Connected TV (CTV) is no longer an experimental channel for B2B marketers; it is a core component of a modern media strategy. As traditional linear TV’s share of ad spend has fallen to just 12%, reaching business decision-makers on streaming platforms like Roku, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ has become essential. In a world where AI search and zero-click behavior make traditional performance signals harder to track, high-impact channels like CTV are critical for influencing entire buying committees early and often.
This article breaks down the five CTV trends that matter most for your 2026 strategy. You will learn how to move beyond generic awareness and activate CTV as a precision tool that drives demand generation within your multi-channel account-based marketing (ABM) framework.
Trend 1: The Convergence of Planning and Measurement
For years, marketers planned TV and online advertising separately—using different teams, budgets, tools, and success metrics. TV was optimized for reach and awareness, while digital channels like display advertising, search, and content syndication were optimized for clicks and conversions. That separation is disappearing as marketers take a more unified approach to how they plan, activate, and measure campaigns.
CTV is no longer treated as a standalone channel, but as part of a coordinated media strategy designed to drive real business outcomes—especially as zero-click journeys and AI-driven discovery make it harder to tie results to any single channel. This shift matters for B2B because buying decisions span multiple people, devices, and moments, making isolated channel optimization ineffective when engagement signals are fragmented or invisible.
Think of it this way: buying groups don’t distinguish between “TV time” and “digital time.” A CMO might see your CTV ad while streaming at home, research your solution through an AI tool at work, and then discuss it in a private Slack channel with their team. Traditional planning and measurement models that treat each touchpoint separately miss the full picture of how accounts actually engage.
To activate this shift within an ABM strategy:
- Plan media around target accounts and buying stages — not channels: Build campaigns starting with your target account list (TAL), then determine how CTV, display, content, and social work together to influence each stage of the buying journey.
- Orchestrate consistent messaging across channels: Ensure CTV reinforces the same core narrative buyers encounter in search, content syndication, sales outreach, and other digital touchpoints.
- Measure performance at the account level, not the impression level: Track engagement lift, intent growth, and pipeline progression across exposed accounts instead of relying on reach or completion rates.
- Adopt shared attribution models that reflect multi-touch influence: Evaluate CTV based on its contribution to overall account momentum, recognizing that in zero-click and AI-driven journeys, no single channel owns the conversion.
The right channel mix isn’t about maximizing performance channel by channel. It’s about creating a unified experience that moves accounts forward—regardless of where or how individual stakeholders engage.
Trend 2: From Broad Reach to Intent-Triggered Precision
Historically, CTV targeting relied on broad demographic and household-level signals—showing ads to audiences that looked like potential buyers based on age, income, or job title. That approach is becoming less effective as privacy changes, AI-powered search, and dark social behavior reduce the visibility and reliability of demographic-based targeting.
Today, marketers are shifting toward intent-driven, account-level activation, using first-party data and privacy-safe signals to identify which companies are actively researching solutions. This matters because much of modern B2B research happens invisibly—inside AI tools, private communities, shared documents, and internal conversations—making intent data essential to prevent CTV from becoming just another broad awareness channel.
A simple way to think about intent-triggered CTV is this: instead of showing ads to everyone who fits a profile like “IT decision-makers aged 35–54,” you show ads only to accounts that are actively researching solutions like yours right now (like LinkedIn’s infamous 95/5 Rule, where only 5% of your audience is in market). It’s the difference between shouting in a crowded room and joining a conversation already in progress.
To activate this shift within an ABM strategy:
- Use intent data to identify in-market accounts across your target account list: Detect research activity happening across publisher networks, AI-driven discovery, and privacy-safe data environments.
- Focus CTV spend exclusively on prioritized accounts and their buying committees: Replace demographic targeting with account-level activation to eliminate wasted impressions.
- Align creative to the specific topics those accounts are actively researching: Ensure messaging directly reflects the problems and keywords signaling active demand.
- Continuously refresh targeting based on evolving intent signals: Adjust activation as research patterns shift to maintain relevance and timing precision.
Trend 3: From Awareness-Only CTV to Account-Level Performance
For years, CTV was treated primarily as a brand-awareness channel—measured by reach, impressions, and completion rates. As budgets grow and scrutiny increases, that definition of success is no longer sufficient, especially as zero-click behavior makes direct response increasingly rare.
The shift now is toward performance marketing, where CTV is evaluated based on its ability to influence engagement, accelerate pipeline, and support revenue outcomes. This matters in B2B because success isn’t defined by immediate action—it’s defined by progress through a long, multi-stakeholder buying journey.
Think of CTV performance like a conversation at an industry event. You don’t expect a signed contract after the first handshake. You measure success by whether the conversation continues, expands to include other stakeholders, and ultimately leads to a deal.
CTV plays the same role in a modern digital buying ecosystem. It acts as a high-impact influence and brand driver that sparks interest and credibility, even if the next action happens somewhere else. After CTV exposure, performance shows up when buying committee members begin researching related topics, visiting your website to learn more about what they saw, engaging with supporting content, or increasing activity across other ABM channels.
In other words, CTV doesn’t close the deal—it creates the conditions for momentum. Its impact becomes visible through increased account-level research, engagement, and progression through the funnel, rather than immediate, attributable clicks.
