Programmatic & Connected TV
Programmatic & Connected TV: Building Brand at Scale
Programmatic display and Connected TV (CTV) advertising provide brand-building opportunities that complement direct-response marketplace advertising. While Sponsored Products and Google Ads capture existing demand, programmatic and CTV create demand through awareness and consideration-stage storytelling. For marketplace sellers ready to scale beyond $10M+ annual revenue, these upper-funnel channels become essential for sustainable growth.
CTV in particular has emerged as a powerful channel for ecommerce brands. Ads on platforms like Hulu, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV reach cord-cutters in high-quality viewing environments with strong completion rates. Unlike traditional TV, CTV offers sophisticated targeting based on shopping behavior, category interest, and demographic attributes - you can reach recent supplement purchasers, frequent Amazon shoppers, or competitor brand loyalists.
Our programmatic and CTV strategies emphasize measurable brand building. We don't just measure impressions and reach - we track incremental sales lift using AMC, branded search increase following campaigns, new-to-brand customer acquisition rates, and long-term impact on organic search rankings. This performance-oriented approach to brand advertising ensures upper-funnel spend drives measurable business outcomes.
Programmatic & CTV Services
FAQ
Amazon DSP is worth it when you’ve saturated Sponsored Ads keyword coverage and need to reach non-search audiences, when you want to retarget shoppers who viewed your listing but didn’t buy, or when you’re defending against a specific competitor with conquest campaigns. It’s rarely a fit for brands under $2M in Amazon revenue because the measurement infrastructure and minimum spend don’t pay back. DSP is additive to Sponsored Ads, not a replacement.
Sponsored TV (Amazon's CTV ad inventory) makes sense when (a) your brand is at a stage where awareness scaling matters more than direct response. Typically $20M+ marketplace revenue, (b) you have premium-quality video creative that holds attention on a larger screen, (c) measurement infrastructure exists to attribute the halo effect. Below those thresholds, DSP's display inventory typically delivers more measurable lift per dollar. Sponsored TV pricing is roughly 2–3x DSP CPMs but reaches a different audience moment.
CTV measurement uses three approaches: (1) attribution windows (typically 7–14 day view-through) credited via household-level identity graphs from CTV platforms; (2) geographic holdout testing. Pause CTV in 20% of metros and measure sales delta versus served markets; (3) MMM (media mix modeling) for brands at $50K+/month CTV spend. Click-through is roughly 0.5% of any CTV impression set. Measurement is about household lift, not action. Brands that expect CTV to drive direct clicks are using the channel wrong.
CTV (Connected TV) advertising places video ads on streaming services like Roku, Hulu, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Amazon Fire TV. Measurable at the household level and bought programmatically rather than through upfronts. CTV makes sense for brands with $15K+/month in incremental ad budget that already have polished video creative and cross-channel brand recognition. It rarely makes sense as a first ad channel: brands without retargeting infrastructure or measurement coverage can’t connect CTV view-throughs to revenue, and the channel ends up as expensive brand awareness.
Programmatic display ads run on the open web via DSPs like The Trade Desk or Google DV360, accessing the entire ad-supported internet outside walled gardens. Amazon DSP is a walled-garden DSP. It serves ads programmatically but only on Amazon-owned properties (Amazon.com, IMDb, Fire TV) plus third-party inventory Amazon resells. The differences that matter: Amazon DSP uses Amazon shopper signals (purchase history, browse) that no other DSP has access to. The Trade Desk and DV360 reach broader inventory but don’t see Amazon purchase intent. Most brands at $50K+/month DSP spend run both for cross-coverage.
