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Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
CTV and Streaming Advertising Trends for 2026 Summit: Activation and Measuring CTV Campaigns | Behind the Numbers Special Edition
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Hello and welcome to a special edition episode of the eMarketer podcast, behind the Numbers. I'm Marcus Johnson and today I'm introducing a special episode from the eMarketer Summit, CTV and Streaming Advertising Trends for 2026, which was held on November 14th. This episode features a panel discussion focused on ad strategies, targeting integrated measurement and the role of CTV in full funnel campaigns. The Marketer Senior Analyst Ariel Fager hosts Shrudi Khattood, SVP of Growth Marketing and Media Strategy at Nutrafol and Benjamin Vandegrift, VP of Measurement Strategy and Innovation at the Video Advertising Bureau.
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Enjoy.
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Hi everyone. For those of you who are just joining us, welcome. I'm Arielle Faker. I'm a senior analyst here at eMarketer and for those of you coming from the keynote and Fireside chat, thanks for sticking around. I'm excited to continue our programming today with our first panel of the day. The conversation will be focused on activation and measuring CTV campaigns. Before I introduce you to my guests, I want to set the scene for our discussion. As you heard Ross mention, CTV is growing fast and it's set to overtake linear ad spend in just a couple of years. However, there's still some major hurdles marketers have to overcome. For example, according to September data from ID5, over a third of digital advertising professionals worldwide say their biggest addressability challenge in CTV is cross channel reconciliation. And nearly as many say their biggest challenge is measurement. Today we're going to dig deeper into some of those challenges and with the help of my panelists, hopefully you'll come away with some strategies to drive measurable success. So let's meet our panelists. Please welcome me and and joining Shruti Kattad, SVP of Growth Marketing and Media Strategy at nutrafol. Hi, Shruti.
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Hi, Arielle. Thank you for having me.
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Thank you for being here. And we also have Benjamin Vandegrift, VP of Measurement Strategy and Innovation at the Video Advertising Bureau. Hey, Ben.
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Hey. Thanks so much for having me. To you and the eMarketer team and to everybody for tuning in today. It's great to be here.
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Awesome. It's awesome to have you. We're just going to jump straight in. CTV continues to grow as a key channel for advertisers, but it's still a relatively small part of most media mixes. What's driving adoption right now and where are you seeing the biggest opportunities for growth? Ben, let's start with you.
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Great. So just to quickly introduce myself a little bit more, I'm Ben Vandegrift, from the Video Advertising Bureau. And for those of you who are not familiar with the vab, we are an insights and advocacy organization that aims to empower marketers and and our members by illuminating and driving change within the highest value topics in advertising today. So one of the topics that we're hyper focused on right now is of course CTV advertising. And Ariel mentioned this and I'm sure the panel before mentioned this. It's one of the fastest growing media platforms. It's grown nearly 50% in the last five years and audiences are tuning in for nearly two and a half hours a day on average. And advertisers are following suit, investing over 33 billion to $33 billion this year alone. So in terms of what's driving adoption, I'll stick with just three reasons right now. First and foremost, right, the increased viewership, right? If the audiences are there, the advertisers want to be there. And like I mentioned before, audiences are spending more time in ctv. And I think it's important to define what CTV is, right? That connected television, which is a device or TV device that has built in Internet capabilities like a smart TV or is connected to the Internet via a streaming device such as a streaming box or stick, gaming console or Blu ray player. So think a Fire TV Stick, Roku device, Apple TV device or PlayStation. And around 90% of households have at least one CTV device on those devices. Audiences are utilizing ad supporting streaming options and fast channels. Free ad supported streaming at increased rates. The VAB we actually just released a report on fast and then that report featured some research from LG Ads that fast app usage is up actually nearly 110% since 2023. Advertisers are also attracted by the lowering of CPMs and increased ad loud ad loads, pardon me estimates for the 2526 upfront saw. The upfront saw the CPM drop less precipitously this year which signifies some normalization occurring in the marketplace. And ultimately the upfront saw nearly 20% growth for year over year in streaming. And I think finally the really exciting stuff that's happening around innovations and enhancements in technology that enable advanced targeting, innovative ad formats and the buying and selling of CTV programmatically, which is a huge opportunity of growth for CTV simply because it enables greater flexibility and lowers the barrier of entry for advertisers of all shapes and sizes. But particularly for SMBs who see the value of advertising in premium brand safe and fraud free environments, that was a.
