brands avoid what I see as the worst-case scenario (which I’m very familiar with having worked in the programmatic space for the better part of two decades): running a faulty test of CTV campaigns and giving up on it as a lost channel without understanding its true impact, then coming back to it well after your competitors are using it to their advantage.
With that in mind, here’s what you need to know before testing CTV.
The Right Expectations
No matter your vertical, a successful CTV strategy hinges on executive buy-in, which means setting the right expectations:
- It’s not a bottom-funnel channel. Lower-funnel KPIs like conversions can be tracked, but direct revenue impact is difficult to attribute.
- It’s best for brand awareness. CTV shines in upper-funnel metrics like brand lift, audience reach, and website visits.
- It boosts other channels. Expect improved performance in search and social as a secondary effect.
Without clear alignment on what CTV can do for your business, you risk getting budget yanked before you build up any statistically significant insights. I always recommend giving campaigns at least 90 days to accrue data. While costs are variable, plan to budget no less than $25K to get enough insights for clear next steps.
The Holy Grail: Incrementality
Given macroeconomic pressures and the continuous rise of competitive costs, incrementality may be the most important measurement question in B2B marketing right now.
To understand the true value of CTV campaigns, you need to measure beyond view-through conversions and assess brand lift and impact on other channels in your media mix. The best approach? Geo-lift tests — comparing two similar markets with and without CTV. Meta’s GeoLift tool is a great (free) option, but it requires programming expertise.
Resources You’ll Need
- Time & Budget. A 90-day test is essential. Expect to spend at least $25K for geo-specific insights, and make sure your leadership is aligned from the outset on the KPIs you’ll be measuring.
- Expertise. You don’t need a dedicated CTV team, but curiosity and technical fluency are crucial. CTV doesn’t behave like more established digital channels. Tacking it onto the rest of your media mix with the same hands at the wheel is a recipe for ambiguity.
- Creative. CTV demands a steady flow of video content. Repurpose existing assets, but invest in storytelling that uses humor or emotional appeal over high-budget production. Even in B2B, audiences respond to authentic, relatable content — balance your corporate branding with creative that forms connections.
What to Look for in a CTV Partner
Optimizing CTV without prior experience is tricky. Not every platform is built for B2B. Here’s what to evaluate:
- B2B targeting depth. Can the platform target by account list, firmographics, or job title? Or is it limited to age, gender, and geography? If the best it can do is demographic targeting, it wasn’t built for your use case.
- Inventory transparency. Ask where your ads will run. Premium publishers like Hulu, Peacock, and ESPN are fundamentally different from open exchanges filled with long-tail apps and made-for-advertising inventory. If your partner can’t show you a publisher list, that’s a red flag.
- Pricing transparency. Whether you work with a platform directly or through an agency, demand pass-through costs. No hidden platform surcharges on top of media management fees. If you can’t see where your budget is going, you can’t optimize it.
- Account-level reporting. Impressions and CPMs aren’t enough for B2B. You need to see which accounts were reached, how often, and what happened next. If your reporting can’t connect back to your target account list, you’re flying blind.
- Measurement fluency. Your partner should be able to articulate how CTV impacts your other channels and help you design incrementality tests — not just report on delivery metrics.
One option is to bring on an agency with CTV experience. If you go that route, ask hard questions about their fluency with the channel. Without dedicated expertise and a history of accurately measuring CTV’s impact on pipeline, an agency won’t add much value over what an in-house resource could provide.
Targeting B2B Audiences: The Account-Based Approach
This has historically been the biggest gap in CTV for B2B. Most platforms were built to reach consumer audiences by demographics and interest segments. That’s not how B2B marketers think. You have a list of accounts. You need to reach the decision-makers at those accounts.
The industry has tried to close this with IP-based targeting and professional data overlays. Those approaches have trade-offs — limited match rates, coarse targeting, and reporting that still can’t tell you which accounts actually saw your ad.
Account-Based Television was purpose-built to close this gap. Instead of starting with demographic segments and hoping the right people see your ads, it starts with your accounts — a CRM list, a CSV upload, or firmographic criteria like industry, company size, and job title — and delivers ads to the households of decision-makers at those companies across premium streaming inventory.
The difference isn’t just in targeting. It’s in reporting. Account-Based Television shows you which accounts were reached, at what frequency, and what happened downstream — website visits, sales engagement, pipeline movement. That’s the connection between media spend and pipeline that B2B has been missing from CTV.
I don’t recommend testing every targeting approach at once. One of the benefits of a purpose-built partner is helping you prioritize which method fits your account list and buying cycle.
Is It Time to Invest in CTV?
Before diving in, assess whether you’ve maximized demand capture via search and social. If those channels are maxed out — stubbornly high CPAs, an inability to scale, flat or decreasing marginal return — start preparing: develop an incrementality strategy, strengthen your creative pipeline, and refine your measurement.
The CTV landscape is evolving fast. Even as more streaming options expand available inventory, competitive costs will increase over time. Getting a jump on the channel now, especially with an account-based approach purpose-built for B2B, means you’re building institutional knowledge while the costs are still reasonable.
