The B2B guide to advanced TV with Dentsu, LiveRamp, Nexxen, and OpenAP

Research from Forrester shows that nearly 40% of business decision-makers tune into television daily to stay informed on industry trends. Lower barriers to entry and advanced measurement have made advanced TV an accessible, high-impact channel for reaching B2B buying committees directly on screen. 

We gathered industry leaders to talk about advanced TV as a key channel for B2B advertising. Moderated by Bombora co-founder Mike Burton, the panel featured:

• Jacob Beck, VP, Head of Digital & Programmatic at iProspect (Dentsu)
• Matt Papa, VP of Partnerships and Business Development at OpenAP 
• Andrea St. Pierre, VP of Sales & Strategic Partnerships (East Region) at Nexxen
• Jake Kramer, Senior Partnership Director at LiveRamp

Together, they broke down why advertising via advanced TV / connected TV (CTV) is no longer just a consumer play, and discussed market shifts, planning and activation strategies, and measurement models redefining B2B advertising.

A few definitions to level-set: advanced TV vs. connected TV vs. linear TV

• Advanced TV is a general term covering all types of non-traditional television viewing that go beyond traditional cable or broadcast; this includes video-on-demand (VOD) and streaming services.
• Connected TV is when hardware is used to deliver video content; it includes smart TVs, set-top boxes (like Roku or Apple TV), tablets, phones, and gaming consoles that are connected to the internet.
• Linear TV is traditional television broadcasting where content plays according to a set schedule, with viewers tuning in to a specific channel at a specific time to watch a show in real time; it includes standard over-the-air (OTA) broadcast channels, cable TV, and satellite services.

Advanced TV has become an essential driver for B2B sales growth, and a powerful medium for diversifying go-to-market (GTM) campaigns, allowing brands to reach decision-makers wherever they are.

Why advanced TV is key for B2B advertising

For years, most B2B marketers viewed television advertising as too broad or cost-prohibitive. However, three main trends over the past 18 months have democratized TV as an effective channel for B2B advertising:

Explosion of ad-supported tiers: Major streaming platforms have heavily focused customer acquisition on ad-supported plans. Matt Papa of OpenAP noted that roughly 63% of new subscribers across major platforms join ad tiers, expanding premium ad inventory and enabling one-to-one audience transaction models. 

He said, “All the major streaming platforms, their customer acquisition and growth has come almost entirely from ad-supported tiers within their packages. So now you have real inventory that you can sell, and the ability to transact against audiences is more available.”

Interestingly, audiences have moved faster than ad dollars. The August 2026 Score Report from Comscore highlights that more than 74% of U.S. households stream on connected TV, yet streaming accounted for just 22.3% of TV ad exposure time. For B2B brands, that gap means room to reach decision-makers before the channel gets crowded.

Availability of precision targeting: Addressable streaming allows advertisers to layer attributes like business demographics and Intent data onto premium video, moving away from basic demographics to target precise professional buying committees at the account level.

“Linear TV used to feel way too broad for B2B advertisers. Now streaming and digital change that with a level of precision—once you understand who that audience is, you know you’re actually reaching them on that content, whereas linear was a lot of times just demo targeting,” explained Andrea St. Pierre of Nexxen.

Need for new distribution channels: While traditional go-to-market (GTM) channels remain viable, they can be augmented by platforms that allow for cost-effective reach, engagement, and campaign measurement. Mike Burton noted, “If fewer people are answering their phone, fewer people are clicking on emails, fewer people are going to your website–if all of that is true–marketers need to turn to high-impact sight, sound, and motion to stay top of mind.” That’s where CTV comes in.

The advanced TV journey

Planning: lead with audience, not inventory

Campaign planning must start with identity and intent (the “who”), not content placement (the “where”). Historically, B2B marketers would ideate campaigns around placement, buying ad space on specific trade websites, business channels, or industry publications. B2B decision-makers are real people consuming content on multiple devices outside of their work; they can be reached while consuming non-business media.

• Targeting the household: Identifying the link between a business email and a household ID ensures that ads reach decision-makers and influencers in relaxed environments–when they’re not at work.
• Optimization: Adjust campaign settings to prioritize times when professionals are potentially most receptive, avoiding late-night burnout hours or mid-afternoon family viewing times.

Activation: maintain identity consistency across the supply path

Executing an effective B2B campaign on advanced TV requires seamless coordination between buyers, data providers, demand-side platforms (DSPs), and supply-side platforms (SSPs).

• The single identity: Using fragmented identity graphs during activation and measurement leads to poor match rates and lost conversion signals. A single, consistent identifier (such as RampID) across the entire campaign lifecycle is critical.
• Curation: Programmatic ad buys are increasingly moving data closer to the SSPs, reducing network hops, improving match rates, and enhancing bidstream transparency.

Jacob Beck of Dentsu said, “Curation and closer supply path integrations help us find our audience a little bit better. Data sitting more on the supply side vs. the demand side means instead of requesting your data segment be sent to a DSP, we’re seeing a trend of people requesting it sent to an SSP, then activating via a deal ID or private marketplace deal.”

Measurement: balancing short-term signals and long-term lift

Measuring campaign success on advanced TV isn’t always straightforward, since you can’t rely on traditional metrics. Jacob Beck said, “You don’t want click-through rates,” as CTV isn’t a clickable format. “You want things like video completion rate or cost for video complete.” 

Because sales cycles can span months or even years, campaign measurement should be considered in two ways:

• Short-term signals: Focus on video starts and completion rates, and account-level content engagement; combined with other metrics such as search volume and website visits.
• Long-term impact: CTV acts as a brand-building power engine on par with linear TV. Dentsu research indicates that even a single exposure on a CTV device can drive a 1–5% increase in long-term sales over the following three years by shortening deal cycles and building buying committee consensus.

By unifying campaign performance data with first-party CRM-based outcomes, you can tie exposure on CTV to conversion, measuring the impact of CTV on sales on a daily basis.

“TV measurement is hard, but it’s not impossible,” said Jacob Beck. “Bombora has a great tool called B2beacon™ that lets you track persona-level engagement. It lets you see accounts that were targeted.” 

B2beacon™ also lets brands and agencies track reach and engagement on advanced TV: video starts and completion rates across accounts, and all of Bombora’s available firmographic and B2B demographic traits, allowing advertisers to see which accounts and personas are engaging.

Some Bombora clients link B2beacon™-generated performance at the account and buying group level to their CRM or systems of record to complete the loop and better understand how advertising is influencing opportunity creation, deal volume, contract size, and more.

The future of advanced TV for B2B advertising

There is great momentum around B2B advertising in the advanced television space.

As ad inventory and usage continue to expand, innovative formats like targeted pause ads (a still ad that a user sees when they manually pause their video) and sell-side content recommendations will give B2B brands new ways to drive high-attention engagement.

Advanced TV provides an additional layer of information to combine with first- and third-party data.

By combining GTM signals from advanced TV campaigns with first- and third-party data, B2B marketers can transform high-impact household ad exposure into rich customer intelligence that pinpoints high-intent accounts across the entire buyer journey.

By grounding campaigns in B2B Intent data and maintaining identity consistency, B2B advertisers can confidently turn advanced TV into an effective pipeline engine for sales.