CMO Strategies: A guide to marketers’ investments and streaming platforms’ ad innovations, from Amazon to YouTube

Introduction

There doesn’t seem to be any stopping streaming video’s popularity, as streaming services continue to rival linear TV for audience share. Streaming services accounted for 40.3% of total U.S. TV usage in June 2024, according to Nielsen — a new record high for the category. That’s up from 38.7% in July 2023 and 38.4% in July 2022, when streaming claimed the largest share of U.S. TV viewing for the first time.

Meanwhile, cable and broadcast usage remained below 50% for the second year in a row in terms of total share among U.S. viewers, according to Nielsen. The broadcast category lost 1.8 share points in June versus the prior month and cable fell by 1 point, bringing the two to a combined 47.7% of overall TV in June 2024.

Glossy surveyed 195 brand and agency professionals about their streaming platform buying behaviors and preferences. Glossy also identified the top-earning ad-supported streaming services by 2024 ad revenue and surveyed the 13 platforms about their ad innovations.

YouTube and Amazon’s Prime Video vie for marketers’ ad dollars

YouTube came out on top for the third year in a row as the ad-supported streaming service that received the largest portion of both survey respondents’ ad placements and ad budgets. Sixty-nine percent of brand and agency respondents said they currently place ads on YouTube as of Q1 2025. However, that is a drop from last year when 75% of respondents said the same, perhaps indicating that YouTube is experiencing some competition from Amazon’s Prime Video (with ads). Amazon launched its ad-supported streaming platform in January 2024, and the service placed second among the platforms included in this year’s report.

The percentage of marketers who said they invest in YouTube has also decreased slightly, Glossy’s survey found. Half of respondents (50%) said YouTube consumed the largest portion of their ad budget in 2024, down from 60% who said the same in 2023 and 2022 respectively.

Even though marketers’ ad placements and ad spending on YouTube have decreased, YouTube remains a draw for advertisers in large part due to its audience reach. Generally speaking, YouTube has the largest audience size of the ad-supported streaming services assessed for this report, at 2 billion-plus monthly logged-in users, according to YouTube.

Additionally, while most ad-supported streaming platforms offer similar content in the form of on-demand movies and TV series, original movie and TV programming, and live TV channels, YouTube also stands out as the only platform that offers user-generated content, which YouTube refers to as creator content.

“For us, it’s all about brands understanding the importance of creators and the communities of engaged viewers they have amassed through their content,” YouTube’s Albert said. “Creators are this generation’s content studios and they’re uploading new hits every day — fueling an always-on stream of fresh content that keeps viewers engaged. … When brands have creators in mind or bring them on board in their asset development and distribution — their campaigns feel more seamless and integrated to YouTube.”

YouTube also has access to Google’s entire first-party search and browser history data because of its connection to Google’s DSP (Display & Video 360), the dominant DSP in streaming and online advertising. Google, as the publisher of YouTube, can count its own user login data as its first-party data.

First-party data reserves continue to be a selling point to attract advertisers, despite Google’s July 2024 announcement that it will keep cookies in the Chrome browser. Fifty-four percent of brand and retailer professionals told Glossy’s sister publication Digiday in Q3 2024 that, in light of Google’s new plan to let consumers decide whether to be tracked via cookies, they’re more likely to continue to rely on cookies. (In April 2025, Google announced that it won’t roll out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies in Chrome, meaning ad tech companies can still use the targeting technology in the world’s most popular web browser.)

After YouTube, Amazon’s ad-supported tier Prime Video (with ads) came in second when it comes to where marketers are placing ads and spending their ad budgets, according to Glossy’s survey. (Last year’s report ranked Amazon’s Freevee as a separate ad-supported streaming service. Amazon has since folded Freevee into Prime Video.)

More than a third of brands and agencies (38%) said that they place ads on Prime Video as of Q1 2025, up from 36% of marketers who said the same in Q1 2024. Sixteen percent of brands and agencies said in Q1 2025 that Amazon had the largest share of their company’s 2024 ad-supported platform budget.

Last year, Prime Video (with ads) tied with Hulu as the No. 2 ad-supported streaming service on which marketers place ads. Prime Video (with ads) was a new offering last year having launched on Jan. 24, 2024, but it has gained traction with advertisers over the past 12 months by fine-tuning its pitch to buyers and brands to highlight its growing measurement capabilities and new ad formats. Prime Video (with ads) has also kept its CPMs at a competitive level, forcing rivals to lower their own prices.

