Choosing a TV ad agency now means asking where your streaming impressions actually come from.
Key Highlights
- A TV ad agency should plan linear and connected TV (CTV) together, not as separate buys
- The supply path behind an agency’s CTV buys affects cost, targeting, and fraud risk
- Ask how the agency sources inventory, verifies sellers, and reports by app and publisher
- Fee transparency matters as much as CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
- Agencies using curated private marketplace (PMP) deals usually deliver cleaner, better-targeted CTV
Use the seven questions below to vet any agency before you sign.
What a TV Ad Agency Should Do Today
A modern TV ad agency plans, buys, and measures television across linear and streaming.
Many still lead with creative production or broadcast buying. That’s useful, but it leaves CTV, the fastest-moving part of TV, as an afterthought.
The right partner treats TV media buying as one plan, with streaming bought programmatically and measured against business outcomes. Our guides on how to buy television advertising and OTT vs. CTV cover the basics.
Questions About Inventory Access
Start with where the impressions come from.
Where does your CTV inventory come from?
Ask which publishers, apps, and supply-side platforms (SSPs) the agency buys through. A strong answer names premium streaming apps and explains how directly they buy.
Do you buy through open exchange or curated deals?
Open exchange CTV is cheaper upfront but carries more reseller hops and spoofing risk. Curated PMP deals give you known supply and stronger signal.
Can you secure premium content like live sports?
Live sports and tentpole events sell out fast. Ask how the agency packages them and how early they lock in inventory.
Questions About Data and Targeting
Targeting claims are easy, so ask how they work in practice.
How do you target audiences on CTV?
Look for a mix of first-party data, contextual signals, and household-level identity. Ask what match rates they typically see for client audiences. Our guide to CTV audience targeting explains what good looks like.
How do you verify sellers and prevent fraud?
A credible agency checks sellers against ads.txt files and sellers.json files, and avoids unauthorized resellers. Ask what happens when a seller can’t be verified. This is the core of supply path optimization for CTV.
Questions About Reporting and Fees
Reporting and fees reveal whether the agency is working for you or for its margin.
What will your reports show?
Ask for delivery by app, publisher, and deal, not just total impressions. You should also see frequency and outcome metrics like site visits or conversions, tied to the CTV goals you set up front.
How are you paid?
Get the full fee structure in writing: agency fee, platform fees, data fees, and any media markups. Agencies that hide this usually hide supply path costs too.
Red Flags When Choosing a TV Ad Agency
Some answers should end the conversation.
Watch for:
- Vague answers about where CTV inventory comes from
- Reports that only show impressions and completion rates
- Bundled fees with no line-item breakdown
- No plan for measuring outcomes beyond reach
How Curation Raises the Bar
The best agencies don’t just buy more streaming impressions: they buy better ones.
That’s where we come in. Our Ichiro curation platform curates CTV supply on the sell side, across SSPs, and enriches bid requests with audience and contextual data before the auction.
Agencies activate those curated PMP deals in the demand-side platform (DSP) they already use. As a result, their clients get cleaner supply paths, stronger targeting, and ready-made packages for live sports and political campaigns.
The Bottom Line
A good TV ad agency can explain exactly where your streaming budget goes.
Ask about inventory, data, verification, reporting, and fees before you sign. If an agency answers clearly and buys through curated deals, you’re in good hands.
Whether you’re a brand vetting partners or an agency upgrading its CTV supply, talk to our team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a TV ad agency do?
A TV ad agency plans, buys, and measures television advertising for brands. That includes negotiating linear airtime, buying connected TV (CTV) inventory programmatically, managing targeting and frequency, and reporting results. Some agencies also produce commercials, while others focus only on media. Clarify which services you need first, so you compare proposals on the same scope.
Should I hire a TV ad agency or buy CTV directly?
It depends on your budget and in-house expertise. Self-serve platforms work for testing on a single publisher, but they limit reach and reporting. A TV ad agency adds planning across linear and streaming, access to premium inventory, and cross-platform measurement. If CTV is becoming a core channel, an agency buying through curated deals usually delivers better efficiency.
What is the difference between a TV ad agency and a CTV advertising agency?
A TV ad agency traditionally focuses on broadcast and cable, sometimes including creative production. A CTV advertising agency specializes in streaming inventory bought programmatically, with household-level targeting and digital-style reporting. Many agencies now do both. The real question is whether streaming gets planned as part of one TV strategy or added onto a linear buy.
Jake Gardner
The founder and CEO of Splash Bay Media, Jake has over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and ad tech. He’s built, scaled, and exited high-performance teams, products, and data-driven solutions that help advertisers and media partners succeed in an increasingly complex digital landscape. At Splash Bay, he leads the company’s strategic vision and growth, focusing on innovative traffic-shaping solutions, advanced analytics, and transparent supply-path optimization to drive efficiency, performance, and scale. He works closely across marketing, sales, client services, product, and finance to ensure we deliver measurable results and long-term value for our clients.