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Really helpful way to kind of set the scene. Shruti From a brand perspective, you know, where are you seeing the growth and adoption in CTV going right now?
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Yeah, I think Ben covered most of it. We are getting direct feedback when we advertise because the viewership has moved to streaming versus linear. We get that direct feedback in our data, we are seeing that increase in response rate in our data, we are seeing that increase in lift in our brand searches, so on and so forth. So we know that this is the right signals that we are getting and moving into streaming. The other piece is also just the natural shift of linear TV. Like Ben said, CPMs are rising there quite a bit and we just sort of declining again because the viewership is moving. So it only makes sense that it is linear is still costly and the reach being declined moving into streaming. And I think we are also seeing a little bit of a longer shelf life of our creative on streaming. It could be just the way users are using streaming binge watching or concentrated watches and that can help with a longer shelf life in creative. And from an innovation point, what Ben said, I think that is also helping with better measurement. We are able to connect our first party data which gives us a lot more capability of precision targeting and that kind of helps with again confirming the returns that we are getting much better versus a broad targeting on linear.
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Yeah. In the lead up to today's discussion we talked about how CTV is becoming more actionable just about reach or impressions. Shruti, how are you seeing brands or how are you using CTV to drive results across the full funnel?
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Yeah, I think like not just me and our brand, but I'm seeing like as I speak to my peers that we are building experimentation frameworks that make it a full funnel performance engine versus just, you know, reach or just roi. So I think we really are looking into how do we invest in both, both upper funnel, mid funnel and lower funnel to understand reach brand lift. When it comes to upper funnel search lift visitation spikes through CTV exposure and mid funnel and then lower funnel is really is roi. But then again it's not a direct one to one ROI that you can immediately get. It could be a, a tie up of KPIs. And I know I'm probably stealing your thunder from other questions that you may have, but it is, it is a tie up of KPIs that you look at and the longer shelf life of your programming to truly understand roi, but it is giving you reach. It is showing up in brand lift studies, it is showing up in search spikes and now you have clean rooms to really do some a Very fine audience targeting and frequency mapping.
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So Ben, what's, what's your perspective on this full funnel activation?
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Yeah, I think Shruti made a lot of really great points. I love the phrase full funnel performance engine. Right. Really thinking about from top to bottom, how CTV can drive, right. Those full funnel results for advertisers, you know, to kind of ladder it back a little bit. I think the part of the power of ctv, its ability to bring together premium high quality and engaging content, along with those advanced targeting and innovative ad formats and technology that Trudy mentioned, add in that granular data that can be accessed in near real time, making those more informed decisions, optimizing campaign strategies while in flight. Right. In many ways making CTV the ideal mechanism of advertising. So what we've seen at the vab, we see brands win the most when they zero in on that value of high quality premium content and its ability to connect with audiences in that full funnel manner. And again, it begins with that quality of premium content. Content that is emotionally engaging, it's long form and that creates outsized impacts for the brands that utilize it to connect with consumers. Right. Somewhere around, I think it's 60% of US adults have higher recall for brands in premium content compared with non premium content. And this power premium carries through the funnel into strong emotional responses, increasing purchase intent by like 35 to 40%. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the value of brand safety that high quality premium environments provide. As a brand, you can put forth all of this effort and investment in your growth, but your dollars can ultimately end up working against you if your ads land in inflammatory, objectionable, unfavorable content or environment. So you're putting your investments and your future growth at risk if you're not being thoughtful and strategic about it. And if you're ceding control to black box algorithms we often see in digital walled gardens. Right. That's potentially draws in some challenges. Right. Close to 70% of audiences would simply stop using a brand because of a negative association. And whether or not it's the brand's fault that ad landed where it did, nearly 90% of consumers feel that the brands themselves are the ones who bear responsibility for where their ads run. So I say all this to say that partnering with premium publishers ensures that marketers engage with real audiences and high quality brand safe content with that precision and digital targeting and measurable results. Right. Really getting that strength of branding and performance that advertisers want and need.
