12 Benefits of CTV Advertising: Key Advantages for Businesses

If you're like most marketers, your digital strategy most likely leans hard on a few familiar channels—social, search, maybe some display. And for good reason: they’re fast, measurable, and familiar.

But as audiences splinter across devices and platforms, even the strongest campaigns can miss people who aren’t scrolling when you need them to be.

That’s one of the ways Connected TV (CTV) can help fill the gaps between reach, attention, and long-term impact—offering a premium, brand-safe environment where your message lands on the biggest screen in the house.

In this guide, we’ll break down 12 of the biggest benefits CTV brings to the table—and how adding it to your mix can help you reach new audiences, build credibility, and get more out of every campaign.

Why CTV Advertising is Gaining Momentum

CTV has emerged as a go-to experimental channel, particularly for brands trying to reach audiences they’re missing elsewhere. As more households cut the cord and shift to on-demand, ad-supported streaming, CTV gives advertisers a way to show up on the biggest screen in the house—without the high price tag (or associated guesswork) of traditional broadcast channels.

And it’s about more than just reach alone: CTV is uniquely suited for today’s fragmented media habits. People aren’t gathering around one prime-time show anymore—they’re watching sports on one app, prestige dramas on another, and comfort TV on free streaming platforms. CTV advertising lets you follow that behavior, aligning your message with the content your audience actually chooses to engage with.

So—why does this matter for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs)? Because CTV offers a way to meet people where they are without overhauling your entire strategy. It easily fills in the attention gaps—especially for demographics that aren’t easily reached through social or linear TV—and sets the stage for stronger performance across every other channel you’re already using.

Top 12 Benefits of CTV Advertising for SMBs

Let’s take a look at 12 specific ways CTV advertising can support your broader marketing goals and help you reach the right audience more effectively.

1. Reach Audiences Unavailable on Social or Linear TV

Some audiences just don’t show up where you expect them to anymore. Between cord-cutters who’ve ditched traditional TV and streaming-first viewers who rarely engage with social ads, it's easy to miss valuable segments without realizing it.

CTV helps close that gap. It gives you access to households that aren’t watching cable, aren’t on Facebook every day, and aren’t easily reachable through display or YouTube. That means incremental reach—not just more impressions, but new impressions that other channels can’t reliably deliver.

According to recent Connected TV viewership trends, more than 9 in 10 U.S. households now stream TV content, and nearly 60% of those viewers prefer ad-supported services. For SMBs, that’s a real opportunity: a wide, attentive audience that’s often skipped over by traditional digital targeting.

2. Audience and Local Targeting Capabilities

One of CTV’s biggest strengths is its ability to serve ads based on geography, even to a ZIP code level of scale. That’s a game-changer for local businesses, franchises, or regional campaigns—especially when you’re testing new markets or want to stay focused on high-intent areas.

It’s important to keep in mind, though, that going too narrow can backfire. Over-targeting often leads to underdelivery, inflated costs, and other kinds of missed opportunities. Instead, the best practice is to start broader and use audience expansion to find the right balance between precision and scale.

With CTV, you don’t need to choose between reach and relevance—you can build campaigns that speak to specific regions without boxing yourself in. Our guide on optimizing your CTV targeting breaks it down in more detail, but the takeaway is simple: start smart, expand strategically.

3. Premium, Brand-Safe Content Environments

Not all ad placements are created equal. With CTV, your ads appear alongside professionally produced shows and films—not questionable or problematic content.

And that matters more than it might seem at first glance. Ensuring your message shows up in the right context—next to content that builds trust, not undermines it—is an important part of maintaining brand safety. When viewers associate your brand with premium, trusted programming, they’re more likely to see it as credible and established.

It’s why advertisers continue to prioritize premium video (89%), ad fraud prevention (84%), and brand safety (83%) when planning campaigns. And unlike social platforms—where you can’t always predict what your ad might follow—CTV placements happen in curated environments that safeguard your message.

For businesses trying to grow awareness without compromising reputation, that level of control makes a difference.

4. Higher Attention and Completion Rates

CTV ads don’t just run—they get watched.

With completion rates reaching as high as 96% (Paramount Internal, U.S., 2024),* *these spots are delivered in full, often on a large screen in a setting where viewers are actually paying attention.

That detail can make all the difference to your campaign’s success: when a viewer is tuned into their favorite show and your ad comes on—full screen, unskippable—it has a better shot at landing. Unlike social or display ads, which often fight for attention amid multitasking and scrolling, CTV delivers fewer distractions while delivering even greater retention.

The result? More valuable impressions. One CTV ad often means one engaged household—not just a thumb-stopped scroll. And when your ad actually gets seen from start to finish, it creates space for your brand to stick.

5. Measurable Performance and Attribution

One of the biggest historical knocks against TV ads was that they were hard to measure. CTV changes that, at least in part, by offering clearer performance metrics that align more closely with what marketers expect from digital channels.

Related: A Beginner's Guide to CTV Advertising Measurement

With CTV, you can track impressions, reach, completion rate (CR), cost per second (CPV) viewed, and even outcomes like site visits, in-person visits, and leads. While attribution isn’t always perfect—especially for small teams without enterprise-level tools—CTV does offer more visibility than traditional TV.

It also plays well with your existing retargeting strategy. For example, you can use CTV to reach past site visitors or CRM audiences, then follow up with display or social ads. It’s a useful way to reinforce messaging and stay top-of-mind across multiple touchpoints.

Some advanced advertisers even combine CTV data with results from other channels to better understand how each part of the funnel contributes to conversions. It’s not always simple, but the potential for a more holistic view is there—and growing.

