CTV Planning vs OLV

I have been thinking about CTV & OLV buying (shocker, I know) and how folks view it versus how we buy it. And it reminds me of when we switched to digital and just carried over the CPM based buys of traditional. Like that, most people are buying CTV like it’s fancy OLV, which is not the correct way to do it. OLV is far more transactional with short burst of attention and skippable formats that are more rooted in performance. It’s a bit of a volume game with wide targeting, fast feedback and lower cost.

CTV, on the other hand, is much more premium. People are picking the content they are going to spend a decent amount of time watching. It’s usually on the biggest screen in the house so creative should be produced as high quality to tell a story. The inventory is more curated, more expensive, and more controlled by the publisher which ultimately yields a more engaged user. That means buyers need to be smarter: deal-driven, audience-led, and measurement-savvy.

If you plan CTV like OLV, you may end up optimizing for the wrong outcomes and be wasting a prime opportunity yo connect in a premium environment. CTV isn’t just about completion rates or impressions. It’s about brand impact, reach, attention and most importantly filling the funnel.