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A full-funnel approach to CTV marketing 2024

A comprehensive guide for brand and performance marketers

Introduction: CTV in 2024

Welcome to the Full-Funnel Approach to CTV Marketing 2024, our guide to advertising best practices and tips to maximize the performance of connected TV (CTV) campaigns.

Major content owners and producers have adapted to meet the increasing demand for at-home entertainment, leading to higher-quality programming across various platforms — and spurring advertising dollars to follow.

In this report, we’ve put together some frameworks and key findings to help marketers understand CTV’s headwinds and tailwinds in 2024 and also to spell out how CTV can be a multiplier at every stage of the buying process. For brand marketers, there’s food for thought on how CTV can drive conversions. For performance marketers, you’ll find useful information on how CTV’s brand awareness halo effect impacts the lower funnel.

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Together with our colleagues at AppLovin and Adjust, we are invested in CTV because we think it’s a unique channel with the potential to drive tangible outcomes at every marketing phase — in 2024 and beyond.
Ron Gutman,
CEO, Wurl

The state of CTV in 2024

As we enter H2 2024, CTV adoption is set to hit its highest level.

FAST Fact

Some 196 million Americans are estimated to be FAST adopters by 2025, of which 58% are Gen Z and millennials. 

So, how can advertisers succeed on CTV in 2024?

A full-funnel approach is vital. CTV’s power is the unique brand-building ability it inherits from its status as the largest screen in the home, combined with the advanced targeting enabled by digital technology. This gives CTV the powerful ability to create brand equity and distribute it at every touchpoint, including conversion.

Market overview: Key trends & takeaways

Money is moving to CTV

As we look ahead to the latter half of 2024, CTV is experiencing significant growth, with ad spending expected to increase by 18.8% this year, driven by the Olympics and elections.

And it’s not just dollars from linear TV (though that reallocation is sizable); a large proportion of increased spending will shift from non-video digital ads, traditional ads, and social media.

Sources for funding the increase in connected TV (CTV) ad spending according to US agency/marketing professionals, March 2024

% of respondents

Bar chart shows funding for CTV ads switched from: 40% linear TV, 40% digital ads, 39% traditional ads, 34% social media.
Bar chart shows funding for CTV ads switched from: 40% linear TV, 40% digital ads, 39% traditional ads, 34% social media.

Note: n=139 who are increasing CTV/OTT spending in 2024

Source: Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), “2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report” in conjunction with Advertiser Perceptions and Guideline, April 25, 2024

CTV is an increasingly appealing marketing channel for mobile marketers who are attracted by the reach and ad quality offered by the largest screen in the home. Data from Adjust, the measurement and analytics company owned by our parent company, AppLovin, found that mobile marketers have massively increased the number of ads being served on CTV devices to promote mobile apps — with 12 billion ad impressions served year to date, including 4 billion in July. That’s an increase of 79% year over year.

Impressions tracked per month
Line chart with CTV impressions for apps on X-axis shows steady growth and a sharp spike at the beginning January this year.
Line chart with CTV impressions for apps on X-axis shows steady growth and a sharp spike at the beginning January this year.

That growth is continuing to accelerate. Between January and June of 2024, the number of CTV impressions measured by Adjust increased by more than 300%. This reflects a huge increase in the marketing budget allocated to CTV.

A key trend we’re noticing is that — in addition to capturing key attention in the living room — marketers are targeting their apps to the whole household.

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This is part of a strategy to ensure they have coverage across all the devices in the home: mobile, tablet, PC, and television. Our feedback from the market is that user acquisition campaigns targeting multi-device households are key to maintaining market share.
Dr Gijsbert Pols,
Director of Connected TV & New Channels, Adjust

What does this mean for the full funnel?

As advertisers delve deeper into the world of CTV, it’s crucial to understand and excel in this unique ecosystem. The potential for success is massive, with new technologies and capabilities constantly emerging. Getting to grips with the trends on CTV is key to elevating your approach, including leveraging sophisticated strategies that enhance effectiveness from the top of the funnel to the bottom.

Wurl’s access to CTV data across the ecosystem, combined with Adjust’s insights into down-funnel metrics, and AppLovin’s ability to power performance across devices, gives our three brands a unique perspective on this versatile channel.