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Yeah, absolutely. Brand safety, definitely something that's becoming more and more important, especially as marketers really have to make every single dollar work for them. Shruti, you talked a minute ago about first party data and the role that it plays. It's certainly playing a growing role in how brands target and measure success. What are some of the most effective ways you are using or you're seeing marketers using first party data to activate on ctv?
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Yeah, I think there are again, targeting first understanding your first party data. What is your consumer insight and how do you map that to the programming or through the DSP that can actually give you that? Now we also have right now multiple DSPs that brands use. And I think our whole hope is that we can actually have one measurement background or backbone. And for that you need to consolidate as much as possible from the DSP that you're buying. That will help with your control, controlling your frequency, which is again, as you attach your first party data and you're attaching it to multiple dsp, it does become a problem. So yes, first party data, yes, consumer insights. But then how are you mapping that back to duplication and frequency control? That really will help understand the purity of the data that you can get back. So I think it's important to attach your first party data, but also to understand how much are you bombarding the consumer at the same time.
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Ben, anything you want to add?
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Yeah, again, a lot of great points there, particularly around the purity, the quality of that data. When we're thinking about first party data, we think it's important for brands and publishers that they have a three pronged approach that begins with being transparent because that's how brands can build trust with customers and consumers and audiences is being upfront about how they intend to use the data and provide them that ability to control how it's used. The next step of that three pronged approach is consent, right? Meaning gathering user permission for data collection in a clear and concise manner and then finally providing a value exchange. Because if customers are providing you with something, they should be getting something in return. And naturally consumers, we ourselves are consumers, right? We know what it's like to want to share something, we want to get something back in return, right? And so we're more willing to share our personal information when receiving value. We've all probably signed up for, right? The bonus card at your grocery store, any of these things, right? That's giving consent. You're getting something in return to get those discounts, right? That's you giving that value, getting that value exchange for sharing your first party data, right? They're understanding who it is that's buying these things every single day or every other day whenever you're going to the store. So if I remember correctly, somewhere around 70 to 75% of customers are willing to share their personal information with a brand that's offering something in return and beyond the dealer access they receive. From a user experience perspective, this works in favor of the consumer because through the integration and activation of first party data that enables advertisers to serve more personalized and relevant ads, which presents a win for advertisers who see higher rates of purchase and repurchase behavior when enabling those personalized ads. So ultimately creating a win win environment. Right. The consumer sees ads for goods, products or services that are relevant to them that they care about, and then the advertiser themselves are spending more efficiently and driving more engagement for their brand.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I'll just quickly add to Ben's point. I think it's a great point on tying it back to the funnel. If you have your first party data, you understand the programming and you understand where, which creative you can optimize for which part of the funnel. I think that all kind of sort of ties back together and it can be a really great strategy for you to test into bringing in different types of creative for different types of funnel.
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Yeah, shifting gears a little bit, talking about measurement, as I mentioned earlier, measurement's one of the biggest challenges in CTV right now. Ben, what approaches or frameworks are helping marketers better connect exposure to outcomes?
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I think it's one word, identity, that's critical component. It's vital to success to a successful measurement strategy is one that's rooted in identity. Individual consumers can engage with ctv, Linear tv, mobile, all of these different devices and platforms and they have multiple touch points with brands on their website, in store locations, their social media, etc. So having the ability to recognize an individual viewer or household, their viewing behaviors, the purchase behaviors and other defining characteristics about them is going to be a critical success. Critical to the success of a measurement strategy. Identity is that glue or connective tissue that connects ad exposures to outcomes. So having a framework set in place enables you to resolve an identity, enrich it with relevant information, so you can develop a more dynamic profile over who your customer is. And so one of the ways to enhance your identity strategy is what I mentioned earlier in our conversation, collecting first party data and forming that strong and durable relationship with customers.
