Why B2B Marketers Are Adding CTV to Their Ad Mix

B2B marketing has never been more targeted. Account-based programs identify the right buyers. Intent data shows who is in-market this week. LinkedIn lets you reach by job title, company size, and seniority. AI tools are making the whole system smarter every month.

But there is a problem with all of this precision. The surfaces are too noisy. Your prospect scrolls past your ad in their feed. They filter your email. They skip the pre-roll. They fast-forward through the podcast break. The window to grab attention has not gotten easier. It has gotten harder.

That is the gap TV fills.

The Buyer Is Already Watching

The people who approve vendor budgets and sign software contracts are the same people watching TV after work. Reaching them there is not a departure from B2B marketing logic. It is an extension of it.

What has changed is that streaming, or CTV, has made this practical in ways that were not possible five years ago. Audience-based buying, geo tests, frequency controls, survey tracking. These are measurement tools that B2B performance marketers already understand from digital campaigns. They map directly onto CTV.

IAB data put global CTV ad spend at US$23.6 billion in 2024, up 16% year over year. This channel is no longer experimental. Most B2B marketers just have not caught up yet.

Consider Relay, the fintech platform for small businesses. It chose CTV as its primary acquisition channel because the targeting was tighter and the feedback loops were faster than traditional TV. The measurement was something it could actually explain to a CFO. Early campaigns showed a direct lift in branded search and site traffic. That is not a brand metric. That is demand generation.

What TV Does That Digital Cannot

Search ads get six words. LinkedIn posts compete with every other opinion and announcement in the feed. A 30-second TV spot is unskippable. It gets the full screen and the viewer's undivided attention in a way that no digital format can guarantee.

For B2B brands selling complex products, that guaranteed attention matters. Gusto, the payroll and HR platform, builds its TV strategy around live sporting events and major cultural moments. Those are the times when its customers are most engaged and most likely to be thinking about the problems Gusto solves. It is awareness timed to purchase intent.

One tactic worth noting is CTV retargeting. Someone visits your pricing page on Tuesday. By Thursday, they are seeing your ad in their living room, full screen, in an environment that carries more weight than another banner in a crowded feed. It connects your account-based marketing efforts to a channel your competitors are almost certainly not using against the same accounts.

The Credibility Effect

There is a signal that TV sends that does not get discussed honestly enough in B2B circles.

Consider the AI sales tool space. Dozens of companies compete for the same accounts with near-identical pitches. If your brand has been on TV and your competitors have not, your prospect takes the call. You are no longer one of many vendors in an inbox. You are a company that operates at a different scale.

That shift happens before your sales team says a word. It makes everything downstream more efficient.

When a founder or board member sees their company's ad during a live sporting event, their phone lights up. Investors notice. Raising a round is a different conversation when your brand has been on TV.

Otter.ai, the AI-powered meeting intelligence platform, found that well-crafted TV spots drive immediate product engagement even for a complex multi-platform product. Viewers, particularly on mobile, check out the product right away. Top-of-funnel reach converting to bottom-of-funnel action.

The Layer the Stack Is Missing

The B2B marketers getting the most from TV are not using it as a replacement for their performance programs. They are using it as the layer those programs cannot provide: broad, credible, high-attention reach that introduces the brand to future buyers before they are searching, and reinforces it with buyers already in the funnel.

73% of B2B brands globally have CTV fully integrated into their performance marketing strategies, and 98% plan to increase CTV budgets over the next year. Your ABM programs, intent tools, and LinkedIn campaigns all perform better when the buyer has already seen your brand somewhere that commanded their full attention. TV is that somewhere.

The stack you have built is good. This is the layer it is missing.