Awareness stage: Grow positive attention

Brand engagement with CTV has evolved from traditional, broad-reaching cable-like media buying to a more targeted, data-driven approach. Like CTV streamers and publishers initially focused on mimicking traditional TV to ease user transition, CTV advertising initially was geared toward providing a ‘linear-like’ experience for ad buyers. With the market now evolving to provide a more CTV native approach, marketers now have more tools to ensure their ads are receiving ‘positive attention.’ 

One key change is that CTV tools now leverage the vast influx of viewer data to enhance targeting and personalization. This modern phase unlocks the potential of contextual advertising, utilizing generative AI and advanced analytics to meet viewers where they are in the buying cycle, thereby fostering deeper engagement through personalized content experiences.

As CTV matures, harnessing data for tailored content delivery is becoming crucial, setting new standards for advertising effectiveness and viewer satisfaction in the streaming era.

Strategies for gaining brand presence in CTV have evolved over time
Diagram showing that three eras in CTV brand marketing are: proliferation, scale and now contextual.
Diagram showing that three eras in CTV brand marketing are: proliferation, scale and now contextual.

Despite its potential, our industry has run into an obvious problem with scale — how do marketers deliver the right message, at the right time, in the right content across thousands of hours of programming over hundreds of channels, with inconsistent data standards?

Ad context is an important question to solve because it impacts efficacy: research by Eun Sook Kwon, et al, (2019) found that ads placed in media contexts that are congruent with the content can significantly enhance consumer attitudes towards the ad and the product.

The living room has a complex ecosystem that produces the strength of the effect
Diagram: Arrows link TV screen, content, and other people, the key factors boosting ad effectiveness in a living room.
Diagram: Arrows link TV screen, content, and other people, the key factors boosting ad effectiveness in a living room.

Indeed, for TV, contextual relevance is a superpower. Map The Territory research has found that the fact that TV is a family gathering point in a central part of the home is a massive multiplier for ad effectiveness. The living room is a space where we are naturally inclined to consume content together — especially professional and well-produced content.

The Context Effects study cited by Map The Territory demonstrates a 60% higher recall rate when viewing professional content in a communal context. Ads within ‘professional’ content are also seen as 44% more trustworthy and 39% more engaging.

Placing your ads in quality content

60%

increased
recall rate

44%

more
trustworthy

39%

more
engaging

Positive vs. negative attention

Trust and engagement are important KPIs for brands and are examples of having earned positive attention. The distinction between positive and negative attention is crucial for effective advertising on CTV. 

Positive attention is earned when ads are congruent with the content and align with viewer preferences, enhancing brand likability and clarity. Timed right, CTV ads can leverage the intimate, family-centric nature of TV viewing, transforming the viewing experience into a positive brand interaction that amplifies ad effectiveness.

Conversely, negative attention emerges when advertisements are perceived as disruptive or irrelevant, which can jar the viewer experience, leading to ad fatigue and potentially causing brand aversion. At scale, the challenge to maintain relevance across a broad content spectrum is significant.

The Brand Awareness Flywheel: harnessing positive attention

When a brand successfully captures positive attention, it can engage a virtuous cycle, which we will call the Wurl Brand Awareness Flywheel. Our flywheel has 5 phases:

Diagram of Wurl Brand Awareness Flywheel shows how emotion drives outcomes via priming, positive attention and halo effect.

Brand Perception

The viewer’s current perception of your brand, including all their prior associations of values, emotions, and existing loyalty. Previous positive and congruent interactions with your brand (and brand advertising) help shape a favorable perception.

Priming

High-quality content that resonates well with the audience primes viewers by placing them into a receptive psychological state, setting the stage for deeper engagement. This process prepares the audience for subsequent messages and interactions with the brand.

Emotional Resonance

When ads strike the right chord, they connect on an emotional level with the viewer — your ad creative needs to transition engagement from programming to your brand. 

Positive Attention

This is the culmination of effectively executed steps in the flywheel where the ad not only captures but holds the viewer’s positive attention, reinforcing the brand’s appeal and encouraging further engagement.

Halo Effect

Positive experiences with advertising can lead to a halo effect, where the good feelings generated by one ad extend to the brand as a whole. This effect enhances overall brand equity and can influence future interactions and perceptions across different platforms and touchpoints.

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By harnessing the Brand Awareness Flywheel, we can create a powerful cycle of positive attention and engagement. When ads resonate emotionally with viewers — as we’ve seen with a 40% increase in QSR visits for PMG — it enhances brand perception and primes audiences for deeper engagement.
Peter Crofut,
VP Business Development – Agencies & Brands, Wurl

The costs of negative attention

In the following section, we examine what happens during ad breaks when content and advertising are not aligned or aligned at random. Wurl’s data shows what you would expect: viewers frequently change channels during ad breaks when the content and ads are not aligned, with a portion not returning after the ad break.

