The audience has moved. The ad dollars need to move with them.
The story of OTT advertising starts with understanding just how dramatically the media landscape has shifted. Cable is in freefall.
Cable TV subscribers are projected to drop from 71 million in 2020 to 56 million by 2026. (Source: Zippia, 2026)
By end of 2026, an estimated 80.7 million U.S. households will be non-pay-TV — outnumbering pay-TV households (54.3 million) for the first time in history. (Source: Softonic / eMarketer, 2025)
Comcast alone is now losing roughly 3,500 TV customers every single day. (Source: AdWave, Q4 2025)
Pay TV penetration peaked at 88% in 2010. As of 2026, it has fallen below 50%. According to a July 2025 Pew Research Center report, only 36% of Americans still subscribe to cable or satellite TV, and among 18–29 year olds, that number drops to just 16%.
Meanwhile, the streaming industry generated around $230 billion in revenue in 2025 and is projected to reach $300 billion by 2030. The audience has moved. The ad dollars need to move with them.
At the same time, audio consumption is shifting just as dramatically. On-demand audio, podcasts and streaming music, surpassed linear radio in total ear-time in the U.S. for the first time, and 40% of Gen Z listeners say they prefer podcasts over traditional radio. OTT, streaming audio, and digital video are the three pillars of modern programmatic. Agencies that master all three will win.
Not all OTT platforms are created equal, and the right choice depends on your agency's specific needs and your clients' goals. Here are the key criteria to evaluate any platform against:
• Budget & minimum spend: Amazon DSP requires approximately $2 million per year in minimum spend, a significant barrier for small and mid-size agencies. The Trade Desk and others are more accessible at flexible tiers.
• Client vertical: Retail and e-commerce clients benefit most from Amazon's first-party shopping data. Non-traditional verticals like cannabis, gambling, firearms, require a platform like Zeta Global that can run those categories where others won't.
• Data capabilities: Do you need the power of a walled garden (Amazon, Google) with rich first-party data, or the flexibility of an open DSP (Trade Desk) that leverages third-party data and isn't locked into one ecosystem?
• Inventory access: Can you whitelist premium publishers: Disney+, Hulu, Sling, to place ads in the exact environments your clients want? This is table stakes for brand-conscious advertisers.
• Agency workflow: Look at reporting depth, UI usability, integrations with your existing stack, and the quality of customer support. Platforms can look great on paper but create daily friction in practice.
One thing worth flagging on data: the widely anticipated cookie apocalypse hasn't fully materialized, but the direction of travel is clear. Agencies that are already building first-party data collection into their workflows, through email capture, form fills, and CRM integrations, will be better positioned regardless of how the cookie timeline unfolds.
Another key distinction agencies need to understand: walled garden platforms (Amazon, Google) offer unmatched first-party data but limit transparency. Open DSPs like The Trade Desk give more flexibility and data portability. There's no universal right answer, it depends on what your client values most.
Best for Most Agencies | ~85% Agency Usage
• The industry standard for a reason: all major streaming publishers are available through a single interface.
• Strongest independent, open-internet DSP on the market, not tied to any one ecosystem.
• Best choice for brand awareness at scale; ideal for agencies that need flexibility across clients and verticals.
• Recent platform updates have created friction for some agencies, worth factoring into onboarding timelines.
• Recommended as the default starting point for agencies new to OTT, especially those without massive budgets.
Best for Retail & E-Commerce | Fastest Growing Platform
• Fastest-growing OTT platform right now, driven by the integration of Prime Video, Twitch, and Amazon's unmatched first-party shopping data.
• If your client sells physical products, Amazon DSP's ability to target based on actual purchase behavior is a significant advantage.
• High barrier to entry: minimum spend of approximately $2 million per year makes it inaccessible for smaller agencies.
• Walled garden structure means limited data transparency, you get results but less visibility into the 'how'.
• Worth the investment for the right client; not the right default for agencies without retail-heavy books of business.
Best for Google-Ecosystem Clients
• Largest overall platform reach due to Google's dominance across the internet.
• Best suited for clients already deeply embedded in the Google advertising ecosystem (Search, Display, YouTube).
• Like Amazon, it's a walled garden, strong first-party data and limited external transparency.
• High flexibility for technically sophisticated agencies; steeper learning curve for smaller teams.
• Works best when paired with existing Google campaigns for cross-channel attribution and reporting.
Best for Non-Traditional Verticals
• A niche but essential tool for agencies that serve clients in cannabis, gambling, firearms, or other categories that major DSPs won't touch.
• Approximately 5% agency usage, not a primary platform but critical when you need it.
• Strong third-party data capabilities; worth keeping in your toolkit even if it's rarely the first call.
• If you have clients in restricted verticals and aren't using Zeta, you may be leaving campaigns on the table.
