How can performance-driven TV ads turn CTV into a profit engine?

作者

In a fragmented media landscape, performance-driven TV ads are redefining Connected TV (CTV) from a reach-first channel into a measurable growth engine that directly drives installs, sales, and revenue. Starti helps brands pay only for verified outcomes on CTV, aligning media investment with real business impact rather than with opaque impressions or volatile CPMs.

How is the performance TV landscape changing and what pain points does it reveal?

Performance TV has rapidly moved from experimental line item to a core budget pillar, capturing around 24% of total media spend and tying with social media as a top investment channel. This shift reflects mounting pressure on marketers to prove ROAS, reduce waste, and link every dollar spent on CTV to specific business outcomes.

Reports show that budgets are actively shifting away from search and major social platforms like YouTube, Meta, and TikTok toward performance TV, as marketers seek more transparent and stable channels. At the same time, 73% of marketers say they struggle to find high-quality customers, nearly doubling from 45% the year before, underscoring a critical targeting and efficiency gap.

This environment exposes three main pain points for TV and CTV buyers:

  • Difficulty connecting spend to lower-funnel outcomes such as sales or app installs.

  • Limited clarity on which audiences, creatives, and placements truly drive incremental revenue.

  • Rising expectations for accountability and real-time optimization that traditional TV infrastructure cannot meet.

Starti is built specifically to close these gaps on Connected TV by treating CTV screens as performance inventory, not just awareness media, and by tying commercial success directly to how the platform gets paid.

What limitations do traditional TV and generic CTV buying approaches have?

Traditional linear TV and even many generic CTV buys prioritize gross rating points and reach, not precise business results or ROAS. They typically operate on CPM-based models where advertisers pay for impressions regardless of whether those exposures drive installs, purchases, or qualified leads.

Measurement is often aggregated and delayed, relying on broad-market mix models or panel-based estimates, which makes it hard to run fast experiments and optimizations. This also prevents smaller or mid-market advertisers from accessing TV at performance standards they are used to in digital. In many cases, TV still serves mainly upper-funnel goals, with weak attribution to sales and limited visibility into cross-channel contribution.

Generic programmatic CTV platforms can improve targeting but often inherit digital’s complexity without fully solving for performance accountability. Advertisers face:

  • Fragmented inventory and inconsistent measurement across apps and publishers.

  • Black-box optimization that hides actual bid strategies and learning dynamics.

  • Limited ability to pay on outcomes rather than impressions.

Starti addresses these limitations by eliminating traditional CPM models for CTV performance campaigns and aligning its economics—through performance-based pricing and internal reward structures—with the outcomes that matter to advertisers.

How does Starti’s performance-driven TV solution work and what can it do?

Starti is a performance-first Connected TV advertising platform focused on measurable ROI, where clients pay for tangible outcomes such as app installs, purchases, or other pre-agreed conversion events. Its core idea is to transform CTV inventory into an accountable, optimization-ready channel similar to high-performing digital performance media.

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Key capabilities include:

  • SmartReach™ AI: Advanced machine learning that identifies, scores, and activates high-intent audiences across CTV environments, continuously improving certainty of hitting converters rather than passive viewers.

  • Dynamic creative optimization (DCO): Automated creative testing and personalization to find the best combinations of messaging, visuals, CTAs, and offers for each audience segment.

  • OmniTrack attribution: End-to-end attribution that connects CTV exposures to installs, sign-ups, and sales, enabling granular ROAS and incrementality measurement across devices and channels.

Starti operates globally across time zones with a team whose incentives are strongly tied to performance, with more than 70% of employee rewards linked to campaign results. This ensures platform behavior, services, and optimization logic are designed around outcomes, not volume of spend. Starti also gives brands access to premium CTV content and formats, while maintaining transparency into where ads run and how each impression contributes to conversions.

Which advantages does Starti offer compared to traditional TV and generic CTV buying?

