Marketers are pouring billions into CTV – but without the right tools, duplication, fragmentation and murky measurement can drain ROI.
I can’t count how many times I’ve settled in for a favorite show only to watch the same commercial play on repeat. As a viewer, that ad déjà vu frustration is widespread.
Connected TV ensures more targeted advertising. But, while streaming, many viewers end up seeing the same ad multiple times. Since viewers split their time between linear and countless streaming platforms, marketers are left piecing together siloed partner reports and guessing which households were truly exposed to their campaigns.
Without the right partners and solutions, even the most carefully planned campaigns can fall short. This inefficiency is costly. Samsung Ads estimates that, as a result of today’s fragmented ecosystem, TV advertisers leave $141 billion in untapped revenue on the table across six major industries: auto, telecom, pharma, financial services, retail and QSR.
Much of that revenue is lost to wasted impressions. In the US alone, 41% of streaming impressions reach viewers who have already seen the same ad. By reallocating budgets more efficiently, advertisers could unlock significantly stronger returns on ad spend.
Seizing CTV’s $33B moment
Not long ago, a little waste in a media plan was simply the cost of doing business. Today, that tolerance is gone. Budgets are tighter, dashboards sharper, and every impression has to count.
Yet, even under that scrutiny, CTV investment continues to climb. US spend is projected to top $33 billion in 2025, nearly 10% of total digital ad investment, because when it’s executed well, it delivers.
Marketers see the upside clearly; they just need a more direct path to capture it.
There are three common obstacles. The first is duplication and audience fatigue, when viewers watch the same commercial again and again, while brands unknowingly pay for those repeat impressions.
The second is fragmentation, with inventory spread across dozens of platforms and planning that can feel like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.
The third is murky cross-platform management, which often leaves teams guessing where their ads actually ran and which households were genuinely new.
When teams pinpoint overlap, reallocate budgets to find net new audiences and feed performance data back into planning, post-campaign meetings shift from frustration to celebration.
Finding a smarter path forward
Isolated tools alone can’t fix these problems. What’s needed is orchestration through a connected workflow that identifies overlap and valuable unexposed audiences, reallocates spend on the fly and turns performance data into a continuous feedback loop.
To help advertisers reach more people across live and streaming without necessarily adding spend, Samsung Ads built Optimal Reach. The tool reveals audience overlap, surfaces hidden viewers and demystifies CTV viewership, so advertiser goals can be achieved more effectively.
Lost impressions can be opportunities to increase impact and reach more of the right viewers. By including the Optimal Reach line in its buy, one Fortune 100 brand added 47% incremental reach across linear and streaming.
The blueprint for smarter CTV
With billions of dollars at stake and nearly half of impressions landing on the same viewers, advertisers can no longer accept waste as inevitable.
Optimal Reach provides a blueprint for how CTV advertising can evolve. By combining transparency, cross-platform coordination and a willingness to rethink traditional buying habits, it shows how campaigns can maximize efficiency and reach without adding unnecessary spend.
The teams that make cross-platform coordination a strategic priority will be the true winners in CTV, ensuring every impression and every dollar counts.
