Targeting on CTV: What’s Possible (and What’s Not)

One of the biggest advantages of Connected TV (CTV) advertising is precision.

Unlike traditional television, which broadcasts to everyone watching a channel, CTV delivers ads through the internet — allowing advertisers to reach specific audiences with digital-style targeting.

But CTV isn’t the Wild West of data that some imagine. There are clear limits to what’s possible, and understanding them helps you plan smarter campaigns, manage expectations, and stay compliant with privacy standards.

Let’s look at how targeting really works on CTV — what advertisers can do, and what still isn’t possible.

Traditional TV advertising is broad. A brand might buy time during a show that aligns with its audience — say, a family-friendly brand advertising during a sitcom — but it can’t guarantee that every household watching fits its ideal customer profile.

CTV changes that by combining television reach with the targeting precision of digital media.

Every ad impression on CTV is delivered through an internet-connected device, which means it carries data about the viewer’s location, behavior, and device type.

That data allows advertisers to serve different ads to different households — even if they’re watching the same show at the same time.

CTV targeting is built around several key data types and techniques. Most advertisers use a mix of these approaches to balance scale and precision.

Advertisers can target based on basic audience demographics such as age, gender, income, or household composition.

These data points come from aggregated third-party data providers and publisher insights rather than from personally identifiable information (PII).

For example, a car brand might target households with adults aged 30–55 and higher household income brackets.

CTV allows for location-based targeting at multiple levels — from national campaigns to specific ZIP codes or Designated Market Areas (DMAs).

Local and regional advertisers benefit most from this feature, as they can run campaigns only in relevant markets without wasting impressions outside their service area.

A restaurant chain, for instance, might run CTV ads only within a 15-mile radius of its store locations.

Advertisers can target viewers based on interests and behavior inferred from their online and streaming activity.

This data comes from aggregated profiles built from browsing patterns, viewing history, and content preferences.

It’s not about knowing what a specific person does — it’s about reaching groups of viewers who behave in similar ways.

A home improvement brand could target audiences who frequently watch renovation shows or have shown online interest in DIY projects.

Contextual targeting focuses on what content is being watched, rather than who’s watching it.

An ad for athletic wear might run during a fitness show, while a financial services brand might appear during a business news program.

Contextual targeting is a privacy-friendly way to align messaging with the tone and subject matter of the content itself.

Advertisers can choose which devices or platforms to target. This might include specific CTV devices (like Roku or Fire TV), app categories (like sports or entertainment), or even individual streaming networks.

This helps optimize performance by focusing spend where engagement is strongest.

Brands with their own customer data can use it to power CTV campaigns. By matching anonymized identifiers (like hashed email addresses or IPs), advertisers can deliver ads to existing customers or create lookalike audiences.

This form of targeting is extremely powerful for retention and reactivation campaigns — for example, re-engaging past buyers with a new product release.

CTV supports limited forms of cross-device retargeting, allowing advertisers to show follow-up ads to users who have already interacted with their brand online.

A common example: a viewer sees a CTV ad for a retailer, then later receives a reminder on mobile or desktop promoting a sale.

Sequential messaging builds consistency across screens and reinforces recall.

While CTV targeting has advanced quickly, it still has important limitations.

Unlike social media or search platforms, CTV doesn’t target individuals directly. Most targeting occurs at the household level using shared identifiers like IP addresses.

That means advertisers can’t know exactly who in the home is watching — only that the ad reached the household.

Cross-platform tracking in CTV is improving, but it’s still fragmented.

Each streaming platform and device ecosystem — Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG, etc. — maintains its own data walls and measurement standards.

This makes it difficult to track every impression across all devices or unify reporting across publishers.

While dynamic ad insertion (DAI) makes it possible to serve personalized ads at scale, CTV lacks the real-time personalization seen in web or mobile environments.

You can target segments effectively, but not serve unique ads to individual users in real time.

CTV doesn’t use cookies, which means advertisers can’t rely on the same tracking methods they use in desktop or mobile campaigns.

Instead, CTV relies on device IDs, IP addresses, and data partnerships to enable audience targeting.

This is a major reason why attribution models in CTV are designed differently from other digital channels.

Because CTV campaigns often span multiple publishers, it’s difficult to cap frequency across the entire ecosystem.

A viewer might see the same ad multiple times on different apps or devices. Advertisers can manage frequency within a single platform, but not always across all inventory sources simultaneously.

The best CTV campaigns blend precision with reach. Narrow targeting improves relevance, but overly tight parameters can limit scale and drive up CPMs.

A well-balanced approach uses:

Advertisers that test combinations of these methods often find the sweet spot — delivering relevant ads efficiently without losing coverage.

CTV targeting offers the best of both worlds: the scale of television and the intelligence of digital. Advertisers can reach specific audiences with measurable precision, but they should also understand the limits that keep the ecosystem privacy-safe and scalable.

You can target households, content types, and behaviors — but not individuals. You can measure outcomes, but not with the same granularity as web-based channels.

The more you understand both the power and the constraints of CTV targeting, the more effectively you can plan campaigns that drive real results.