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Yeah, fragmentation you mentioned there's platforms, there's channels, there's so many different things going on. It's a big challenge and it makes it difficult to compare performance across different publishers, platforms, CSPs. Shruti, how are you trying to maintain clarity and consistency in CTV measurement?
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Yeah, that's a huge challenge right now. And even to Ben's point of collecting first party data, that's also a challenge.
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Right.
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Because social commerce is increasing so significantly that brands don't have a choice but to be in marketplaces losing that first party data to marketplaces versus their own brand. Right. So I think it becomes. I genuinely empathize with every brand and marketer who is looking for answers for measurement, which is really hard. But like I said, I think trying to have KPIs, whether by funnel or as a collective, to have similar KPIs across all partners that are providing the CDV service can help a little bit to have some apples to apples comparison. Whether it is one try and consolidate DSPs. That is a number one rule. I always go with second, I think looking at multiple touch points. So you're not over optimizing your CTV creative or your programming. Whether it's. You're looking at your search lift, your brand lift studies your search, sorry, site traffic. And if you have a TV partner that can actually help you understand the spikes within five seconds or five minutes of your big hits or big programs, that can help you measure the efficacy of that, of that spot as well. So I would take that as a consideration and then a retargeting pool assessment. Are you seeing an increase in your retargeting pool along all your digital channels? I think that can also be a helpful KPI, a hard one. But there are ways to look into that. And you also need to look at a longer shelf life of your creative. If your creative has a longer shelf life on ctv, on certain programming or certain partners, that's a great indication as well that something is working. Your response rate hasn't gone down and you have to continue to hone into whether it's the type of programming, whether it's the audience that you're targeting or that specific partner that is helping you achieve that.
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Yeah, we talked a little bit about the importance of balancing precision with perspective. Right. And finding that middle ground. How can marketers strike that balance? I'm wondering, Trudy, do you have any tips on that?
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That's a. That's definitely a hard one. I think precision comes from the fact that you have one measurement backbone, whether you have your own MTA solution, your custom model. Mmm. That will help at least tell a larger brand story of what is the contribution of this channel to your business, whether it comes from multiple DSPs or multiple partners, at least you have that one source of truth that would be very important. And then the the perspective is more about what are the multiple touch points doing for you, which is a little bit of a broader zoom out view of your brands, brand health, brand favorability, your unaided awareness, things like that. I think that is where you have to find a balance between your own data and what it's telling you.
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Ben, do you have a perspective on this?
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Sure. I definitely agree with a lot of what Shruti said there and fully agree that it is difficult. But it's important to take a balanced or full funnel approach to overarching campaign goals. And while most advertisers ultimate goal is to sell something, whether it's a good or a service, is incredibly important to remember that the first step to achieving that goal is somebody needs to know who you are, they needed to trust you as a brand. Now I know we spent a lot of time myself definitely today talking about the value of first party data and its use cases and building strong relationships with customers and reaching them in personalized ways. But to build your first party data you need to gather net new customers and that's done by activating and measuring branding and awareness campaigns going into uncharted lands. I recently heard the CMO of one of the biggest QSR brands in the world say that they had previously been too focused on the bottom of the funnel and it hurt their brand in the long run. And they are now readjusting their strategy to include a renewed focus on branding and awareness, more activations to really gather those net new customers. Right. It seems simple but you've really got to continue filling the top of the funnel. So I think finding that balance is so important for even the most successful brands in the world. And it's really about testing and learning, which means measuring the full funnel, beginning with ad exposure and then throughout the customer journey.
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Yeah, great, well put. And it wouldn't be a summit, an E marketer summit without the magic word AI. It wouldn't be anything in marketing these days without the magic word AI. AI is influencing everything from creative testing to measurement to optimization. Where are you seeing the most practical and promising uses of AI? We'll throw this to Shruti first and then Ben if you want to jump in.
