CTV ads in 2026: what's new and how much they cost
CTV ads — video ads delivered through an internet-connected TV app or device — are absorbing budget faster than almost any other channel in 2026. eMarketer's December 2025 forecast puts US CTV ad spend at $37.95 billion this year, a 14.5% jump that pushes CTV's upfront commitments past primetime linear TV's for the first time. The bigger shift for a 2026 buyer isn't the growth number itself — it's that shoppable formats, pause ads, and a wave of platform consolidation are changing what a competitive CTV buy actually looks like.
- eMarketer's December 2025 forecast puts US CTV ad spend at $37.95 billion in 2026, up 14.5% year-over-year, with CTV upfront commitments ($17.73B) exceeding primetime linear TV upfronts ($16.98B) for the first time.
- IAB's July 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report puts CTV ad spend growth at 11% for the year — still outpacing the roughly 9.5% growth IAB projects for total US ad spend.
- Marketing Brew's reporting on that same IAB and Guideline research found 43% of ad buyers call interactive capabilities crucial late in the buying journey, even as 35% cite a "limited scale of shoppable formats" as a real constraint.
- TV Technology's June 2026 report on Wunderkind Ads' measurement benchmarks found programmatic CTV pause ads deliver a 69% increase in viewer attention over standard 60-second spots, drawn from TVision data across millions of impressions.
- Applying IAB's 11% growth rate to a $120,000 2025 CTV budget works out to roughly $133,200 needed in 2026 just to hold pace with the category — see the worked example below.
What are CTV ads, and how do they work?
A connected TV ad is a video ad delivered to a television through an internet-connected app or device rather than a cable or satellite signal — and it's how a growing share of TV viewing gets monetized in 2026. An impression can run inside a streaming service like Hulu or Peacock, a smart TV's own built-in operating system, or a plug-in device like a Roku or Fire TV Stick, and it's typically bought the same way as web and app inventory: through programmatic real-time auctions rather than a manually negotiated insertion order.
That programmatic foundation is what separates a CTV buy from a traditional broadcast spot. A programmatic advertising platform can target a household, a streaming profile, or a defined audience segment instead of an entire market, and it reports back impressions, completion rate, and — on the more advanced platforms — attributed site visits, the same measurement stack a search or social campaign already produces.
How big is CTV ad spend getting in 2026?
US CTV ad spend will reach $37.95 billion in 2026, a 14.5% increase, according to eMarketer's December 2025 forecast — the first year CTV upfront commitments ($17.73 billion) have exceeded primetime linear TV's own upfront total ($16.98 billion). For a channel that barely existed as a line item a decade ago, that's not incremental growth; it's a budget crossing a line advertisers used to treat as a given for broadcast.
The IAB's July 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report puts the year's CTV growth at a more conservative 11% — still comfortably ahead of the roughly 9.5% growth IAB projects for total US ad spend. The two forecasts land on different numbers because they measure different things, but they agree on direction: CTV keeps taking share from linear at a pace that's no longer safe to treat as optional in a media plan.
What's actually new in CTV this year?
The headline shift in 2026 is the push toward interactive and shoppable ad formats — ads a viewer can act on without reaching for a second device. Marketing Brew's reporting on IAB and Guideline's July 2026 research found 43% of ad buyers now call interactive capabilities crucial late in the customer journey, a meaningful jump from a format that was mostly experimental two years ago.
Adoption still has real friction, though. The same research found 35% of buyers cite a "limited scale of shoppable formats" as an active constraint, and 38% point to the fact that many shoppable units still require a second device to complete the purchase — undercutting the one-screen convenience the format is supposed to deliver. A 2026 plan that assumes shoppable inventory is available at scale on any budget is planning around a format that's still filling in.
Do pause ads and other new formats really outperform standard spots?
Yes, measurably. Pause ads — creative that appears when a viewer pauses a stream, rather than interrupting playback — deliver a 69% increase in viewer attention over standard 60-second CTV spots, according to a June 2026 TV Technology report on measurement benchmarks from Wunderkind Ads, built on TVision attention data across millions of programmatic CTV impressions.
The lift held across every vertical the study measured, with the largest gains in categories that lean on visual detail: automotive attention rose 180% over a standard spot, technology 160%, and restaurants 152%. That's a strong argument for adding pause-ad inventory to a plan — not for replacing standard pre-roll with it, since pause ads only reach viewers who actively pause, a narrower and different audience than a full episode's worth of mid-roll impressions.
How is platform consolidation changing where CTV budgets go?