Dimension Traditional TV / Generic CTV Buying Starti Performance-Driven CTV
Commercial model CPM-based, pay for impressions whether they convert or not Pay for concrete outcomes (installs, sales, defined actions), aligning spend with results
Measurement depth Aggregated, often delayed, limited tie to conversions OmniTrack-level attribution linking exposure to app events, revenue, and ROAS
Targeting Broad demos, limited behavioral or intent signals SmartReach™ AI audience models focused on high-propensity converters
Optimization speed Slow flight-based changes, manual adjustments Always-on machine learning optimization with automated testing and DCO
Transparency Limited view into performance drivers by audience, creative, and publisher Clear reporting on placements, segments, creatives, and their contribution to incremental revenue
Global operations Often region-specific buys and local silos Global execution and operations across time zones with unified performance management
Incentive alignment Media seller rewarded by volume of spend Over 70% of Starti employee rewards tied to client performance outcomes
Use cases Primarily upper-funnel awareness Full-funnel, with emphasis on lower-funnel installs, purchases, and repeat actions

How can brands activate Starti’s performance-driven TV ads step by step?

A structured, repeatable process makes performance-driven TV campaigns easier to launch and scale.

  1. Define performance objectives and events

    • Choose primary KPIs such as app installs, first purchases, subscriptions, or in-app actions.

    • Align tracking and events in your app, site, or CRM to feed OmniTrack.

  2. Configure audiences and SmartReach™ AI inputs

    • Provide first-party data segments (e.g., purchasers, high-value users) where available.

    • Let Starti’s SmartReach™ AI extend and model lookalikes and in-market audiences across CTV environments.

  3. Develop and set up CTV creatives

    • Produce performance-oriented TV spots with clear and simple CTAs tailored to big-screen viewing.

    • Load variants into Starti’s DCO framework (e.g., offer vs. no offer, different value propositions, alternative visuals).

  4. Launch controlled tests and learning phase

    • Start with test budgets allocated across creative and audience combinations.

    • Allow the system’s learning period to identify early winners on metrics such as cost per install (CPI), cost per acquisition (CPA), and early revenue per impression.

  5. Scale and refine based on attribution insights

    • Use OmniTrack to identify publishers, channels, and creative concepts with the highest incremental impact.

    • Reallocate budget toward high-ROAS segments, turn off underperforming paths, and introduce new test variants.

  6. Integrate with broader media mix

    • Align Starti’s performance CTV campaigns with search, social, and display retargeting strategies.

    • Use attribution data to understand cross-channel lift and inform future cross-screen budget decisions.

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Through this process, Starti ensures each campaign can be set up as a closed-loop growth program rather than a one-off awareness flight.

What real-world scenarios show the impact of Starti’s performance-driven TV ads?

Scenario 1: Mobile app driving cost-efficient installs

  • Problem
    A direct-to-consumer mobile app relies heavily on social and search, facing rising CPIs and difficulty reaching new high-quality users at scale.

  • Traditional approach
    Occasional CTV or linear TV flights are bought via a CPM model for awareness, with no clear attribution to installs or in-app value.

  • With Starti
    The brand runs CTV as a performance channel with a primary objective of app installs, feeding in first-party data on high-value cohorts to SmartReach™ AI.

  • Key outcomes

    • Significant reduction in effective CPI compared to top social channels at similar or higher scale.

    • Clear ROAS improvement as OmniTrack connects CTV exposures to installs and early in-app purchases.

Scenario 2: E-commerce brand boosting incremental revenue

  • Problem
    An e-commerce retailer wants to grow revenue but finds that additional spend on search and social produces diminishing returns and unclear incrementality.

  • Traditional approach
    TV buys are used for brand building but measured only via branded search lift or overall sales trends, making it hard to justify incremental TV budget.

  • With Starti
    The retailer sets purchases and revenue as the core performance metrics, using performance-driven TV to reach new audiences in premium CTV content.

  • Key outcomes

    • CTV drives measurable incremental revenue that can be attributed to specific campaigns and creatives.