Omnichannel Buying
• Still actively used by agencies running omnichannel campaigns that span display, video, and streaming.
• Not dominant in pure OTT, but valuable for agencies that want a single buying interface across multiple formats.
• Worth evaluating if your agency does significant display or native alongside OTT.
One of the most common challenges agencies face is explaining OTT performance to clients who are used to measuring digital campaigns by clicks and conversions. The reality is: OTT is primarily an awareness play, and it requires a different measurement framework.
Impressions: How many times was your ad served? The foundation of every OTT report.
Completions & Completion Rate: How many viewers watched your ad to the end? This is your primary engagement signal.
Completed Views: The total number of fully-watched ad views — the metric that most directly reflects awareness impact.
When a client asks 'but how do we know it worked?' the answer is completion rate plus website journey data. Setting up universal pixels before launch allows you to track how OTT exposure influences downstream behavior — site visits, time on page, and conversions — even when no click occurred.
• Install universal pixels to track the website journey post-exposure, this is the core tool for proving OTT value to skeptical clients.
• Define KPIs upfront: set 95% completion rate as the benchmark and align the client before the campaign goes live.
• Whitelist premium publishers via PMP (Private Marketplace) deals to ensure your ads run on the inventory your client cares about: Disney+, Sling, Hulu, etc.
• Align on attribution windows: OTT drives awareness over time, not immediate conversion. Make sure reporting windows reflect the actual customer journey.
•Document the baseline: know your client's organic traffic and brand search volume before launch, so post-campaign lift is measurable.
Great targeting on a bad creative is still a bad campaign. OTT creative has its own rules — and most agencies aren't following all of them.
• Go shorter when you can. There's significantly more 15-second inventory available than 30-second, and shorter spots tend to drive higher engagement. Less is more, especially for a medium where viewers didn't opt in to see your ad.
• One message per spot. OTT is not the place for a feature list. Pick one thing you want the viewer to remember and build the entire 15 or 30 seconds around it.
• Brand early, CTA clearly. Establish the brand in the first 3 seconds. End with a clear, simple call to action and make sure your audio mix is clean across all device environments (TV speakers, phone, earbuds).
• Refresh creative every 30 days. Frequency fatigue is real. Most agencies don't rotate creative often enough, don't make that mistake. Stale creative kills completion rates and wastes budget.
• Frequency cap at 3 exposures per 24 hours. This builds effective reach without burning out your audience. Uncapped frequency is one of the fastest ways to generate negative brand sentiment on OTT.
For a first OTT test, one or two creatives is plenty. Prove the model, establish your completion rate baseline, and optimize from there. Resist the temptation to launch with a large creative suite, the learning comes from repetition and measurement, not variety.
The short answer: almost any brand with an awareness goal and a target audience that's moved to streaming. But the longer answer matters more.
The most important variable in any OTT campaign is audience definition. Knowing who you're targeting, with precision, determines everything else: which platform, which inventory, which creative, and how you measure success. Don't start with the platform. Start with the audience.
OTT is primarily a brand awareness and recall tool. It's where your clients get their business name in front of the right people, repeatedly, in a premium content environment. It's not a direct-response channel and campaigns that treat it like one will consistently disappoint.
One strategic consideration that's often overlooked: the freemium vs. premium streaming debate. Both ad-supported (freemium) and premium streaming tiers have value. Freemium tiers like Hulu's ad-supported plan reach massive audiences; premium environments offer more brand-safe, high-attention contexts. Talk to your clients about not limiting to one or the other, a blended approach often performs best.
• OTT is where television advertising is going. The audience is there now.
• Audio is following the same trajectory, podcasts have surpassed talk radio in ear-time, and streaming audio is growing fast.
• Agencies that can offer OTT, streaming audio, and digital video as an integrated programmatic package will be best positioned for the next five years.
• The tools are accessible. The audience has moved. The question is whether your agency's offering has moved with them.
There's no single OTT platform that's right for every agency or every client, but there is a right framework for choosing.
Start with The Trade Desk as your default: it's the industry standard for good reason, offers the broadest access to premium inventory, and gives agencies the flexibility to serve most clients well. Layer in Amazon DSP when you have retail or e-commerce clients who need first-party shopping data. Keep Zeta Global ready for non-traditional verticals. Use DV360 when your client is deep in the Google ecosystem and cross-channel attribution is a priority.
Above all, remember the fundamentals: define your audience first, set up measurement before launch, refresh creative every 30 days, and report on what actually matters, completion rate, not clicks.
OTT is the single most important programmatic channel in the market right now. Society is moving away from linear TV and linear radio. The streaming era is here. The agencies that understand this landscape, and can navigate it confidently for their clients, will be the ones that win the next decade of media buying.
Talk to our team about how we can help your agency get the most out of OTT advertising, from platform selection to campaign execution and measurement.
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