It's getting easier to buy premium inventory in one deal instead of many, and that's quietly concentrating where dollars go. Disney will fully fold Hulu into Disney+ as a single unified app in 2026, CEO Robert Iger announced on the company's August 2025 earnings call — and Disney's ad sales team, already selling Hulu and Disney+ inventory together, gets a single technology platform behind both once the apps merge.
For a mid-market buyer, the practical effect is fewer, larger platform relationships absorbing budget that used to spread across smaller, separately negotiated buys. A media plan that still lines up "Hulu" and "Disney+" as two distinct budget rows is planning around a distinction that's disappearing from the inventory itself, even if both brands stay visible to viewers.
What should a mid-market advertiser actually budget for CTV in 2026?
Here's an illustrative model, not a forecast for any specific company. Say a regional B2B or home services brand spent $120,000 on CTV in 2025. Applying the IAB's 11% projected 2026 growth rate to that same spend — the rate the category as a whole is growing, not a mandate for any one advertiser — works out to roughly $133,200 needed in 2026 just to hold the same relative share of a fast-growing channel ($120,000 × 1.11 = $133,200).
That extra $13,200 is worth having in the room before a budget gets frozen flat year-over-year by default. It's also worth directing some of it deliberately: putting even 10% of that incremental spend, about $1,320, toward pause-ad inventory tests the format's attention lift on a small enough slice of budget that a disappointing result doesn't sink the rest of the plan — the same test-small-first logic that applies when splitting budget between LinkedIn and Google for a B2B channel mix.
FAQ: connected TV advertising in 2026
What is the difference between OTT and CTV ads?
OTT, or over-the-top, describes any video delivered over the internet outside a cable subscription, including mobile and desktop streaming. CTV is a narrower category within OTT: video watched specifically on a television screen through a connected device or smart TV app. Every CTV ad is OTT, but not every OTT ad reaches a TV screen.
What are some examples of CTV advertising?
Pre-roll and mid-roll video spots on ad-supported tiers of services like Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount+; placements alongside live sports streams; and newer interactive formats such as pause ads and shoppable overlays that let a viewer act on an ad without picking up a second device.
Why does CTV have so many ads compared to cable?
Most ad-supported streaming tiers were priced to undercut cable subscriptions, so platforms sell more inventory per viewing hour to make up the difference. Frequency-capping and sequencing tools are improving in 2026, but a viewer watching one show in a single sitting can still see the same handful of spots repeat.
Is CTV advertising worth it for a smaller, regional budget?
Yes, if the buy is targeted rather than broad. CTV's programmatic targeting lets a regional advertiser reach a defined household segment without paying for an entire market's broadcast reach. It's a weak fit only for a budget too small to hit meaningful frequency on its own.
Does a small business need its own ad-tech relationships to run connected TV campaigns?
No. Advertisers can access CTV inventory on their own through a self-serve demand-side platform, including newly unified pools like Disney's combined Hulu and Disney+ sales. But navigating the platforms and building an audience targeting strategy without the right experience typically leads to sub-optimal results and wasted spend: formats and audiences that don't justify the cost, and creative repurposed from other channels instead of built to work in a pause ad or shoppable overlay. That's the work an experienced media buying partner earns its fee on, above and beyond whatever platform cost the DSP itself charges.
Put this to work.
Treat IAB's 11% CTV growth rate as a floor when setting next year's budget, not a rounding error — a flat renewal is a real cut in relative reach. Test pause-ad inventory on a small, defined slice of spend before committing a larger share to it, since the attention lift is real but the format still reaches a narrower audience than standard pre-roll. Confirm which platforms a current buy actually spans before the Disney-Hulu merger completes, since inventory that used to sit in two separate deals may already be sold as one. And before adding a new format, revisit how programmatic buying works underneath all of it — the targeting logic is what makes any of these tactics worth the extra line item.
Performance advertising for B2B and niche B2C brands — turning paid media into a predictable revenue channel.
Follow Refinex Media on LinkedIn.
- eMarketer — Measurement Maturity, Curation's Center Stage, and AI Optimization: CTV Trends for 2026, January 9, 2026.
- IAB — 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report, July 14, 2026.
- Marketing Brew — 2 in 5 Ad Buyers Say CTV Is Limited by a Lack of Interactive Capabilities, reporting on IAB and Guideline research, July 2026.
- TV Technology — Study: Programmatic CTV Pause Ads More Effective Than Traditional Spots, June 18, 2026.
- AdExchanger — Disney Will Unify Hulu and Disney+ Into A Single App Next Year, August 6, 2025.
Put this to work.
Thirty minutes. We look at your spend and tell you where the return is hiding — you keep the findings either way.
Book a strategy call