Building a Premium CTV Strategy
Connected TV (CTV) has quickly become one of the fastest-growing channels within retail media as retailers and streaming platforms converge to create closed-loop advertising ecosystems. In our recent blog, “How Connected TV Fits Into Your Retail Strategy,” we explored why CTV is becoming an essential component of the retail media landscape and why brands should view it as part of a connected, full-funnel strategy.
At Harvest Group, we believe CTV should be deployed intentionally, not simply because it’s available, but because it’s the right next step in a brand’s media strategy. Once search, onsite media, and other lower-funnel tactics are optimized, CTV becomes the next strategic lever to expand household reach, support priority categories, and strengthen retail outcomes.
A Recent Engagement
A national food manufacturer was investing across multiple product categories, including established businesses and newer growth priorities, and needed a CTV strategy that went beyond broad awareness. This is when they partnered with Harvest Group.
Rather than treating Connected TV as a standalone media buy, Harvest Group developed a premium streaming strategy focused on expanding household penetration within priority categories while complementing the brand’s broader retail media investments.
4 KEY AREAS
OUR APPROACH
1. Start with media
readiness.
Premium CTV is most effective when it complements a strong retail media foundation. Before recommending upper-funnel investment, we ensured core retail media objectives were already being met, including search coverage, share of voice, and other key onsite performance metrics. Then CTV became the next strategic lever within the media plan rather than a standalone tactic.
2. Built a strategy focused on premium inventory.
Instead of relying on a single streaming platform, Harvest prioritized premium inventory sources including Netflix, Peacock, and Disney+, to capture the highest intent shoppers where they are watching. Because Harvest Group also managed the client’s broader retail media strategy, onsite media and retail search were aligned to reinforce the target category throughout the shopper journey.
3. Led with context,
not demographics.
Audience strategy varied by publisher. Rather than relying on age or gender, we reached consumers through lifestyle content, seasonal moments, tentpole/cultural events, or top-performing entertainment.
On publishers like Peacock, Disney+, and Prime Video, retailer audience segments further refined targeting. On Netflix, where audience targeting is more limited, content selection became an equally important part of the targeting strategy.
4. Measured success through retail outcomes.
Rather than optimizing to impressions or video completion alone, we focused on household penetration, unique household reach, search volume increases, and other downstream retail signals to understand how premium CTV contributed to category growth.
THE RESULTS
Across multiple premium CTV campaigns, our approach has consistently delivered:
Millions of unique households reached through coordinated, cross-publisher activation.
$0.02-$0.10 cost per unique household reached across premium publisher campaigns.
2-4 weekly exposures consistently delivered the strongest balance of reach and retail efficiency.
KEY LEARNINGS
1. Premium quality consistently outperformed low-cost inventory. While lower CPM inventory via FAST channels often appeared more efficient on paper, premium placements delivered stronger audience quality, greater confidence in where ads appeared, and better downstream retail performance.
2. The best publisher depended on the objective. No single streaming platform won every campaign. Some delivered unmatched scale, others stronger retailer integration, while others excelled during live events or seasonal moments. Optimizing across publishers consistently outperformed relying on any one platform.
3. Frequency mattered more than volume. By analyzing retail performance alongside media exposure, we identified approximately four weekly exposures as the optimal frequency for driving the most efficient cost per unit moved. Performance improved as exposure increased to that threshold, while additional frequency delivered diminishing returns.
Why It Worked
Most CTV campaigns are planned around media metrics like impressions, frequency, or video completion. We start somewhere different by asking what business problem we’re trying to solve.
Because Harvest Group managed the broader retail media strategy alongside CTV, every streaming investment was connected to the brand’s business priorities, retailer activations, and category objectives. That allows us to determine not only when CTV makes sense, but where, how, and why it should be deployed.
The result is a premium CTV strategy designed to do more than generate impressions. It expands household reach, supports strategic category growth, and strengthens the performance of the broader retail media ecosystem.
Want to learn more about working with the Harvest Group media team?
We’d love to hear from you!
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