As someone building CTV exchange products at InMobi — processing billions of streaming ad impressions across Web and Connected TV — I bring hands-on product experience to CTV 2025 landscape. This is the perspective of someone who has built these systems, not just written about them.
The Technical Foundation
CTV in 2025 represents a critical component of the CTV advertising ecosystem. At InMobi, where I lead exchange product strategy for both Web and CTV, understanding these mechanics at the infrastructure level directly impacts how we design auction logic, manage ad delivery, and optimize publisher revenue. The CTV landscape is evolving rapidly — FAST channels are proliferating, major broadcasters are moving inventory into programmatic, and DSPs like The Trade Desk, DV360, and Amazon DSP are investing heavily in CTV-specific buying capabilities.
Having previously spent four years at Google working with DFP and AdX, and five years building unified monetization at Glance (InMobi Group) across Web, App, and CTV simultaneously, I understand how CTV 2025 landscape fits into the broader programmatic architecture. CTV uses VAST-based video delivery, typically through SSAI (Server-Side Ad Insertion) in premium environments, with OpenRTB bid requests carrying CTV-specific extensions for content metadata, device identification, and ad pod management.
How It Works in Practice
In a CTV programmatic transaction, the streaming application triggers an ad break, generating bid requests through the publisher's ad server (often FreeWheel or Google Ad Manager) or directly through exchange integration. These requests carry rich signals: content genre, episode metadata, device type (smart TV, streaming stick, gaming console), household-level identifiers (IFA), and ad pod specifications including position preference and competitive separation requirements.
At InMobi Exchange, we process these CTV bid requests with specialized auction logic. Unlike display where a single impression is auctioned, CTV ad pods require filling multiple slots in a single commercial break while respecting competitive separation (no competing brands in the same break), frequency caps (limiting how often a household sees the same ad), and position priority (some advertisers pay premium for first position in the pod). This multi-slot optimization is one of the most complex product challenges in our exchange.
The Measurement Question
CTV measurement differs fundamentally from display. Traditional viewability — 50% of pixels in view for one second — is effectively 100% on a TV screen. Instead, CTV measurement focuses on video completion rate (typically 90%+ for CTV mid-rolls), reach and frequency at household level, brand lift studies, and increasingly attention metrics that measure whether the viewer was actually engaged. At InMobi, we integrate with Nielsen, Comscore, IAS, and DoubleVerify for comprehensive CTV verification and measurement.
Cross-screen attribution — connecting a CTV ad view to a mobile search or web purchase — requires sophisticated identity resolution through household graphs and device matching. This is where CTV identity solutions like IFA-based matching, IP-based probabilistic graphs, and deterministic partnerships with data providers become essential. Our exchange supports multiple identity frameworks to maximize addressability for buyers.
Product Strategy and Future Direction
At InMobi, our CTV product strategy focuses on three pillars. First, supply quality: ensuring our CTV inventory is premium, brand-safe, and verified through ads.txt/app-ads.txt and SupplyChain objects. Second, auction intelligence: dynamic floor optimization, demand routing, and pod-level yield management specifically designed for CTV dynamics. Third, measurement integration: passing rich signals in bid requests (content metadata, attention predictions, viewability guarantees) that help DSPs value our CTV inventory accurately.
The future of CTV advertising is bright. By 2030, CTV will likely surpass mobile as the highest-revenue programmatic surface. The exchanges that build the best CTV infrastructure now — robust SSAI integration, intelligent pod management, comprehensive measurement, and transparent supply chains — will lead the market. I am committed to making InMobi Exchange one of those leaders, and this page reflects the depth of product thinking we bring to CTV advertising.
My Perspective
Having scaled monetization to $200M+ revenue at Glance across Web, App, and CTV, I understand the unique challenges and opportunities CTV presents. CTV is not just another programmatic channel — it requires purpose-built infrastructure, different auction mechanics, and new measurement approaches. At InMobi, we are not retrofitting display exchange technology for CTV; we are building CTV-native exchange capabilities from the ground up. If you are building in CTV or evaluating CTV monetization strategies, I have been in the trenches and I know what works. Explore more at adsgupta.com.