December 30, 2025
20
minutes read
Smart TV advertising is quickly turning the TV homescreen into some of the most valuable ad real estate in your media plan, as Samsung, LG and Google TV replace set-top boxes as the default way people stream. In this guide, we’ll unpack how smart TV ads work, where they fit in the CTV ecosystem, and how to use them as a genuine performance channel — not just a branding add-on.
Over the past few years, Smart TVs have taken over as the default way US households stream video. In mid-2024, 67.5 million US households were using Smart TVs, making them the most popular CTV device in connected homes.
That shift matters for marketers. When a viewer turns on a Samsung, LG or Google TV set, they don’t start in a specific app. They land on an operating system (OS) homescreen that controls what they see first, how they discover content, and which ads appear before any show or movie starts. For advertisers, that homescreen is now a premium surface, not just a utility menu.
At the same time, CTV audiences keep growing. In 2024, around 233.9 million people in the US watched CTV, across roughly 115 million households. Smart TV platforms sit right in the middle of that growth, combining:
💡 If you want a refresher on the broader TV mix, AI Digital’s guide to TV advertising walks through how linear, CTV and streaming fit together.
In the rest of this guide, we’ll focus specifically on Smart TV advertising: what it is, how it works, the main ad formats and platforms, the realities of measurement and fragmentation, and how a Smart TV–focused partner can turn this complexity into performance.
⚡ Smart TVs turned the TV menu into premium media real estate. That first screen is now one of the most influential placements in a CTV campaign.
Smart TV advertising is the practice of buying ad placements that are delivered directly through the TV’s native operating system, not just through individual streaming apps.
In concrete terms, that means ad inventory running on platforms such as:
These operating systems control the homescreen, the app grid, recommendation rails, search, and often a built-in free streaming service (FAST). Smart TV advertising taps into all of that.
Two important distinctions:
💡 If you want a broader CTV refresher, the AI Digital guides on connected TV advertising and streaming TV advertising give useful context on how app-level buying works across devices.
Within the CTV universe, Smart TV is a subset with special privileges.
Every Smart TV is a CTV device. Not every CTV device is a Smart TV.
Why Smart TV matters so much inside CTV:
Think of Smart TV advertising as a highly strategic slice of CTV: it doesn’t replace app-level CTV buying, but it adds OS-controlled inventory and data that can shift performance.
Smart TV advertising differs from traditional linear TV in several important ways: targeting, control, formats, and measurement.
When you compare Smart TV ads with linear TV, targeting is the first big shift. Both reach living-room audiences, but they do it in very different ways.
This means you can, for example, target households that haven’t seen your linear TV spots or retarget viewers who watched a competitor’s ad, based on ACR signals.
⚡ The biggest shift is moving from buying programs to buying people and households.
The viewing experience also changes once the TV is connected. Smart TV platforms add new surfaces and formats that simply do not exist in a traditional break:
We’ll unpack these formats in more depth later, but the key point is: Smart TV lets you reach viewers before they choose what to watch, not just inside ad breaks.
This is where the gap becomes obvious:
Smart TV platforms sit at the heart of that shift. Because they use deterministic device IDs and can tie exposures to outcomes (site visits, app installs, even retail activity in some cases), TV stops being a purely upper-funnel channel and starts behaving more like paid social or programmatic.
For a deeper comparison of the two worlds, you can pair this guide with AI Digital’s article on CTV vs linear TV.
⚡ Smart TV advertising keeps the impact of a 55-inch screen, but gives you the control and accountability of digital.
Smart TV platforms deliver ads through the operating system itself as well as through OS-owned apps. That delivery chain looks a little different from web or mobile.
The Smart TV OS controls what appears on:
When you buy Smart TV ads at the OS level, you’re reserving space in those surfaces. For example:
These impressions are served based on device-level IDs and OS data. They do not rely on browser cookies or mobile ad IDs, which makes them resilient to privacy and ID changes.
Most Smart TV OS owners now operate their own free ad-supported streaming services:
These services behave like any other streaming network, but the OS owner controls both the app and the underlying inventory. For instance, Samsung TV Plus is now a top-five app on Samsung Smart TVs and the leading FAST service on nearly 80 million sets in the US.
Ads here are typically sold programmatically or via platform-direct deals, and they can be bundled with homescreen placements for combined reach and frequency.