Lower CPMs have made it easier for buyers to recommend streaming ads to clients, according to Harry Browne, vp of TV, audio and display innovation at performance marketing agency Tinuiti. “[Amazon’s move] has dropped CPMs,” Browne said. “It’s been a great time for us as an agency, because it means that we can really lean into streaming for our clients. And it has led to some great opportunities for them.”

While Prime Video (with ads) doesn’t have nearly the audience reach of YouTube, it brings its own consumer audience and data benefits that appeal to advertisers. Prime Video’s year-ago entry into the streaming ad market raised the stakes on its rivals because Amazon automatically opted in Prime subscribers to the streaming platform’s ad-supported tier, a tactic that has enabled the e-commerce giant to report an average monthly ad-supported reach of more than 115 million customers in the U.S. and more than 200 million globally as of February 2025. But it’s Amazon’s strength as a sales platform that gives it an added advantage over other streaming platforms due to the sheer volume of consumer data it collects.

Amazon is the third-most visited website in the U.S. — behind Google and YouTube — and it is the most visited e-commerce and shopping marketplace, according to web analytics company SimilarWeb. Due to the massive number of monthly visits to the site — 3.1 billion total visits worldwide in December 2024 alone — Amazon is able to collect data from a wide range of demographic groups with varied audience interests. That means Amazon can offer agencies and brands access to a massive amount of consumers, and their data.

Hulu, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company, fell to third place regarding both marketers’ ad placements and ad budgets in this year’s report. Thirty-three percent of brands and agencies said they place ads on Hulu as of Q1 2025, down from 36% in Q1 2024. Eight percent of marketers said Hulu consumed the largest portion of their ad budget in 2024, down from 13% who said the same the previous year.

Interestingly, the percentage of marketers who said they place ads on Disney+ Basic (with ads), which is also owned by The Walt Disney Company, increased year over year. Twenty-four percent of brands and agencies said that they place ads on Disney+ Basic (with ads) as of Q1 2025, up from 9% of marketers who said the same in Q1 2024. Overall, Disney+ Basic (with ads) tied for fifth place in Glossy’s survey with Netflix Standard (with ads) and Peacock when it comes to where marketers place ads.

It’s likely that Hulu continues to appeal to advertisers in part because it has access to all of Disney’s first-party consumer data through the company’s Disney Select platform. That gives Hulu a similar competitive advantage to YouTube and Prime Video (with ads) in the race to provide advertisers with immense first-party data reserves. In general, streaming platforms that are owned by larger parent companies have an overall advantage when it comes to data access.

The Walt Disney Company also gives advertisers the option to buy ads across both Hulu and Disney+ in a single campaign. The two streaming platforms, along with sports streaming platform ESPN+, fall under the larger “Disney Streaming” banner.

When it comes to audience size, Hulu trails behind YouTube and Prime Video (with ads). Hulu claimed 53.6 million U.S. subscribers as of February 2025.

Next year’s ad placements and budget allocation results could look very different from this year’s, depending on the success of The Trade Desk’s launch of its Ventura CTV operating system, which the ad tech platform announced it was building in November 2024. Having its OS baked into some of the world’s most common TVs would widen the scope of data the DSP can control — what people are watching, what ads they’re seeing — and feed that intel straight back into its own ad-buying platform. That would pave the way for even more growth in The Trade Desk’s booming CTV ad business, which already makes up nearly half of its ad revenue.

Tinuiti’s Browne said The Trade Desk’s upcoming launch of Ventura could disrupt Roku and Samsung’s dominance of the CTV market. “It’s a really interesting move for them. … The opportunity for Ventura is not immediately clear because there is a big presence in Samsung and Roku together operating the vast majority of operating systems,” Browne said. “They have a real incumbency advantage and so I think the most important thing for The Trade Desk is going to be who they partner with and which manufacturer wants to put this operating system in their TV. … There have been some thoughts about how Ventura might be leveraged in unique environments, places like airplanes, airports, hotels. So, there could be some cool opportunities when it comes to the blending of CTV with out-of-home. But the impact is not immediately clear because of the incumbency that Samsung and Roku already have.”

