The streaming revolution has already rewritten the rules of TV advertising, but the next seismic shift is just beginning. With connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) platforms becoming the go-to destinations for advertisers chasing valuable and highly engaged audiences, the question is no longer if they can attract them but how to increase the value proposition with new interactivity and measurement capabilities.
Among all the emerging formats and monetization models, shoppable, interactive advertising is gaining serious ground. Yet despite enormous potential, few broadcasters have truly capitalized on it. To challenge digital-native powerhouses like YouTube and Meta, with built-in click-through functionality – traditional broadcasters need to make interactivity central to their strategy.
Audiences want more than passive viewing
CTV ad revenues are on a strong upward trajectory, with PwC projecting global spend to double from $20.5 billion in 2023 to $41.2 billion by 2028. But while personalized ad delivery via server-side ad insertion (SSAI) has become table stakes and L-banner formats surge in popularity, it’s interactivity that promises to supercharge performance.
Today’s viewers don’t just want to watch, they want to engage, shop, and interact. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have normalized commerce within entertainment, enabling frictionless clicks and conversions. CTV must follow suit. After all, if users can buy concert tickets or order takeout with a tap on social media, why should television ad experiences remain rigid and disconnected?
The appetite is clear. Parks Associates found that over half of U.S. consumers are likely to interact with commerce-driven content on their TVs, from ordering food to exploring show-related products. If delivered smoothly, these formats could dramatically lift campaign effectiveness, drive direct purchases, and unlock richer insights for advertisers.
It’s time to open up shoppability
Despite clear demand, shoppable TV solutions have been complex to implement. The lack of standardization across CTV platforms, spanning devices, apps, and OS variants, has slowed advertiser adoption and campaign scale. True interactivity also hinges on complex backend coordination, requiring seamless integration of video players, mobile notifications, commerce engines, and analytics layers.
It’s on us, the ad tech ecosystem, to simplify implementation issues and smooth out fragmentation challenges. Getting it right will be fundamental to delivering real competitive differentiation in the streaming ad market. Platforms that crack this code will unlock new inventory, attract previously unreachable advertisers, and command stronger ROI.
So, how do we accelerate industry-wide deployment and make TV shoppability easier in the real-world? A winning approach to shoppable TV should center on one critical enabler: simplicity. Interactive ad solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing SSAI workflows allow broadcasters and platforms to enable shoppability without requiring extensive reengineering. By leveraging standard ad creatives and SIMID-compatible components to support push-to-mobile engagement, these formats create a low-friction experience for both advertisers and viewers. In our experience, features such as simple remote clicks that allow audiences to receive mobile notifications linking directly to product pages or promotional offers are a smoother alternative to traditional QR codes. In keeping complexity to a minimum, shoppable TV can scale more effectively across a fragmented ecosystem.
New expectations in tomorrow’s streaming era
To attract and retain tomorrow’s digital advertisers, CTV must champion new expectations: real-time engagement, spot-level replacement, hyper-personalization and performance-driven measurement. Shoppable formats are a fundamental piece of the next phase of streaming monetization.
Many early adopters in the broadcast world are already distancing themselves from the competition. Shoppability is here today – and significant revenues are at stake for platforms and advertisers alike. The speed of uptake just depends on how fast the ad ecosystem can make interactivity deliver on its promise.
- About Mathias Guille
- About Broadpeak
Mathias Guille is the Vice President Cloud Platform at Broadpeak. He leads the strategic development of Broadpeak’s cloud platform, including the building of the company’s infrastructure in the cloud and in public datacenters, the design of Broadpeak’s platform on top of the infrastructure and the shaping of the company’s applications to accommodate SaaS offerings.
Prior to this and after a few successful years as a Pre-Sales Manager for Broadpeak both in the APAC and EMEA team, Mathias was Americas Pre-Sales Director at Broadpeak. His previous experience, before joining Broadpeak, includes several telecom and network engineering positions at Altice and Nokia.
With over 10-years of experience in telecoms and video delivery, and a strong technical background, Mathias has developed a deep understanding of the TV market, allowing him to identify industry trends and offer Broadpeak’s service provider customers out-of-the-box ideas to build customized platforms.
Mathias Guille holds a master’s degree in engineering from IMT Nord Europe in France.
Broadpeak enables streaming platforms and broadband service providers to stream at scale and monetize without limits. More than 200 companies trust Broadpeak to bring the most-loved live sports, news, and entertainment content to over 250 million people across 50 countries. Broadpeak pioneers the highest performance video delivery and advertising technologies to increase quality of experience, improve subscriber loyalty, and grow new revenues. Broadpeak is a listed company on Euronext Growth Paris (ISIN: FR001400AJZ7 – Ticker: ALBPK). www.brodpeak.tv