6. Seamless Cross-Channel Campaigns and Retargeting

CTV doesn’t operate in a silo—it works best as part of a bigger picture.

Many advertisers use it to retarget site visitors or CRM audiences, then follow up with more personalized messaging across social or display. That kind of cross-channel coordination helps reinforce your message and keep your brand top-of-mind, even after the first impression fades.

It’s also a smart way to diversify. If you’re relying heavily on one platform—say, Facebook—you’re limited by who uses it. CTV gives you a way to reach lookalike audiences who don’t use social media at all, expanding your reach without reinventing your entire strategy.

Perhaps most importantly, CTV fills a gap that social and search often miss: the top-to-mid funnel. When someone sees your brand on the big screen, they’re more likely to recognize it when they come across it later in a feed or a search result. That initial exposure makes your follow-up campaigns more effective, without needing to change your creative every time.

7. Lower Minimums and Accessible for Lower Order Values

CTV isn’t just for national brands with six-figure budgets anymore. Many platforms now offer low daily minimums, flexible spend options, and self-serve tools that make it easy for small businesses to get started—no agency required.

That shift has made CTV far more accessible to SMBs, especially local or regional businesses that wouldn’t have considered traditional TV buys in the past. You can run effective campaigns at entry-level budgets, test new markets, and track performance in real time through easy-to-use dashboards.

The best move here is to start small, monitor engagement on an ongoing basis, and scale which solutions work. You won’t need a massive budget to get meaningful results.

8. Reduced Ad Waste and Better ROI

CTV gives you more control over where your ads run and who sees them.

Instead of targeting by platform or app, you can segment by content type or genre, positioning your messaging within shows that your most productive customers already watch.

And that kind of targeting efficiency can pay off big. One study found that advertisers saw a 30% higher ROI on campaigns where just 7% of spend went to CTV. When you’re only paying to reach the people who are most likely to care, those returns can quickly add up.

And it’s not just about performance—it’s about flexibility. Many CTV platforms allow for smaller spends, real-time optimizations, and even refunds for unused impressions. For smaller businesses used to all-or-nothing digital ad buys, that can be a refreshing shift.

9. Interactive Ad Formats and Shoppable Ads

CTV ads aren’t just passive anymore. Many platforms now support interactive features—like displaying a website URL or on-screen QR code—so viewers can take action without ever leaving the couch.

To get the most from these formats, clarity is key. A best practice is to display your CTA on screen, say it out loud in the ad, and make it easy to act—whether that means scanning a code, visiting a URL, or following up later.

It’s a simple but powerful way to bridge the gap between attention and action—turning CTV from a branding play into a measurable part of your funnel.

And, it’s worth noting that roughly 30% of viewers say they’ve scanned a QR code while watching a show or commercial. Not bad at all.

10. Complementary to Social—Omnichannel Synergy

CTV doesn’t compete with social—it elevates it. By running big-screen campaigns that build brand awareness, you prime audiences for more effective engagement when they later encounter your message in a feed or search result.

Start with a 30-second CTV ad that introduces your brand in a high-attention environment, then follow up with to-the-point social content that drives clicks, signups, or conversions. You can even adapt your best-performing social creatives into CTV spots to extend their reach and reinforce your messaging.

11. Creative Flexibility and Storytelling Power

One of the biggest misconceptions about TV ads is that they require big budgets, complex production, and a creative team or agency. While that may have been true 20 years ago, today’s CTV platforms have changed the playing field entirely.

Many offer built-in creative tools—including AI-powered ad builders—that help you craft a professional-looking spot without hiring a studio or agency. That means fewer barriers, less back-and-forth, and more control over your message.

And once your ad is live, the format does a lot of the heavy lifting. Full-screen, 4K, non-skippable placements give you the space to tell a richer story—whether it’s part of a sequential campaign or a one-off brand moment. Combined with retargeting, CTV also gives you room to experiment with how—and when—your message shows up.

12. Future-Proofed, Privacy-First Targeting

As privacy regulations evolve and cookie-based tracking becomes less reliable, advertisers are under pressure to find new ways to reach the right people—without crossing any lines. But CTV has some baked-in, simple solutions.

Rather than relying on third-party cookies or individual-level tracking, CTV uses privacy-compliant methods such as IP matching, CRM uploads, and device graphs to target households based on real engagement signals. It can be a particularly effective way to reconnect with viewers, without compromising their data.

Because ads are delivered at the household level—and not to individual users—CTV naturally aligns with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). And thanks to cross-device identity matching, brands can retarget viewers across platforms while maintaining a high standard of compliance.

Embrace CTV for Growth

• Alternative headlines:
  • Elevate Your Marketing with CTV Advertising
  • Maximize Your Reach with CTV Advertising

CTV advertising gives small and mid-sized businesses a real shot at showing up where it counts: on the biggest screen in the house.

With platforms like Paramount Ads Manager, launching a campaign is easier than ever, thanks to easy-to-use self-serve tools, fast setup, and built-in AI ad creation that can help craft your ad.

If you’re new to CTV, start focused. Run a smaller campaign, lean on geo-targeting to reach the right viewers, adapt your creative for the TV experience, and track results closely.

But remember: the real value lies in how you connect the dots. CTV works best alongside your existing channels—amplifying your social, display, and search efforts, instead of competing with them.

For growing businesses navigating rising costs, shrinking reach, and privacy headwinds, CTV isn’t just a smart move—it’s a performance channel built for the next era of digital advertising.