CTV is an emerging channel with significant potential to enhance B2B ABM strategies
If you’re leading a B2B organization in 2024 and still relying heavily on Google, Meta, or LinkedIn ads, you’re not alone, but you’re probably overpaying for attention. Connected TV (CTV) is not saturated yet. That’s important. Most of the big players in B2B haven’t seriously considered it, which makes it a smart move for those who are willing to act early. As media costs rise across common platforms, CTV still gives you a relatively untapped space for building awareness, using high-impact video delivered directly into the living rooms of your target accounts.
What makes CTV interesting at the ABM level is its combination of reach and precision. You’re not just broadcasting and hoping for the best. You upload a list of target companies, no personal data involved, and your campaign gets shown to household devices used by employees from those companies. It’s private, compliant, and accurate. We’re seeing match rates between 40% and 70%. That’s more than enough to shift metrics if you’re targeting the right prospects.
Leaders who move early on this channel can gain a cost and timing advantage. Think of it as an open lane that won’t stay open much longer. You don’t need to be bold forever, just before everyone else gets there.
CTV supports a variety of key ABM objectives across diverse B2B sectors
Let’s not confuse CTV with something only useful to major consumer brands or software giants. This isn’t reserved for Salesforce-level campaigns with big-name actors. B2B companies, from niche SaaS vendors to logistics providers, use CTV to scale impact and generate measurable results across several goals.
In B2B SaaS, competition can be brutal. When markets are full of noise, top-of-funnel attention is hard to buy. CTV helps break through, especially in new category creation or expansion efforts. If you’re trying to grow in new verticals or edge ahead of a similarly funded rival, CTV gives you a way to signal strength and build recognition efficiently.
For professional services firms, agencies, consultancies, law practices, it’s simple. You need decision-makers to remember your name before the first meeting happens. CTV puts your message in front of them. That visibility primes outreach and speeds up trust-building.
Manufacturers and industrial players are often left behind in digital innovation conversations, but they shouldn’t be. CTV helps them promote new products, support trade show visibility, and engage channel partners without depending solely on email lists or legacy tactics. In financial services and fintech, where change is slow and scrutiny is high, CTV can be used to build credibility with key personas, especially CFOs and finance leaders. It provides space to explain complex ideas while reinforcing brand values over time.
The key takeaway for C-level leaders: CTV in ABM works across sectors because the challenge is the same, reach the right accounts with clear messaging, at scale, without waiting for smaller, bottom-funnel channels to catch up. CTV does that with less friction and clearer brand presence. It’s not futuristic. It’s functional now.
Effective ABM on CTV demands precise account targeting and segregated audience lists
Success in B2B marketing depends on precision. With CTV, that doesn’t change, it just gets more scalable. If you’re treating CTV like a display ad spray-and-pray channel, you’re wasting budget. Start with a smart list. Only use verified company data and focus your campaigns on the highest-value accounts that matter across your pipeline.
You won’t need personal data to get results. A solid CTV platform will let you upload company lists, then match those to household IP addresses where devices are used by employees from those companies. It’s compliant, and it works. Match rates typically fall between 40% and 70%. That’s a strong signal, especially when you segment well and prioritize active or near-ready deals.
If you’re starting with 500 accounts, don’t push the full list at once. Narrow it to 100 that show buying signals or are already engaging with your brand through other channels. Focus your spend where it can actually influence a live opportunity. This will help you gauge performance, calibrate creative, and make faster decisions on where to invest more.
Executives should ensure their teams are coordinating lists across all ABM systems, CRM, ad platforms, sales tools. That’s the only way to ensure the right targeting, with no conflicts between platform audiences. If you don’t do that, expect inconsistency and waste. Platform alignment is a leadership-level responsibility.
CTV functions best as an integrated part of a multi-channel ABM strategy
CTV by itself won’t close a deal. That’s not a weakness, it’s a design principle. It exists to trigger awareness, reinforce positioning, and create momentum inside the accounts you care about. If you’re already running LinkedIn ads, retargeting, and direct sales outreach, CTV connects all of it with stronger early touchpoints.
Here’s how to structure it: Run CTV early in your campaign sequence. First, build brand presence using well-designed creative targeted to your critical accounts. In two to three weeks, follow that with display ads and LinkedIn impressions to retarget those same accounts. These accounts are now aware of your message, primed for action. Then, give your sales team the timing and context to execute. If they reference the CTV campaign in outbound messages, response rates pick up, and calls get deeper, faster.
