If you’ve been running broadcast TV ads, you’ve probably noticed something: it’s getting harder to reach people. That’s because your audience has moved. They’re streaming.
CTV advertising lets you follow them there, with better targeting, better measurement, and ads that actually get watched.
What CTV Advertising Actually Means
CTV stands for Connected TV. It refers to any television connected to the internet: smart TVs, streaming devices like Roku and Fire TV, Apple TV, gaming consoles, even set-top boxes.
CTV advertising is video advertising delivered within that environment. When someone watches Hulu on their living room TV and sees your commercial, that’s a CTV impression.
The key distinction: CTV specifically means the television screen. It’s the big screen in the living room, not someone scrolling on their phone.
How CTV Ad Delivery Works
CTV ads are delivered through streaming content. The shows and movies people watch on services like Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, Pluto TV, and the Roku Channel.
Here’s the technical version: Ads are inserted via ad servers and supply-side platforms (SSPs) into streaming inventory. Most platforms use server-side ad insertion (SSAI), which stitches the ad directly into the content stream. This reduces buffering and makes ads nearly impossible to block.
Here’s what that means for you: Your ad shows up during the content people are actively watching. It’s full-screen. It’s non-skippable. And the platform knows exactly which household saw it.
The CTV Device Landscape
Not all CTV is created equal. Here’s how households are watching:
Smart TVs lead the market with 79% penetration in US TV households. Samsung, LG, Vizio, and others have built streaming directly into the television.
Streaming devices. Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, are the second major access point. Roku alone has tens of millions of active accounts in the US.
Gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox also function as CTV devices, particularly for younger demographics.
The practical implication: When you buy CTV advertising, you’re reaching people across all of these devices, typically through a single campaign.
CTV vs Broadcast TV: The Real Differences
If you’re used to buying broadcast or cable TV, CTV works differently in ways that matter.
Targeting: Broadcast TV targets demographics, adults 25-54, for example. CTV targets households. You can reach people based on behaviors, interests, geography down to the zip code level, and even first-party data from your own CRM.
Completion rates: Broadcast viewers flip channels during commercials. CTV ads are typically non-skippable and full-screen, with completion rates between 90-98%. A 15-second CTV ad sees about 94.5% completion. Compare that to YouTube’s 20-40%.
Measurement: Broadcast gives you Nielsen ratings and reach estimates. CTV gives you impression-level logs. You know exactly how many households saw your ad, how many times, and you can track what happened next (site visits, phone calls).
Cost structure: Broadcast CPMs often run $10-25, but you’re paying for broad reach with significant waste. CTV CPMs run $20-40 for programmatic, $40-60+ for premium inventory, but with far more precision.
Why CTV Matters for Law Firms
Here’s the number that matters: As of May 2025, streaming accounts for 44.8% of all TV viewing in the United States. Broadcast and cable combined? 44.2%. Streaming has officially surpassed linear television.
This isn’t a future trend. It’s already happened.
For personal injury law firms, this creates both a problem and an opportunity. The problem: If you’re only buying broadcast, you’re missing nearly half your potential audience. The opportunity: CTV lets you reach households with precision that broadcast can’t match.
Consider what you can do with CTV targeting:
- Focus on specific zip codes within your service area
- Reach households with demographic profiles that match your ideal client
- Target based on behaviors and interests
- Retarget people who visited your website
- Even reach households that watched specific content or competitor ads
That last one uses ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data from smart TVs. If someone in your market watched a competitor’s broadcast commercial, you can serve them your CTV ad.
What CTV Advertising Costs
Let’s talk real numbers.
CPM ranges: Programmatic CTV typically runs $20-40 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Premium inventory, Hulu, top networks, private marketplace deals, can run $40-60 or higher.
Competitive budgets: Serious PI firms invest $15,000-50,000+ per month to achieve meaningful reach and frequency in a single DMA. Premium publisher-direct deals may require $75,000+ commitments.
Compared to broadcast: Yes, the CPM is higher. But you’re not paying for waste. A $30 CPM reaching the right households often outperforms a $15 CPM reaching everyone.
Common Misconceptions
“CTV is just YouTube on a bigger screen.” No. CTV typically means premium, non-skippable TV inventory, not user-generated content with skip buttons. The viewing experience and ad engagement are fundamentally different.
“CTV is still niche.” With 70% of Americans using CTV and streaming now surpassing linear viewing share, this is mass-reach media. It’s not niche. It’s where your audience went.
“You can’t measure CTV.” This is the opposite of true. CTV offers household-level impression logs, frequency control across publishers, site visit tracking, and call attribution. It’s more measurable than broadcast, not less.
The Bottom Line
CTV advertising is video advertising delivered to streaming viewers on television screens. It combines the impact of TV (big screen, lean-back viewing, high attention) with the targeting and measurement of digital.
For law firms still focused primarily on broadcast, the math has changed. Your audience has moved to streaming. CTV lets you follow them there with ads that actually get watched.
Read next: What is CTV Advertising? explores how PI firms specifically can leverage CTV for case acquisition.