In April 2024, prior to The Trade Desk’s Ventura announcement, Roku signed a deal with The Trade Desk to use Roku’s audience data to target ads. When Glossy asked Roku’s Harms about competition in the CTV marketplace, Harms said Roku is concentrating on its own OS and advertiser relationships. “Roku is really keeping our head down and continuing to focus on having the best and biggest operating system in the landscape,” Harms said.

“The OS landscape is mature, and we’ve increasingly seen players exiting the market, so we think consolidation will continue. We’ll just see how the landscape evolves now, including another player in the space,” she added. “We continue to work with them [The Trade Desk], but also a growing number of the DSPs and SSPs in the ecosystem. So, they’ve been a great partner. We’re just going to keep at being the best OS and continue to build great partnerships for our advertisers.”

Streamers up their game with gamified ads and branded experiences

Glossy asked the platforms included in this report what ad options they currently offer advertisers and what new ad offerings they’ve instituted within the last 12 months. Six platforms told Glossy they have incorporated AI technology to improve ad targeting within the last year. Here’s a look at how they’re doing it:

• Disney+ and Hulu’s Disney Magic Words is a contextual targeting ad tool that uses AI and machine learning to enhance ad targeting and personalization on Disney+ and Hulu by analyzing emotional cues, creative content and contextual information from Disney’s library of movies and shows. It is currently in beta testing with food, travel and auto advertisers.
  
• Max’s Moments is a contextual targeting tool that uses AI-powered technology to analyze cumulative audio and visual cues and recurring themes throughout movies and shows. It allows advertisers to align their ads with relevant episodes and films across Max. 

• YouTube’s Video Reach Campaigns Non-Skip Mix is an ad optimization tool for non-skippable ads that uses AI to determine the optimal mix of non-skippable ads to balance viewer reach and completed views. 
  
• “With video ads powered by Google AI, YouTube gives advertisers straightforward ways to connect with viewers across formats and devices, around the most relevant content to drive better results than linear TV and other platforms. For the broader industry, we encourage folks to lean in! These new AI solutions can turbocharge performance by helping fine tune an advertising asset for success — it’s still the brand’s story, just creatively optimized and with a more efficient process.” — Brian Albert, managing director of U.S. video deals and creative works at YouTube
  
• Samsung’s Smart Acquisition is an AI tool for advertisers who want to acquire new customers using Samsung Ads’ proprietary data and AI technology. The tool helps marketers target ads to increase the likelihood of conversion and is tailored to Samsung’s TV and mobile app partners.
  
• “Meaningful personalization and curation are integral to what we do — so much so that we’d updated our suite of AI-based tools to ensure our precision audience targeting is spot-on. Our Smart Acquisition solution was designed for content partners seeking to acquire new users on the unmatched scale and depth of Samsung Ads’ proprietary data and unique AI technology. By delivering ads to the right person at the moment, we can deliver the highest likelihood of conversion tailored to Samsung’s TV and Mobile app partners. … We also introduced Web Conversion, which takes advantage of Samsung’s Smart TV real estate and AI to drive users from TV to mobile apps, boosting engagement and user acquisition.” — Michael Scott, vp and head of ad sales and operations at Samsung Ads
  
• Samsung’s Optimal Reach uses machine learning and Samsung’s proprietary data to identify gaps in audience reach and opportunities to improve audience engagement and ad targeting.
  
• “While the booming growth of CTV is exciting, it’s also causing viewer fragmentation — and in turn causing frustration. With advertisers so focused on managing fragmentation, unique reach, and de-duplication, Samsung Ads is working to identify gaps across linear and streaming as well as target ‘missed audiences’ at scale with machine learning. In fact, our Optimal Reach solution leverages our proprietary TV & You Panel data, linear and in-app ACR data as well as other data signals, to provide advertisers a single-source solution extending incrementality to streaming viewership.” — Michael Scott, vp and head of ad sales and operations at Samsung Ads
  
• Peacock and NBCUniversal’s One Platform Total Audience is an AI-driven planning and activation technology that utilizes machine learning and predictive analytics to produce a unified media plan across linear and streaming, including Peacock which has access to NBCU’s entire content portfolio. 
  
• “Seventy percent of the people who view Peacock can’t be reached by other premium streamers, So, for an advertiser, being able to reach that audience is super important. And when you pair Peacock with the rest of the NBCU platform, we have the most ad-supported reach in the industry. So, the idea that advertisers can harness that and use it to drive immediate reach is really important.” — Gina Reduto, evp of strategy, advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal

For those platforms that are experimenting with non-traditional ads, gamified ads were mentioned by five platforms as a new ad format they’ve introduced in the last year.