This is exactly how performance shows up in practice. When Zilliant shifted to a multi-channel ABM strategy with Madison Logic, the focus wasn’t on forcing immediate response from any single channel—it was on building sustained engagement across target accounts. By coordinating channels to reinforce one another, Zilliant saw a 62% increase in marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), proving that influence-driven tactics like CTV deliver measurable impact when performance is evaluated at the account and pipeline level, not by last-click attribution.
To activate this shift within an ABM strategy:
- Redefine CTV success around account progression, not clicks: Evaluate impact based on account engagement lift, meeting creation, and sales activity within exposed accounts.
- Measure changes in intent strength and website engagement post-exposure: Monitor increases in branded search, content consumption, and high-value page visits tied to CTV messaging.
- Integrate CTV into full-funnel reporting models: Connect CTV exposure data to pipeline stages and revenue influence instead of isolating it as a top-of-funnel key performance indicator (KPI).
- Benchmark performance against multi-channel ABM impact, not standalone media metrics: Assess CTV’s contribution as part of coordinated account orchestration.
Trend 4: From Static Ads to AI-Orchestrated Personalization
In the past, CTV campaigns relied on static creative and manual optimization, with limited ability to adapt messaging across audiences or buying stages. As the programmatic CTV ecosystem has grown more complex, this approach has become impractical.
Today, AI is essential for managing that complexity—automating media buying, optimizing delivery in real time, and enabling personalized creative at scale. This shift matters because different members of a B2B buying committee care about different messages, and relevance—not reach—is what cuts through fragmented attention. AI handles the executional complexity, allowing marketers to focus on strategy while technology manages delivery and optimization.
Leveraging different programmatic ad formats helps unlock AI’s full potential by giving optimization engines more variables to work with—such as creative length, messaging style, placement, and sequencing. With multiple formats in play, AI can dynamically adjust which message is shown, to whom, and when, based on how accounts are engaging across channels, enabling CTV campaigns to adapt in real time to buyer behavior and buying stage.
To activate this shift within an ABM strategy:
- Segment CTV creative by role, buying stage, and intent theme: Deliver differentiated messaging across buying group roles, from executives to technical evaluators to influencers within the same account.
- Leverage programmatic ad formats to enable dynamic sequencing: Use interactive units, sequential storytelling, and audience-based creative swaps to adapt messaging over time.
- Allow AI to optimize delivery toward account-level engagement patterns: Shift optimization goals from impressions to signals indicating pipeline movement.
- Synchronize CTV personalization with messaging across other ABM channels: Ensure display, content syndication, audio advertising, and CTV work as a unified narrative engine.
Trend 5: From Easy Access to Strategic Advantage
Until recently, CTV advertising was largely reserved for large brands with big budgets and specialized expertise. Self-serve and programmatic advertising platforms have lowered those barriers, making CTV more accessible to B2B marketers of all sizes.
But easier access doesn’t guarantee better results. In a zero-click, dark social environment, broad and uncoordinated activation can lead to invisible waste—exposure without measurable influence. The advantage no longer comes from access alone, but from how strategically that access is used.
Think of CTV platforms like power tools. Owning the tool doesn’t make you a master builder—the outcome depends on the plan behind it.
To activate this shift within an ABM strategy:
- Anchor CTV activation to a defined target account list (TAL): Avoid broad inventory buying without account-level prioritization.
- Prioritize spend based on intent and engagement signals, not CPM alone: Invest where buying activity indicates momentum rather than chasing low-cost impressions.
- Establish governance around measurement and optimization: Prevent wasted marketing spend by aligning CTV objectives with pipeline goals and sales feedback loops.
ABM Connected TV Turns CTV Into a Revenue Driver
The conversation around connected TV has shifted from if to how. In a buying environment shaped by AI-driven discovery, zero-click journeys, and private decision-making, CTV becomes most powerful when it’s activated through an account-based lens. The brands that win aren’t using CTV in isolation—they’re integrating it into a unified, intent-driven strategy designed to influence buying committees wherever research and engagement happen.
This is where ABM Connected TV stands apart. Madison Logic helps B2B marketers move beyond broad reach by combining CTV with intent data, account-level targeting, and multi-channel ABM campaign visibility. Instead of treating CTV as a top-of-funnel awareness play, ABM Connected TV enables marketers to use sight, sound, and motion to reinforce demand, accelerate engagement, and support measurable pipeline outcomes across their most important accounts.
Madison Logic’s expertise extends beyond execution. With proven experience integrating CTV into global, multi-channel ABM programs—including expanding CTV and audio strategies across international markets—Madison Logic helps marketers scale account-based engagement while maintaining precision and consistency worldwide. By aligning CTV with display advertising, content syndication, and other ABM channels, marketers gain a clearer picture of how influence builds, compounds, and ultimately drives revenue.
The takeaway is simple: CTV is no longer just a media channel—it’s a strategic lever. When powered by intent data, orchestrated across channels, and measured at the account level, CTV becomes a driver of real business impact.
Ready to activate CTV as part of your ABM strategy? Request a demo to see how ABM Connected TV helps you reach the right accounts with the right message at the right time.