Smart TV platforms also plug into wider CTV ad marketplaces:
This is what enables in-app video advertising at scale across dozens or hundreds of streaming publishers on Smart TVs, even when the OS doesn’t own the app.
Under the hood, Smart TVs rely on:
This deterministic identity layer allows:
In short, Smart TV platforms deliver ads through a closed but very precise device-driven workflow, which is why so many marketers now treat Smart TV as a performance channel rather than just TV “extension”.
⚡ Once you understand how the OS serves impressions, Smart TV stops feeling mysterious and starts looking like any other addressable channel.
Once you understand how the OS delivers ads, the next step is picking the right Smart TV ad formats. Each format serves a different purpose in the funnel.
Homescreen placements are the signature Smart TV ad format. They appear on the TV’s main screen as soon as it powers on.
Common variants include:
Why homescreen matters:
Recent data from LG Ad Solutions found that home screen ads on Smart TVs generate an average of 7 seconds of attentive viewing, deliver 16% higher attention retention and score 27% stronger ad ratings compared with standard digital placements; 85% of viewers describe them as clear, informative and brand-building.
That combination of visibility and user acceptance makes homescreen inventory incredibly valuable for:
⚡ If CTV is the new store, the Smart TV homescreen is the end-cap display everyone walks past on their way in.
In-navigation units appear while viewers browse and decide what to watch, rather than when content is playing.
Examples include:
These formats work well when you want to:
Because they are native to the OS UI, in-navigation units feel like part of the browsing experience. The challenge is creative clarity: viewers should understand that a tile is sponsored, and what happens when they click it.
In-app video ads are the bridge between Smart TV advertising and broader CTV advertising.
These are the standard video spots you see when streaming ad-supported content:
Smart TV platforms participate in these buys in two ways:
Why these matter in a Smart TV plan:
Interactive and shoppable Smart TV formats turn TV from a passive medium into an action channel.
Typical interaction models include:
Roku has reported that viewers are five to 10 times more likely to click a shoppable ad with their remote than to scan a QR code, underscoring how powerful remote-based interaction can be.
Campaigns from brands such as Mondelez and Walmart have seen QR-driven CTV ads deliver as much as 10× higher conversions than CTV benchmarks in some cases.
These formats are still early, but they already change how TV fits into the funnel. Instead of waiting for someone to search later, you can:
Several Smart TV ecosystems dominate the US market. Each one brings different scale, data and formats—and, importantly, each feels a bit like its own walled garden.
Here’s a simplified view of the main players.
Roku is the dominant CTV device platform in the US and a major force in Smart TV usage. In Q2 2025, Pixalate reported that Roku led North America with 37% of CTV device market share, ahead of Amazon (17%), Samsung (12%), Apple (12%) and LG (7%). Roku also disclosed over 90 million active accounts globally as of January 2025, with The Roku Channel reaching around 145 million US viewers. That combination of device share and owned content makes Roku one of the largest single CTV advertising environments.
Data – Roku’s strength lies in its platform-level view of streaming behaviour:
Roku also invests heavily in traffic quality. A recent DoubleVerify partnership uses Roku’s Advertising Watermark to authenticate device traffic and has already contributed to a substantial drop in spoofed Roku impressions across the ecosystem.
Formats – Roku offers a broad set of ad types that fall into four main families: native, destination, video and channel ads. In practice, that includes:
These formats are designed to turn passive TV viewing into direct engagement, especially when you pair standard video with remote-based calls to action.
Walled-garden impact – Roku behaves like a platform-centric walled garden:
For Smart TV and CTV planners, Roku is effectively a must-have pillar alongside Samsung and LG: it delivers unmatched device share, a powerful owned channel in The Roku Channel and a mature set of shoppable and interactive ad formats that can anchor a performance-focused TV strategy.
📍 NB: Roku sits slightly differently to Samsung and LG. It isn’t a TV manufacturer first; it is a TV operating system and CTV platform that shows up in two ways: built directly into “Roku TV” sets from OEMs like TCL and Hisense, and as plug-in streaming devices that turn any HDMI TV into a connected screen. For media planning, you can treat Roku as a Smart TV/CTV ecosystem, because the same Roku OS, data and ad stack run across both Roku TVs and Roku streaming devices.
Samsung is the single largest Smart TV manufacturer in US homes. In early 2025, Samsung Ads reported around 67–68 million Samsung Smart TVs in US households, accounting for roughly 32% of all Smart TVs and present in 45% of US Smart TV homes.
