A Performance Marketer’s Guide to Holiday CTV Advertising

As we enter the 2025 holiday season, CTV continues to dominate the advertising landscape — and it’s only gaining momentum. This year, 58% of marketers say their CTV holiday advertising budgets will increase — a major jump from just 41% the year before. Meanwhile, social media has fallen from the top spot to the #7 channel, highlighting a major shift in where marketers see the most value.

As consumers’ viewing habits shift, marketers need to leverage the power of CTV to drive full-funnel impact throughout the 2025 holiday season.

Here’s what performance marketers need to know to make the most of CTV this upcoming season. 

Why CTV is Essential for 2025 Holiday Campaigns

CTV ad spend is projected to reach $46.89 billion by 2028 — and for good reason. CTV ads have over a 90% viewability rate, meaning nearly every ad served is actually seen. Even more impressive, CTV holds viewer attention 8x longer than mobile ads and 16x longer than desktop ads

During the holidays, CTV’s impact becomes even more powerful. People typically have more time on their hands to binge-watch their favorite holiday shows and movies, increasing viewership and creating more opportunities for your ads to reach a captivated audience. 

Beyond just getting more eyeballs on your ads, CTV excels in putting your ads in front of the right people at the right time. Marketers can use data to reach specific audiences with precision, ensuring your ads are shown to the most relevant audiences. 

Most importantly, CTV is one of the few advertising channels that truly drives full-funnel impact for businesses. In fact, 59% of marketers now say their primary goal for CTV is performance, and 58% report increasing their CTV budgets this holiday season to help meet that goal.

5 Steps to Building an Effective CTV Strategy for the Holidays

1. Set clear objectives.

Before diving into your holiday CTV campaign, define your campaign goals. While it’s tempting to concentrate solely on maximizing sales, especially given the holiday spending surge, this approach can come with trade-offs. Instead, marketers should take a balanced approach that combines both brand awareness and performance — this is the key to long-term success. 

This approach also produces more impactful results. In fact, 63% of marketers agree that both brand awareness and increased sales are important goals for their holiday campaigns. Check out this blog to learn how to build a holistic holiday marketing strategy. 

2. Craft up engaging holiday creative. 

Producing the right CTV creative is essential to capturing audience attention. With over half (52%) of marketers planning to use generative AI in their holiday campaigns, many are experimenting with fresh creative formats to keep up with rising expectations and tighter timelines.

If you ran A/B tests earlier in the year, now’s the time to double down on what resonated — whether it’s humor, emotion, or interactive elements like shoppable QR codes. 

Here are some creative best practices:

• Length: 15-30 second ads are ideal, as this creative length has the most availability across publishers. 
• Strong CTA: A clear call-to-action (CTA) provides your audience with easy next steps to engage with your brand. 
• Storytelling: Use this opportunity to connect emotionally with your viewers. A well-crafted story can demonstrate your brand’s value while making a memorable holiday impression. 

3. Target the right audience.

As mentioned in our previous section, one of CTV’s most powerful features is its ability to deliver precise targeting. Tools like predictive AI are on the rise, with 58% of marketers saying they’ll use it to inform targeting and optimization. Programmatic platforms like tvScientific make it easy to put these advanced tools to work, helping you reach the right shoppers, on the right screen, at the right moment. 

That’s why leveraging a platform like tvScientific is the best way to maximize your reach without wasting ad spend on irrelevant viewers. 

4. Integrate CTV into your holiday marketing mix. 

For maximum impact, integrate your CTV ads with other digital channels, such as social media, email, and display ads, to create a seamless experience for your audience. You can also leverage CTV’s advanced data capabilities to effectively retarget holiday shoppers across various channels and devices.

This multi-channel approach not only enhances brand recall, but also boosts performance. This year, 59% of marketers say they’re actively shifting budgets between channels based on real-time performance. And with social falling out of favor for many marketers (usage dropped from 49% to 32% YoY), CTV is rising as a go-to performance driver and budget winner.

5. Measure and optimize for success.

Once your holiday campaign is live, the work doesn’t stop. You need to continually monitor performance and make adjustments to optimize results. CTV provides a wealth of insights, from second-screen traffic to conversion tracking.

At tvScientific, we offer a range of in-house solutions designed to give you a clear, detailed view of how your campaign has enhanced your business. We can help you measure key metrics such as:

• Spike lift: Compares pre-impression vs. post-impression traffic to your site to measure how much of an immediate impact your CTV campaign had
• Halo effect: Takes a look at conversion rates across all channels and measures how much of lift your other channels had due to your CTV campaign
• Always-on incrementality: Compares your CTV audience’s actions to a synthetic control group and measures how many incremental actions CTV drove for your business
• And much more.

By tracking these KPIs, you can gain a deeper understanding of how your CTV campaign has contributed to your overall holiday marketing efforts and optimize future campaigns for even greater success.

Your Roadmap to Holiday CTV Success

For performance marketers, CTV will be crucial to holiday marketing success. By following the steps outlined above, you’ll position your holiday campaigns for success. Visit our updated Holiday Hub for more CTV resources for the upcoming season.

If you’re ready to start planning your holiday CTV campaign, get in touch with us.