Buying OTT (over-the-top) advertising means placing video ads on streaming services and connected TV apps, reaching viewers who watch content through the internet rather than traditional cable. The process has become far more accessible in recent years, with self-service platforms letting businesses of nearly any size launch campaigns without calling a sales rep or signing a long-term contract. Here’s how the buying process works from start to finish.
What OTT Advertising Actually Is
OTT refers to any video content delivered over the internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite providers. When you watch a show on a streaming app through a Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, smart TV, or even a phone, that’s OTT. Advertising within that experience, typically unskippable video ads that play before or during content, is OTT advertising.
You’ll often see “CTV” (connected TV) used interchangeably with OTT. Technically, CTV refers specifically to ads shown on a television screen via a streaming device or smart TV, while OTT includes any screen. In practice, most platforms bundle both under the same buying tools, so the distinction rarely matters when you’re setting up a campaign.
Choose a Buying Method
There are three main ways to purchase OTT ad inventory, and the right one depends on your budget and how much control you want.
- Self-service platforms: Several streaming services now offer direct ad-buying dashboards where you set your own budget, choose targeting, upload your creative, and launch. Paramount Ads Manager, Roku Ads Manager, and Amazon Ads are examples. These work well for small and mid-sized businesses because there’s no minimum spend in the tens of thousands, and you control every detail yourself.
- Demand-side platforms (DSPs): A DSP is software that lets you buy ad inventory across multiple streaming services from one interface through programmatic auctions. Platforms like The Trade Desk, MNTN, and Google’s DV360 fall into this category. DSPs give you broader reach and more sophisticated optimization tools, but some require a minimum monthly spend or charge platform fees.
- Managed service or agency: If you’d rather hand off the complexity, agencies and ad sales teams at major streaming networks will plan, execute, and optimize campaigns for you. This route typically requires larger budgets (often $25,000 or more to start) and involves negotiated rates rather than self-service pricing.
For a first campaign, a self-service platform is the lowest-risk entry point. You can test messaging, learn what targeting works, and scale up once you see results.
Set Your Budget and Understand Pricing
OTT advertising is priced on a CPM basis, meaning cost per thousand impressions. One impression equals your ad being shown once on one screen. Industry benchmarks for entry-level CTV campaigns typically fall between $25 and $65 CPM, though some platforms price significantly lower. Paramount Ads Manager, for instance, advertises campaigns starting at $7 CPM.
To put those numbers in practical terms: at a $35 CPM, a $1,000 budget would deliver roughly 28,500 ad views. At $7 CPM on a lower-cost platform, that same $1,000 stretches to about 143,000 impressions. Your actual CPM will depend on how narrow your targeting is (more specific audiences cost more), what content your ads run alongside, and the time of year. Q4 holiday season drives CPMs higher across all ad formats.
Many self-service platforms have no formal minimum budget requirement, letting you start with a few hundred dollars. That said, spending too little can mean your campaign doesn’t generate enough data for the platform’s algorithms to optimize delivery. A practical starting point for a test campaign is $1,000 to $5,000 over two to four weeks.
Define Your Target Audience
One of the biggest advantages OTT has over traditional TV is precise targeting. Instead of buying a time slot and hoping your audience is watching, you select exactly who sees your ad. Most platforms offer several layers of targeting you can combine.
- Demographics: Filter by age, gender, household income, education level, and similar attributes.
- Geographic targeting: Narrow your reach to a specific metro area, zip code radius, or expand to an entire region. This is especially useful for local businesses that don’t need national reach.
- Behavioral targeting: Reach viewers based on their recent online activity, like websites visited, products searched for, or apps used.
- Interest-based targeting: Select audience segments by hobbies, entertainment preferences, or lifestyle categories.
- First-party data: Upload your own customer email lists or CRM data to target existing customers or build lookalike audiences of people who resemble them.
- Retargeting: Show ads to people who have already visited your website or interacted with your brand but haven’t converted.
- Cross-device targeting: Follow your audience across their phone, tablet, laptop, and TV so your message stays consistent regardless of which screen they’re using.
Start with two or three targeting layers rather than stacking every option at once. Over-targeting shrinks your available audience and can drive CPMs up significantly. You can always narrow further once you see which segments perform best.
Create Your Video Ad
OTT ads are full-screen video, so production quality matters more than it does for social media ads. Viewers are watching on large TV screens in many cases, and a grainy or poorly lit ad will stand out for the wrong reasons. That said, you don’t need a massive production budget. A well-shot ad with clear audio, good lighting, and a strong message will perform.
Ad Length
The most common ad durations are 15 seconds and 30 seconds. Fifteen-second spots work well for simple brand awareness or a single clear call to action. Thirty-second spots give you room to tell a short story or explain a product. Six-second bumper ads exist for quick brand reminders, and some platforms accept 60-second spots, though those run less frequently and usually only in extended ad breaks.
Technical Specs
According to IAB Tech Lab guidelines, which most platforms follow, your video file should be MP4 format using the H.264 codec. The preferred aspect ratio is 16:9 (standard widescreen), which fills the entire TV screen without black bars. Some platforms still accept 4:3, but 16:9 is the standard you should produce for. Aim for high-definition resolution (1920×1080) and keep your file size within whatever limit the platform specifies, typically under 1 GB for a 30-second spot.
Each platform publishes its own spec sheet, so check the requirements before uploading. Most are minor variations of these IAB standards.
Launch and Monitor Your Campaign
Once your targeting is set and creative is uploaded, you’ll choose your campaign dates, daily or total budget cap, and frequency settings. Frequency capping limits how many times the same viewer sees your ad within a set period, preventing the kind of ad fatigue that turns potential customers off. A common starting point is three to five impressions per viewer per week.
After launch, most platforms provide a reporting dashboard where you can track impressions, completion rate (what percentage of viewers watched your entire ad), and cost metrics in real time. Completion rates on OTT tend to be high, often above 90%, because most ads are non-skippable.
Measure What Actually Matters
Impressions and completion rates tell you your ad was seen, but they don’t tell you if it drove business results. The measurement challenge with OTT is that viewers typically can’t click your ad the way they would on a phone or laptop. Someone watching on their TV might see your ad, then pick up their phone and search for your brand 20 minutes later. Connecting that chain requires attribution tools.
Several approaches help bridge the gap. Visit attribution tracks whether someone who was served your OTT ad later visited your website, even on a different device, by matching household IP addresses or device graphs. Some platforms offer built-in attribution, like MNTN’s Verified Visits tool, which connects ad exposure to website visits and conversions. You can also measure lift by running a brand awareness survey, comparing search volume for your brand name before and during the campaign, or tracking promo code redemptions if your ad includes a unique offer code.
Set up your measurement approach before launching. If your goal is website traffic, make sure tracking pixels are installed on your site. If your goal is store visits, work with a platform that supports foot traffic attribution. Deciding what success looks like after the campaign ends makes it much harder to prove results.
Scale What Works
After your initial test run, review performance by audience segment, creative version, and platform. Double your budget on the combinations that drove the best cost-per-visit or cost-per-conversion, and pause underperformers. Test new creative variations against your winners to keep improving over time.
As you grow, consider expanding to additional platforms or using a DSP to reach audiences across multiple streaming services simultaneously. Each platform has a slightly different viewer base, so diversifying your spend often uncovers new pockets of high-performing audience you wouldn’t reach on a single service alone.