Samsung’s State of CTV insights are built on more than 77 million active Samsung Smart TVs in the US.
Data:
Formats:
💡 You can explore the full offering at Samsung Ads.
Walled-garden impact – Samsung’s richest ACR data and OS-level formats are only available through Samsung Ads and approved partners. For buyers, that means:
According to LG Ad Solutions, the company now reaches around 45 million LG Smart TVs in the US and roughly 200 million globally.
Its FAST service, LG Channels, offers over 4,000 channels worldwide, built through partnerships with networks such as A+E, AMC and NBCUniversal.
Data:
Formats:
💡 Learn more at LG Ad Solutions.
Walled-garden impact – LG is more open to programmatic access than some peers: in several markets, LG has enabled home screen inventory to be bought programmatically via SSPs. Even so, premium placements and ACR-powered segments still sit inside LG’s own platform. Buyers typically:
Google TV and Android TV power Smart TVs and streaming devices from Sony, TCL, Hisense, Nvidia and others. While Google doesn’t publish a single US-only number for TV OS penetration, its influence comes from two fronts:
Data:
Formats:
💡 You can see consumer-facing information on Google TV; for advertisers, YouTube and Google Ads / DV360 provide the buying surface.
Walled-garden impact – YouTube and Google TV behave like a hybrid:
💡 For Smart TV–specific advertising, Google TV is most often part of a wider Google video strategy, where you co-ordinate YouTube, YouTube TV and partner inventory.
Beyond those four, several other platforms are critical for CTV reach and should sit alongside Smart TV OS buying:
In practice, your Smart TV advertising plan usually combines:
Smart TV advertising is powerful, but it comes with real operational challenges. Being honest about these helps shape a practical strategy.
The Smart TV and CTV market is split across many operating systems and devices:
On top of that, households often own multiple devices: a Samsung Smart TV in the living room, a Roku TV in the bedroom, and a Fire TV stick on a projector.
For marketers, that creates three issues:
⚡ Fragmentation isn’t going away — the real advantage comes from how well you manage it, not from hoping it disappears.
Homescreen placements are high-impact and scarce. Smart TV OEMs protect them:
This means:
Brands that don’t plan ahead or work with specialist partners may struggle to secure these units at all.
Each Smart TV ecosystem has its own:
While OEMs share high-level insights, detailed ACR or user-level data is usually kept inside the garden. For example, Samsung’s competitive ACR insights are used to plan and optimize campaigns but are not sold as an external data feed.
Consequences:
Industry initiatives are improving this, and measurement tools increasingly incorporate ACR and cross-device graphs. But right now, CTV and Smart TV analytics still require stitching together multiple data sources.
Smart TVs collect sensitive viewing data. Many devices use ACR to log everything that appears on the screen, including linear channels and HDMI inputs. That has prompted:
Modern Smart TV ad strategies must respect:
From a marketer’s perspective, this means:
Finally, many brands still repurpose linear TV spots for Smart TV environments without adapting them.
That’s a missed opportunity because:
A 30-second masterpiece built for broadcast can absolutely run in Smart TV environments, but it will work harder if you pair it with:
⚡ The best Smart TV campaigns don’t just buy better inventory. They design creative that respects how people actually use their TV.
Given all that complexity, most brands do better when they partner with a Smart TV–focused specialist rather than trying to wrangle every platform in-house.
Here’s how the right partner helps.
A Smart TV partner that has pre-existing integrations with Samsung Ads, LG Ad Solutions, Roku, Amazon, Google TV and major AVOD/FAST publishers can:
💡 AI Digital’s AI-powered planning and Elevate platform help orchestrate campaigns across CTV (including Smart TV environments) and the rest of your digital media, rather than locking you into a single DSP or walled garden.
Because Smart TV partners work with OEMs and platforms regularly, they can:
In practice, that might look like:
Smart TV partners typically have:
Applied correctly, that data can:
💡 Learn more about AI-targeted advertising in our dedicated guide.
A capable Smart TV partner will help you:
This work is much easier when someone is already fluent in Samsung’s reporting, LG’s dashboards, Roku’s measurement options and the nuances of each.
Finally, a Smart TV-savvy partner will not just traffic your existing ads. They’ll help you:
AI Digital combines Elevate’s AI-driven optimization with CTV/OTT performance data to iterate on creatives and placements during a campaign, so Smart TV activity is adjusted in-flight instead of being reviewed only at the end.