Ad breaks impact viewer sessions
Line chart tracking viewers during an hour of content. Ad breaks lead to a sharp rise in session endings.
Line chart tracking viewers during an hour of content. Ad breaks lead to a sharp rise in session endings.

The chart shows viewer behavior over an average hour of programming. The panel shows a peak in session endings at the start of ad breaks (the red lines), indicating viewer drop-off, but a resurgence following their conclusion.

When viewers decide to change the channel, it results in lost opportunities for both marketers and publishers due to incomplete impressions and potential negative associations with the brand. Our data shows that on average, approximately 4% of viewers are lost per minute of an ad break, meaning an 8% loss during a typical two-minute break.

Viewers are more engaged when content and ads align

Improving the congruence between ad creatives and programming can significantly increase ad acceptance and brand recall. Contextual targeting, which ensures the delivery of the right ad at the right time, leverages the storytelling power of CTV by priming viewers — as seen in the flywheel above.

Stock photo: Joyful woman with remote — implies viewer engagement peaks when ads align with content.

Our study of over a million transitions from FAST channel content to ad breaks found a clear trend: higher emotional resonance between ads and TV scenes correlates with a lower user loss rate. To test this, our algorithm gave streaming content and ad creatives an ‘emotion score’, and then calculated the correlation between those two scores. The closer the correlation was to 1, the closer the emotions matched.

Scenes and ads with a score of 1.0 resulted in nearly a 50% reduction in user loss compared to a score of 0.4. Ads with a cosine similarity of 0.75 or higher significantly improved user retention.

This can be seen on the chart below: if emotions had no impact, all the dots would align on the dashed line. However, if an ad’s emotional mismatch increases user loss, you’ll find the dot below the dashed line, where the dissonance loss rate (X value) exceeds the resonance loss rate (Y value). This region is shaded to highlight increased viewer abandonment. Conversely, dots above the dashed line would indicate higher retention for emotionally congruent ads, in the non-shaded area.

The chart shows that most ads fall below the dashed line, suggesting that when ads are emotionally mismatched, they tend to increase user loss.

The data demonstrates that emotional resonance can reduce user loss by as much as 60%.

Emotional dissonance leads to viewer drop-off
Area chart split diagonally: Bottom right shows dissonant ads spike viewer drop-off, with most dissonant ads in high drop-off zone.
Area chart split diagonally: Bottom right shows dissonant ads spike viewer drop-off, with most dissonant ads in high drop-off zone.

Each dot represents an ad, shown in scenes with either harmonizing or conflicting emotional tones, emotional alignment was measured using a cosine similarity score. The Y-axis measures a normalized number of viewers who left during ads that aligned well with the scene’s emotion, while the X-axis tracks a normalized drop-off for ads that were misaligned. Most dots are situated below the dashed line, indicating a trend where more viewers left during misaligned ads.

The data is fairly clear on this point: ensuring your ads match the tone of the content around them makes viewers less likely to switch away. For advertisers looking to ensure audiences are aware of their ad and engaged in the content, finding the right context is critical.

Engagement drives results

The benefits of contextual alignment extend well beyond ad completion rates. It drives performance up and down the funnel. 

Success Story

Monks boosted its CTV strategy for a leading fintech client by using Wurl’s emotional context targeting; syncing ads with viewer emotions to double effectiveness and cut costs per engagement by half.

7x

lift in brand awareness

4x

lift in brand favorability

2x

lift in purchase intent

Consideration stage: stay top of mind

With traditional linear TV, lower funnel metrics were tricky to calculate, with marketers relying on ‘spike’ analysis—analyzing activity above baseline in correlation to ad timings—or other probabilistic efficiency metrics. These types of TV measurement are even more tricky on CTV. When you’re buying impressions programmatically, it is difficult to identify exactly when and where your ads ran—and, therefore, where the spike should theoretically be.

However, there are compensating factors on CTV. The first is that for many industries, conversions occur on a mobile device concurrently with the ad being broadcast. ‘Dual screening’ is an increasingly common way to consume both mobile and CTV content. For food delivery apps, mobile games, and other low-barrier-to-conversion business models, tracking a conversion can be relatively easy.