• Samsung’s “Rivals Arena” is a cinematic card game from game developer Return Entertainment. It will be available on the Samsung gaming hub on Smart TVs and can be played using a consumer’s phone as the controller. Gamers can jump in from the Samsung home screen or the gaming hub by scanning a QR code with their phone.

• Samsung’s “The Six” is an interactive trivia game built directly into a Samsung connected device. Anyone with a Samsung TV remote can play “The Six” on their TV, while advertisers can co-brand the entire experience to drive brand engagement and recall. 
  
• “We also invested more in game breaks, with fun new experiences, our first being ‘The Six,’ an interactive trivia game built directly into Samsung’s connected devices, with more games to come throughout the year. These new gaming solutions give advertisers a chance to co-brand exciting experiences, creating a more engaging and memorable connection with users while making brand interactions feel natural and fun.” — Michael Scott, vp and head of ad sales and operations at Samsung Ads
  
• Max’s trivia and polls ads give marketers the ability to engage viewers by asking questions about a brand and offering polls with the goal of increasing viewer interaction.

• Disney+ and Hulu’s “Beat the Clock” is an interactive branded game for sports entertainment company Topgolf that challenges viewers to use their remote to hit golf balls into targets. It was designed to give the company feedback on whether viewers noticed the content.
  
• Disney+ and Hulu’s Quiz Show is an interactive ad that asks the viewer a series of trivia questions about a brand and prominently displays the brand while the viewer answers. The ad includes a countdown clock and a score keeper and is intended to give advertisers feedback on whether viewers noticed their content.

• Peacock’s Mini Games and Prediction Games are being tested before a broader rollout in 2025. The games aim to deepen fan engagement around Peacock’s most popular content and offer gameplay influenced by TV shows and sports programming.
  
• “It’s engaging consumers in a different way. Can you create trivia around certain content or get consumers to make predictions about what’s going to happen, and give consumers an opportunity to engage in a different way.”  — Gina Reduto, evp of strategy, advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal

Branded experiences and awareness stood out as another type of ad offering that five platforms said they’ve added or expanded in the last 12 months.

• YouTube’s Branded QR Codes let advertisers place a brand logo within a QR code. According to YouTube’s February 2024 internal data analysis, adding QR codes increased interactivity of CTV ads by more than 100% — measuring clicks and click-through conversions on Video Action Campaigns enabling QR code.

• Max’s title sponsorship co-branded ad suite allows two or more brands to co-brand ads and features art and logos from the sponsored program or show. The ad suite includes in-front, promotional bumpers, promotional frame, interactive, content and social posts.
  
• Samsung Spotlight gives advertisers the opportunity to raise brand awareness when a viewer turns on their TV by owning an entire row on the Samsung TV home screen, including the background image.

• Samsung’s Beacon places ads within the Samsung home screen near content that engages and interests consumers while they are choosing what to watch.
  
• Peacock’s Brand Tag ads appear as a viewer browses content tiles on Peacock. Viewers see a brand’s logo featured in spotlight ads, immersive highlights, hero rails and product details pages. In addition, a brand’s spot runs with premium positioning within specific sponsored programming.
  
• “As a viewer browses different content titles on Peacock, they can see a brand’s logo wherever that content art lives. It can be in the spotlight, in various highlights in the hero rails, but it’s the idea that the brand spot is running with premium positioning alongside that sponsored programming. It gives the brand an opportunity to be a hero of the content.” — Gina Reduto, evp of strategy, advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal
  
• Roku Showrooms are interactive branded content hubs with full-screen video ads that allow viewers to explore product details and make purchases. Viewers can click through a virtual product catalog, and showrooms can include checkout options. They can also be used to retarget viewers who have already watched a video ad.
  
• “We see autos really investing there as more of a virtual showroom to see different configurations of the car, different models, and features and formats to the car. Think of it as a beautiful interactive ad format that you can click into and explore more of the car. Auto is a good example, but certainly not the only vertical investing there. But it is one where we think the big, beautiful TV experience and the intuitiveness of our remote allows [a brand] to provide that infrastructure, [with consumers] spending more time getting to know certain products.” — Sarah Harms, vp of ad marketing and measurement at Roku