⚡ A Smart TV partner turns scattered OS placements, FAST inventory and data feeds into one coherent TV performance engine.
Smart TV advertising has moved far beyond being a novelty. Smart TVs are now the leading CTV device in US connected homes, and their operating systems control the first impression viewers see on the big screen.
For marketers, that creates a powerful combination:
Smart TV advertising is not the whole of CTV, but it has become one of its most strategic components. It’s where you can influence choice before a viewer picks a show, and where you can connect traditional TV storytelling with shoppable journeys and cross-device attribution.
Brands that invest in Smart TV now—homescreen and navigation units, CTV video, and interactive formats—are effectively building the next generation of TV plans. Those plans reach high-value streaming audiences, deliver accountable results, and create a data spine that can support the rest of the media mix.
If you want help turning Smart TV into a core part of your growth engine, explore AI Digital’s what we do overview and see how TV, data and AI come together in one environment.
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Inefficiency
Description
Use case
Description of use case
Examples of companies using AI
Ease of implementation
Impact
Audience segmentation and insights
Identify and categorize audience groups based on behaviors, preferences, and characteristics
Automated ad campaigns
Automate ad creation, placement, and optimization across various platforms
Brand sentiment tracking
Monitor and analyze public opinion about a brand across multiple channels in real time
Campaign strategy optimization
Analyze data to predict optimal campaign approaches, channels, and timing
Content strategy
Generate content ideas, predict performance, and optimize distribution strategies
Personalization strategy development
Create tailored messaging and experiences for consumers at scale
Smart TV advertising is usually priced on a CPM model and generally sits above standard display but in line with premium CTV or high-quality video. Homescreen takeovers and hero units are the most expensive, often sold as fixed packages or high CPM bursts, while in-app video and navigation units are more flexible and can be bought programmatically. The real cost question is efficiency: when you factor in tighter targeting and less waste than broad linear TV, many brands find Smart TV delivers a lower effective cost per incremental reach or conversion, even if the headline CPM looks higher.
Yes, as long as they’re selective. Small businesses usually get the most value from geo-targeted or audience-targeted CTV buys on Smart TVs rather than chasing national homescreen takeovers. A local service or e-commerce brand can use programmatic CTV to reach specific postcodes or interest groups on Smart TV devices, then track site visits, form fills or calls driven by those impressions. Partnering with a media or tech provider that already has Smart TV access helps smaller budgets punch above their weight.
Fragmentation means your audience is spread across several operating systems, devices and apps, so no single Smart TV platform can deliver full coverage. In practice, you end up planning across Samsung, LG, Roku, Fire TV, Google TV and key streaming apps, then stitching those buys together. The impact is twofold: you need to manage overlap so you don’t hammer the same household with too many impressions, and you need a measurement approach that can combine multiple log files into one coherent view of reach, frequency and outcomes.
They are increasingly close. On Smart TV you can track impressions, reach and frequency at the device or household level, plus video completion and, in many cases, on-site outcomes such as visits, sign-ups, app installs and sales. OEMs and CTV platforms also support lift and incrementality studies using exposure vs control groups. The main difference from web or mobile is that data is locked inside several platforms, so you need a layer—often a partner platform or clean room—to assemble those pieces into a single performance picture.
Strong Smart TV campaigns typically show efficient incremental reach into streaming-first or light-linear audiences, healthy frequency (enough to be remembered but not irritating), high completion rates on video, and clear downstream impact on business metrics such as site engagement, leads or sales. Many marketers also look for measurable lift compared with a holdout group and a sustainable cost per outcome (for example, cost per completed view, cost per site visit or cost per incremental sale) that beats or complements their linear TV and other digital channels.
Yes, and that’s where they’re most powerful. Exposure data from Smart TV can feed paid search, social and display retargeting so people who saw your TV ad receive aligned follow-up messages on other devices. You can connect Smart TV campaigns to retail media and marketplaces to see how TV impressions influence product searches and purchases. With the right data connections or clean room, you can even tie Smart TV exposure to your CRM, so TV becomes part of a coordinated customer journey rather than a standalone awareness play.
Advertising on Smart TV combines TV’s big-screen impact with digital-style control and measurement. Instead of broad ratings or cookies, you target households using device-level data and often ACR, then track outcomes like site visits or sales. You also get formats traditional TV and most digital channels can’t offer, such as homescreen takeovers, sponsored tiles and interactive or shoppable ads controlled by the remote.
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