Stat recap

300%

growth in CTV impressions for mobile companies, year to date

29%

of the 2.7 billion installs tracked by Adjust were assisted

94%

growth for CTV ad spend is projected this year

Innovative ad formats

CTV offers a dynamic platform for incorporating interactive ad features that can significantly boost viewer engagement during the consideration phase. Imagine captivating your audience with QR codes, shoppable ads, graphic overlay ads, and direct links to product landing pages.

Graphic overlay ads seamlessly integrate visual elements like text, images, or animations onto the video content, adding an extra layer of information and compelling calls to action. Shoppable ads take it a step further, allowing viewers to purchase products directly within the ad, making the shopping experience as smooth as a click.

Photo: Man buys suit on his phone while watching TV ad for the product, suggesting high conversion through innovative ads.

Sequential ads unfold a captivating narrative through a series of ads, each one building on the last to deepen viewer engagement.

By engaging viewers with these interactive elements, brands can shorten the path to purchase, making it easier for viewers to act immediately on their interest.

Assisted conversions

For longer buying journeys, it also helps to be able to track buyer behavior across CTV and mobile platforms. This capability allows for a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey, ensuring that marketing efforts are optimized and effectively driving lift through the funnel.

Adjust offers the ability to track performance and attribute activity (installs and events) from CTV to mobile, CTV to CTV, and QR code campaigns. For mobile marketers who work with Adjust, a key metric is assisted installs, which is especially important for understanding the impact of CTV, where fewer direct conversions take place.
Photo: Woman using phone app. Implies assisted install—saw ad on one channel, converted on another.

An assisted install means the user saw an ad on a channel in the window before conversion, but later converted on a different channel. The initial channel (or channels) are credited with an ‘assisted’ install—the users saw the ad during their consideration phase, and that needs to be measured, even if they converted elsewhere. 

Looking at data from Adjust, CTV has proven itself to be a powerful assisting channel for mobile app advertisers. It is consistently demonstrated, for example, that channels more commonly awarded with an attribution (like Facebook or Google Ads) see a significant uplift in conversions if a CTV impression was part of the journey. One Adjust study found that 29% of 2.7 billion installs over two months were assisted.

Assisted install
This diagram highlights a user who saw an ad on Hulu, which influenced their decision to later convert when they saw an ad served via Google Ads on mobile.
This diagram highlights a user who saw an ad on Hulu, which influenced their decision to later convert when they saw an ad served via Google Ads on mobile.

Analyzing assisted installs is a great way to prove how CTV, traditionally considered for top-of-funnel impact only, is actually capable of impacting campaign effectiveness at every level of the funnel.

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Connected TV is rapidly transforming from a new channel for mobile marketers to a central channel, and the central hub of the home. Marketers that aren’t investing in CTV simply won’t be finding the best users, or meeting them where they are.
Dr Gijsbert Pols,
Director of Connected TV & New Channels, Adjust

Decision stage: Influence conversion behavior

Awareness and consideration are only part of the story — CTV also works for performance marketing.

Strategies must be sharp and intensely focused in the decision stage of the CTV marketing funnel. This phase is critical as it directly influences a viewer’s choice to transition to taking definitive action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.

AppLovin, one of the leading platforms with a proven track record in performance marketing, provides unique insight into how marketers can make CTV work as a performance channel. By taking the template of mobile performance marketers, we can learn about CTV’s effectiveness as a robust performance marketing channel across any industry.
Illustration: QR code on TV for a QSR ad, showing how CTV can be effective for performance marketing.

Having the tools to target

To start with, performance-oriented marketers need to ensure they are working with the right CTV platforms and selecting partners with sophisticated targeting technologies that allow them to place ads strategically. At every stage of the funnel, including lower-funnel conversions, the motto remains: right user, right message, right time. By leveraging the data advantages of large machine learning algorithms, marketers can place their creatives in front of audiences ready to convert. 

But that’s only part of the story — once you’ve got their attention, you must make it as easy as possible to take the next action.

Stat recap

58%

of CTV viewers are Gen Z or millennials

79%

of CTV viewers are on their phones while watching

20%

boost in conversion rate when tracking cross-device

Seamless conversion pathways

Simplifying the conversion process is key to boosting conversion rates, and with new formats, it is easier to incorporate several strategic enhancements specific to CTV. Features like one-click purchasing directly from a CTV ad, via QR codes or push notification, can significantly reduce the friction typically associated with online transactions.