This type of sequencing isn’t theoretical, it’s standard among high-performance B2B growth teams. CTV adds impact where email and low-cost display often fall short: early-stage engagement and long-term perception. On its own, it’s not the finish, but it makes every other channel more effective.
For leadership, the message is straightforward: ensure CTV isn’t sitting in a silo. Require campaign teams to coordinate deployment timelines, sharing creative, messaging, and performance feedback across departments. Marketing and Sales must work in sync here. Without that collaboration, you’re just adding noise instead of opening doors.
CTV’s impact in ABM is best measured by indirect influence metrics rather than immediate conversions
If you’re measuring Connected TV performance by direct conversions, you’re setting the wrong benchmark. CTV is built to influence behavior early in the buyer’s journey, not to drive instant form fills. That doesn’t make it soft; it means you need to apply the right metrics. Look at how it moves accounts through your pipeline, not how many leads it drops into your CRM.
Start with account engagement lift. Are these accounts visiting your site more often after campaign exposure? That’s a valid signal. Next, measure pipeline velocity. Are CTV-exposed accounts making it through your sales stages faster than others? Then, compare deal size. If CTV impressions correlate with larger contract values or strategic wins, it’s doing its job.
Brand awareness and sales conversation depth are other strong indicators. If sales teams report prospects referencing the commercials, or going into calls more informed, you’re seeing the lift. It’s subtle but significant. Surveys, call recordings, or CRM notes help track this, don’t rely only on platform-click attribution.
Geo-holdout tests are one of the clearest ways to isolate impact. You target certain regions with your CTV campaigns and hold others back. Then compare pipeline and revenue progression between them. If there’s a clear delta in the CTV regions, decision’s easy, scale up.
At the executive level, your priority is to ensure marketing isn’t being evaluated only on short-cycle KPIs. Demanding that kind of fast turnaround from a format designed for mid- to upper-funnel push weakens your strategic options. Empower your team to take the longer view, supported by data that reflects the full journey.
Early adoption of CTV in ABM offers significant competitive advantages
Markets reward first movers. That’s true in media channels, too. CTV isn’t crowded, yet. Most B2B firms are stuck in legacy digital channels and haven’t built internal playbooks for media that lives beyond the browser. If you step in now, you get attention without inflated competition. And you’ll master the learning curve early, before others realize what they’ve missed.
Early adopters benefit from both cost and timing advantages. CPMs are still reasonable. Engagement is high, especially when supported with strong creative. And the gap between CTV exposure and competitive saturation gives you time to iterate without outside pressure. That kind of breathing room makes it easier to test, refine, and integrate without having to justify inflated investments later.
But early adoption still needs structure. It only works if you bring in strong first-party data to guide the campaigns. You’ll also need an analytics model that goes deeper than click-through rates. That includes aligning sales feedback loops, user-level engagement patterns, and account progression metrics.
Leaders should expect nonlinear results here. This isn’t an overnight performance spike, it builds over time. But if you’re consistent, the impact compounds. You’ll shape perception at the highest level while other brands are still fighting for inbox space. That edge compounds when you’re running true ABM at enterprise scale. You’re not buying impressions, you’re buying time, control, and attention before the next wave hits.
Key highlights
- Adopt CTV early to gain strategic media efficiency: CTV is still underutilized in B2B, offering a rare chance to reach key accounts before costs rise and competition floods in. Leaders should prioritize CTV now to lock in brand visibility at lower acquisition rates.
- Align CTV with sector-specific ABM goals: CTV supports a wide range of B2B objectives, from brand building in SaaS to trust development in fintech. Executives should tailor CTV creative and messaging to match precise industry and segment needs.
- Target select high-value accounts for early impact: Start CTV campaigns with a focused list of accounts showing engagement or pipeline activity. This ensures higher quality impressions and improves campaign ROI before scaling.
- Integrate CTV into cross-channel ABM plays: Use CTV as the initial brand-touchpoint, then retarget with digital ads and personalize sales outreach. Leaders must enforce coordination across teams to sustain message consistency and maximize momentum.
- Measure CTV impact using pipeline signals: Effective metrics include account engagement, deal velocity, and sales interactions, not direct conversions. Decision-makers should support analytics models that capture broader influence on buying behavior.
- Move fast to secure competitive ABM gains: CTV adoption is low but growing. Executives willing to lead early will benefit from lower media costs, more effective pipelines, and a differentiated presence that competitors won’t easily replicate.