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Yeah, I think we are still scratching the surface with AI. We are still learning a lot before we can actually be decisive of like we know exactly what we are doing. Truly we are still experimenting a lot. But I think the one area, or rather two areas that I really, really want to lean in is one is creative. We know TV creative is not cheap for anyone. So how do we actually use AI smartly to get variations to hit on different points? And Ben has been alluding to a lot of those points in his conversation. Whether it's storytelling, whether it's brand storytelling, whether it's customer storytelling, different points of the funnel, so on and so forth, and there's so many variations that you can try but you don't have the money for it. So I think that's where AI can really, really, really help. One thing to definitely keep in mind is intellectual property as you do do that. But I, I absolutely feel that there is room for us to test into creative when it comes to AI and not burn through your bank while doing that. For ctv, that is one. And then data like how do we really use AI intelligence to get. Then you have first party data to integrate. How do you use all of that in conjunction with an AI solution that can help you really sift through the data faster, better and give you answers in a more real time manner to optimize as you go through your plan? I do think leaning into these two areas, has anyone figured it out fully? Not yet, but I think it's like there are baby steps that you can take especially with leaning into creative first.
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Ben, what about you?
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Yeah, I agree that we're still just scratching the surface. There's still a lot we don't know, right? It's going to be really exciting to see what happens in the next year to five years. But there's still a lot of interesting work being done right now in AI. And if I had to pick one to talk about today, I think it's computer vision. And this has actually been a field of AI that has been around for over a decade. And computer vision, if you're not familiar with it, is a technology that has been built to train computers to interpret and understand image information from images and videos. So I mentioned, well, this is a decade old, right? So some of the earliest use cases of computer vision was to take tangible documents, right? Let's say a W2 or medical history that was written on physical paper and it would be scanned and then digitized by Google so that data within those papers could be digital and then be accessed and utilized. Right? So really helping the medical fields, that's been a really big area for growth. But it's also being used in advertise, right? Detecting what is on the screen. So we see innovative companies like Relometrics, Iris TV and T Vision using this technology to determine things like what apps are being accessed and viewed at the glass level, what emotions are our characters showing in a particular scene, what brands or products are being are showing up, and even what logo inside a stadium is on screen during an exciting moment like a home run or a daring overtake in an F1 race. All of this can be used to tie viewing data to attention metrics, to better understanding the value of a brand placement, let's say even on the sleeve of an athlete, or to creating harmonious contextual alignment between content and advertisement and then measuring how audiences are responding. So again, it's truly an exciting time in TV advertising.
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Yeah, what a great way to tee up. This last question, we only have a few minutes left, so kind of quickly, what do you think? And I'm going to ask each of you is kind of the one innovation or emerging capability that you think is going to have the biggest impact next year? Let's start with Shruti.
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I think the bigger innovation, I feel like I'd love to just figure out how do we do cross publisher identity and frequency deduplication through clean rooms and make it accessible for everyone. I think right now you have few partners who do that. You have to work with those few partners to get that capability. How do you really, really get it more accessible is something that I'm looking for as a marketer which can provide you a real incremental reach, reporting consistent attribution across these, some of the walled garden partners. So I do think that that is really the key for our measurement, if we can make that happen.
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Hoping. Here's hoping. Ben, what about you?
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Yeah, I mean, as someone who loves measurement, I, I really love Shruti's answer. But you know, it's a tough one because there's truly a lot of interesting innovations happening in ctv, but if I had to just pick one today, I would have to go with the innovative ad formats. I just think that's such an interesting and exciting space. Right. Split screen ads, shoppable and interactive formats, pause ads and QR codes, those being introduced and interesting and in new ways. And research is showing that these innovative ad formats are creating powerful moments for brands and for audiences. So I'm excited to hear more success stories from brands, maybe some, some learnings as well. What's working, what's not working and ultimately, you know, how can we help brands to leverage the power of emotionally engaging premium video with contextually relevant and engaging creatives really just helping succeed their goals.
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Those are great answers. And I am also very excited to see those two things happen in 2026. That's all the time we have for today. Shruti and Ben, thank you so much for this great discussion. Really, really great. Fascinating, good answers. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it.
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Yeah.
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Thank you for having us. It was really, really fun to have a conversation.
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Thank you so much.