Locala has launched CTV Planner, a planning solution designed to help advertisers determine CTV investment according to campaign objectives and market-specific business conditions. The platform combines CTV and online video (OLV) planning with audience, competitive and brand-performance signals to support more granular media allocation.
The launch comes as CTV buying becomes more complex due to fragmented audiences, platforms and inventory. For advertisers operating across multiple geographic markets, a uniform national media plan can make it difficult to account for differences in audience composition, competitive intensity and business performance.
Market Landscape
CTV has expanded the number of environments available to advertisers, but fragmentation has also increased the importance of planning and measurement. Locala argues that data quality remains a significant challenge for the channel. The company cites a Truthset estimate that roughly 40% of CTV investment is wasted because of inaccurate data, amounting to approximately $7.4 billion in lost CTV value in 2026.
CTV Planner is positioned around the premise that investment decisions should reflect local market conditions rather than rely exclusively on national-level planning assumptions.
The solution allows media teams to combine CTV with OLV and adjust the video mix according to individual market opportunities. This could allow advertisers to increase CTV investment in markets where it is expected to provide greater incremental reach while maintaining a broader video strategy elsewhere.
How CTV Planner Works
CTV Planner uses business and consumer signals to group markets into clusters. Factors such as brand performance, competitive pressure and audience affinity can influence how those markets are grouped.
These clusters can then inform decisions around media investment, media pressure and messaging. Instead of applying identical CTV parameters across an entire campaign, media teams can develop market-specific strategies and subsequently activate those strategies through Locala’s platform.
Locala also says its AI agents can translate market-level recommendations into parameters that can be activated within buying environments. This connects planning intelligence with execution, potentially reducing the operational gap between media strategy and programmatic activation.
Strategic Outlook
The launch extends Locala’s broader Adaptive Advertising approach into CTV planning. Its significance for advertisers lies less in adding another CTV planning interface and more in applying market-level signals to investment decisions.
For national advertisers, the approach could be relevant to campaigns where consumer behavior, competitive conditions or brand performance differ substantially between geographic markets. Agencies could also use market clusters to develop differentiated planning frameworks without manually creating entirely separate strategies for every location.
For publishers and CTV inventory sellers, more granular planning could influence how advertisers evaluate inventory and incremental reach across markets. However, the effectiveness of the approach will ultimately depend on the quality, consistency and interoperability of the underlying data.
Top Insights
- Market-level planning: CTV Planner shifts planning from a uniform national strategy toward market-specific investment decisions.
- CTV and OLV integration: Combining connected TV and online video gives media teams more flexibility in allocating video investment.
- AI-enabled activation: Locala connects planning recommendations with AI agents and buying parameters.
- Data quality remains central: More granular CTV planning depends on reliable audience and business signals.
- Programmatic relevance: Market clustering can provide a framework for translating contextual business signals into scalable media activation.
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