Nearly Half of CTV Ads Still Use Traditional TV Formats, Says TripleLift
Event summary
- 49% of connected TV (CTV) ads still use traditional 15- and 30-second TV spots, per TripleLift's report.
- Streaming surpassed cable and broadcast TV in U.S. viewing share in May 2025 (Nielsen).
- Campaigns combining traditional CTV spots with high-impact formats saw +33% brand recall and +76% purchase intent.
- TripleLift identifies infrastructure fragmentation as the primary barrier to adopting innovative CTV ad formats.
The big picture
Despite streaming's dominance in TV viewing, CTV advertising remains stuck in traditional formats, leaving significant performance gains untapped. The industry faces a critical inflection point where infrastructure standardization could unlock the full potential of CTV advertising, mirroring past digital media innovations that scaled only after standards were established. With CTV ad spending projected to surpass linear TV by 2030, the pressure to evolve creative formats is intensifying.
What we're watching
- Infrastructure Standardization
- Whether the industry can establish standardized creative formats across streaming platforms to enable scalable adoption of innovative CTV ads.
- Ad Spend Shift
- The pace at which global advertising spend shifts from linear TV to CTV, projected to surpass linear TV by 2030 (WARC).
- Creative Impact Optimization
- How TripleLift's outcome-driven system will affect the industry's ability to move beyond impression delivery to optimizing ad impact.