Offering instant access to discounts or special promotions during a CTV ad can capitalize on the immediacy and engaging nature of television viewing, prompting quick viewer action and leveraging the ‘lean-back’ experience of TV watchers.

 Marketers should also make sure the landing pages their CTV ads point to are optimized for quick checkout. Auto-fill capabilities for returning users can massively increase the success rate.

These strategies collectively smooth the path to conversion, significantly boosting the likelihood of success.

Driving performance on CTV — especially for mobile

Mobile has proven to be a powerful amplifier of CTV advertising and vice-versa. Over 75% of users are on their phones while streaming their favorite shows, providing marketers with a significant opportunity to deepen engagement and drive action.

Mobile campaigns benefit from CTV’s broad reach and creative storytelling to support down-funnel activities that ultimately drive conversions.  In fact, the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) found that cross-device tracking in campaigns can boost conversion rates by 20% and increase visibility into the customer journey.

Photo: Family on couch with devices, watching TV — illustrates mobile campaigns benefit from CTV halo effect.

App marketers have a distinct advantage with performance campaigns because of their ability to quickly test and optimize strategies toward what’s working. This real-time feedback loop allows for continuous improvement, driving incrementality and growth.

Success Story

Picsart, a leader in digital creativity tools with over 150M monthly active users and more than 1B downloads, successfully expanded its app’s user base through a campaign powered by AppDiscovery, AppLovin’s UA platform, which ran across mobile and CTV.

This multichannel approach, coupled with AppDiscovery’s AI-based advertising engine, enabled Picsart to expand its reach and acquire net-positive users at a competitive cost per install (CPI), helping it become the #1 top grossing photography app and maintain its status as the second-most downloaded photography app. Picsart’s success allowed them to triple their investment into CTV as a companion to their mobile campaigns.

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Consumer businesses are now harnessing the combined power of mobile marketing and CTV through a performance buying model, transforming how they reach and engage their audiences. This approach allows app marketers to target users that deliver ROI at scale which is complimented by CTV that reaches a broader audience which elevates performance for the whole channel portfolio.
Andrey Kazakov,
VP of Demand, AppLovin

Working with offline measurement

Offline advertisers have also been able to track campaign performance effectively by partnering with sales measurement firms.

Success Story

For instance, PMG leveraged BrandDiscovery’s emotion targeting within CTV campaigns for a Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) client, syncing ad content with viewer emotions related to hunger and measured the impact of the campaign on restaurant visits and sales.

BrandDiscovery ensured ads were timely and contextually relevant. This strategic placement, confirmed through geo-targeting and credit card data analysis powered by InMarket, led to a significant uplift in restaurant visits and sales, demonstrating a 40% increase in visits and a 48% rise in sales. Read the full case study here.

This approach showcases how offline entities can utilize CTV alongside advanced analytics to drive measurable offline outcomes, effectively bridging the gap between online advertising and real-world transactions.

Conclusion: Winning on CTV in 2024

Adopting a full-funnel approach to CTV gives marketers the tools to make a measurable impact at every stage of the customer journey. The strategic use of CTV’s unique abilities can significantly enhance your marketing efforts, from building brand awareness to influencing conversion behavior.

Here are a few key lessons from this report:

Top of the funnel

The importance of emotional resonance cannot be overstated. When done right, ads aligning with the surrounding content’s emotional context significantly improve viewer retention and engagement. Ensuring that ads are contextually relevant can reduce viewer loss by up to 60%, and have been proven to boost brand KPIs by as much as 7x.

Middle of the funnel

As consumers move down the funnel, CTV continues to play a crucial role in keeping brands top of mind. Leveraging the interactive and engaging nature of CTV ads, such as shoppable ads and QR codes, allows for dynamic and immersive experiences that can significantly boost viewer engagement.

Bottom of the funnel

At the bottom of the funnel, CTV’s performance marketing capabilities come into full play. Working with platforms that specialize in driving down-funnel results, marketers can implement precise targeting and seamless conversion pathways to drive definitive actions such as purchases or sign-ups

As the CTV landscape evolves, marketers must stay agile and adapt to new trends and technologies. New and innovative solutions are emerging to deal with some of the headaches marketers have faced when trying to buy programmatically on CTV.

With new approaches to metadata, context analysis, and audience targeting, we’re entering a new era where brands can harness CTV’s full potential to create impactful and effective advertising campaigns that drive real business results.