Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Streaming TV is really popular.

Sounds obvious, right? Once a nascent technology dominated by Netflix and Hulu, today’s streaming landscape reached new heights in recent years—bolstered by pandemic-driven viewing habits. Now there are hundreds of channels, with major media companies creating their own Netflix competitors—from Max to Disney+ to Peacock and beyond.

This rapid acceleration in viewership and new streaming players has created massive market fragmentation that the old TV targeting and measurement methods can’t tackle. The performance marketing mindset of search and social now offers a solution—one that’s also applicable to TV.

Adapting audience-first targeting

Traditional TV drove brand awareness, dominated by big brands with big budgets casting a wide net to capture audience attention. As the streaming landscape matures and fragments, viewers are frequently dropping and signing up for new services to catch must-see content in a habit called “churn and burn.” In fact, 59% of consumers say they’re willing to participate in this behavior after watching their desired content on a platform, according to a survey by LG Ad Solutions.

Performance marketing connected TV (CTV) platforms offer precision audience targeting. This lets advertisers focus on outcomes with the most interested audiences—regardless of when, where, or what they’re watching. This method prioritizes the viewer—not the streaming service’s walled garden. Look for a premium CTV platform with supply partnerships with high-quality private marketplaces, preferred pricing on premium inventory, and a focus on showing ads on the largest screen in the house for maximum impact (aka the big TV in your living room).

Combining ingredients eliminates wasting ad dollars on uninterested audiences and time buying inventory for each service.

Maximizing measurement

With so many viewers hopping across multiple channels, it’s not enough to just target them—you have to measure the outcomes, too. Premium CTV ad platforms provide performance marketing measurement, giving you one single source of truth to track and measure performance across the entire CTV landscape. For instance, MNTN Performance TV’s proprietary Verified Visits™ attribution, now integrated with Rockerbox’s measurement platform, lets advertisers accurately assess the influence of their CTV campaigns on conversions and revenue alongside other marketing channels.

Other performance marketing measurement strategies to address CTV marketing fragmentation include customizable reporting, Google Analytics integration, geo-based performance, A/B testing, incrementality reporting, keyword reporting, and real-time transparent measurement. These features turn TV into a performance marketing powerhouse that can rival or surpass search and social.

The future of TV and performance advertising

CTV has reshaped TV advertising, and as a digital channel, it never stops evolving—or fragmenting. Advertisers can stay ahead of fragmentation issues with data-driven, audience-first strategies focused on outcomes, not channels. With a performance marketing mindset and the right ad platform, you’ll maximize CTV today—and prepare for tomorrow.

Download EMARKETER’s new report, “Digital Video Forecast and Trends Q1 2025,” compliments of MNTN, to learn more about the factors shaping consumer video habits and streamers’ revenue models.