The arguments for and against CTV in 2026 B2B marketing budgets | MarTech

I’ve written extensively about CTV, often to help marketers recognize when the channel isn’t the right investment. While CTV remains relatively underutilized in B2B, interest is growing as brands begin planning their 2026 marketing budgets.

In recent months, the number of questions from B2B marketers assessing whether CTV deserves a place in those plans has noticeably increased. This shift raises a practical question: under what circumstances does CTV make sense for B2B in 2026 – and when not?

Why B2B brands should invest in CTV

It’s a hedge against inflated CPAs

CTV isn’t cheap. You pay a lot for premium impressions. But building awareness on a highly engaging storytelling platform is a great way to mitigate the ever-rising CPCs and CPAs on highly saturated bottom-funnel channels like Google and, to some extent, Meta.

There are still benefits to early adoption

Compared to cost inflation on platforms like Google and Meta, CTV’s CPMs have remained relatively staticeven as canal spending increases. Since the channel’s stock still has room for growth, this trend is likely to continue. Advertisers who are willing to take the plunge and invest now will jump in while the costs are relatively affordable.

Less competition = huge opportunities

The power users of CTV tend to be D2C and B2C brands, not B2B. That makes sense considering that CTV is already a bit more difficult to measure than channels that are more direct response, and B2B’s longer multi-person sales cycle further adds to the complexity.

But that also leaves room for aggressive B2B brands to differentiate themselves from the competition and shape the purchasing journey of their most valuable users from the start. (In B2B, the wisdom is that 95% of your audience has no intention of purchasing anything at any time.)

Dig Deeper: 4 CTV Challenges for B2B and How to Overcome Them

Shaky economies offer an opportunity to gain market share

During the economic downturn of early 2010, several now well-known brands accelerated their growth by continuing to invest while competitors withdrew. Periods of uncertainty tend to reduce competitive pressure and soften media costs, creating openings for advertisers willing to spend their money in a disciplined manner rather than retreating.

With 2026 shaping up as a potentially turbulent economic environment, similar dynamics could emerge. Prudent spending across industries can suppress CTV CPMs, leaving room for B2B brands willing to invest strategically and take advantage of reduced competition.

CTV is relatively privacy safe

CTV is never based on cookies. It can thrive with other, more privacy-safe identifiers, including contextual targeting and first-party data. IP address targeting (which is effective with CTV) is more of a gray area, as it doesn’t explicitly target individuals.

Should IP targeting finally fall out of favor due to upcoming regulations, contextual targeting will serve as a useful proxy that stays on the right side of privacy guidelines.

It’s great for product/service launches, rebranding, and updated positioning

B2B creation and positioning can be a significant challenge because it is somewhat removed from the human-to-human connection (think of how hard Salesforce has to try with the Matthew McConaughey commercials), but CTV provides an immersive platform to deliver relatively nuanced messages in unskippable formats.

For high-stakes events such as the launch of new products or services, advertisers looking to make an impression would do well to consider a more engaging environment than, for example, LinkedIn videos that default to mute settings.

Both involvement and audience volume are growing

All volume-related characters are targeted for CTV, whether a steady increase in user engagement and recall or the sheer number of CTV viewers (now estimated to be higher in the US than linear TV users). Where users flock, advertisers will follow and costs will rise as competition increases.

Dig Deeper: How to Use CTV to Power Your ABM Strategy

Why B2B brands should hesitate to invest in CTV

CTV is definitely more complicated than lower-funnel performance channels. This poses challenges for brands whose marketing foundations are not in order. If any of these circumstances apply, think twice before dipping a toe and getting poor results that make you hesitant to invest in the future.

It is not clear to you how to measure CTV

If you’re used to the performance marketing world of lead generation and demand capture, you may be speaking a bit of an unfamiliar language with CTV, which is often best assessed with geo-lift testing and by measuring impact on other channels.

Without that understanding (and without setting those expectations for those with the financial resources), your CTV efforts will likely be short-lived.

Dig Deeper: How to Assess CTV’s Impact on Other Advertising Channels

If you want to generate leads and pipelines in the short term and are within striking distance of target CPAs on Google, LinkedIn, or Meta, optimize those channels to their full potential before devoting time and budget to the relatively long term CTV.

You haven’t optimized your CRM instance or custom data segments

First-party data plays a central role in B2B CTV campaigns. It supports audience segmentation for different messaging and positioning, enables more precise targeting via DSPs, and is often required when working with platforms like The Trade Desk or LiveRamp that rely on CTV-specific identifiers.

Only contextual targeting can work in a limited number of cases, but limits flexibility and increases risk. Given the inherent complexity of CTV, most B2B brands are better served by entering the channel with a strong data base.

You have not yet completely defined your ideal customer profile

If you’re not sure who your highest value audiences are, don’t spend money on CTV yet. This is good advice for any channel and in any industry, but it’s especially relevant to the CTV-B2B intersection, which offers a combination of storytelling impact and precision targeting that is diluted without an accurate understanding of your ICP’s key challenges and pain points.

You don’t know how to communicate campaign expectations to your C-suite

Few CFOs or CMOs are willing to approve a significant budget without a clear understanding of expected returns. Without upfront coordination, there is a risk that CTV investments will be shifted to channels with a more immediate return, especially if their impact on other channels is not clearly communicated or measured.

CTV is best approached as a long-term investment, with management buy-in and a measurement framework that reflects its role throughout the customer journey before meaningful spend occurs.

Dig deeper: why impression-based advertising will redefine search results and CTV

The CTV opportunity for B2B in 2026

For B2B brands with strong foundations, CTV offers a compelling mix of big-screen storytelling and digitally precise targeting. Its relatively low adoption within the vertical market leaves a lot of room for differentiation, especially for marketers willing to approach the channel with long-term intent rather than short-term expectations.

At the same time, rushing to CTV without the ability to measure, optimize and communicate impact is a common and costly mistake. Many otherwise capable programmatic efforts fail not because the channel is underperforming, but because the supporting infrastructure and expectations are misaligned. In B2B, where buying cycles are long and decisions involve multiple stakeholders, that challenge becomes even greater, but with the right measurement framework and organizational willingness, it remains worth taking on.