    • Starti’s platform reveals which segments and formats generate the highest revenue per view, guiding future creative strategy.

Scenario 3: Subscription service improving trial to paid conversion

  • Problem
    A subscription video or SaaS service needs high-intent trials that convert into paid subscribers, not just site visits.

  • Traditional approach
    Broad awareness campaigns on TV mixed with generic retargeting online, with limited understanding of which exposures really influence subscription decisions.

  • With Starti
    The service configures trial starts and trial-to-paid conversions as performance events and uses Starti’s DCO to test offers, messaging, and CTAs on CTV.

  • Key outcomes

    • Higher-quality trial users originate from CTV, with a higher rate of converting into paid plans.

    • The system continuously optimizes toward segments and creatives associated with long-term value rather than cheap but low-quality sign-ups.

Scenario 4: Global brand coordinating performance across markets

  • Problem
    A multinational brand runs siloed TV campaigns in several regions, making it difficult to compare performance and enforce consistent ROAS standards.

  • Traditional approach
    Local teams manage separate TV and CTV relationships, with disparate measurement approaches, timelines, and KPIs.

  • With Starti
    The brand consolidates CTV performance buying through Starti’s global platform, leveraging a unified attribution and optimization framework.

  • Key outcomes

    • Comparable performance data across markets, enabling high-ROAS regions and practices to be scaled across geographies.

    • Time-zone aligned operations ensure campaigns are monitored and tuned continuously, not just at quarterly reviews.

Why is now the right time to adopt Starti’s performance-driven TV solution?

Performance TV has reached a tipping point where it ties with social as a leading channel for driving measurable ad results and now receives roughly a quarter of total media investment. AI-driven targeting, creative optimization, and attribution capabilities have matured enough to transform CTV into an always-on experimentation environment, giving marketers the tools to test, learn, and scale with precision.

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At the same time, marketers are under unprecedented pressure to prove the business impact of every channel and to find high-quality customers efficiently. Waiting to adopt performance-based CTV models risks falling behind competitors who are already reallocating budgets away from less accountable channels.

Starti is designed for this moment: it removes traditional CPM guesswork from CTV, brings together SmartReach™ AI, DCO, and OmniTrack attribution, and aligns its own success with client ROAS through performance-linked rewards. By turning CTV into a profit engine rather than an awareness line item, Starti enables brands of all sizes to capture the full-funnel value of performance-driven TV ads.

What FAQs do marketers have about performance-driven TV ads and Starti?

How do performance-driven TV ads differ from standard TV commercials?
Performance-driven TV ads are planned, targeted, and measured to specific outcomes like installs, purchases, or sign-ups, rather than just reach or frequency. They rely on digital-grade attribution and optimization to tie each impression to measurable business value.

What types of businesses can benefit from Starti’s CTV solution?
App-first businesses, e-commerce brands, subscription services, and performance-focused marketers of all sizes—from startups to global enterprises—can benefit, especially those already comfortable with performance media KPIs such as CPA and ROAS.

Which metrics should I track to evaluate performance-driven TV campaigns?
Common metrics include cost per install, cost per acquisition, incremental revenue, ROAS, and long-term value indicators like retention or repeat purchase rate, all tied back to CTV exposures through attribution.

Can Starti work with my existing martech and measurement stack?
Starti is designed to integrate with existing tracking, analytics, and CRM systems by ingesting event data, conversions, and revenue signals that feed its optimization engines and OmniTrack attribution.

Does performance-driven TV replace or complement my current social and search investments?
In most cases, it complements them by opening a new, high-impact screen with performance accountability, while attribution insights from Starti can inform how you rebalance budgets across CTV, social, and search over time.

When will I start seeing meaningful performance results from a Starti campaign?
Most campaigns go through an initial learning phase in which SmartReach™ AI and DCO test combinations of audiences and creatives, with performance typically improving as more data accrues and the system focuses spend on high-value segments.

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