What CTV growth means for adtech infrastructure
Connected TV (CTV) advertising brings digital advertising to television screens through smart TVs, streaming devices, and streaming services. Like display advertising, it gives advertisers a way to reach specific audiences. But the two formats place different demands on infrastructure.
Display ads generally use smaller files and less bandwidth. CTV advertising uses video files, requires more bandwidth, and makes buffering or slow delivery much more noticeable. For adtech teams expanding into CTV, infrastructure planning should account for more than serving more ads.
With DMEXCO coming up, now is a good time for your team to look at whether your infrastructure can support growing CTV workloads while maintaining performance and managing costs.
Why CTV has different infrastructure demands
CTV has different infrastructure demands because it often involves a real-time automated auction, so the ad has to be selected and delivered as quickly as possible. Slow network paths, limited bandwidth, or inconsistent compute performance can create delays throughout the process.
With CTV, performance issues are harder for viewers to ignore. In streaming video, delays and buffering are much more noticeable because they interrupt content people are eager to watch.
Teams adding CTV to their advertising mix need to plan for the demands that come with supporting growing video traffic.
How to plan for CTV demand
To plan for CTV demand, you need the right levels of compute, storage, and bandwidth. How much may depend on what you are streaming. A channel that delivers pre-programmed TV or reruns may have consistent everyday traffic. Live sports, major streaming events, and large campaigns can create sudden increases in CTV traffic. Waiting until traffic starts causing slowdowns can leave adtech teams trying to add resources at the last minute and during peak demand. Rushed changes can increase the risk of configuration errors, added latency, or inconsistent performance.
Capacity planning should account for everyday traffic and expected spikes. That includes reviewing how quickly resources can be added, where workloads are running, and whether network capacity can keep up as CTV activity grows.
How CTV growth affects infrastructure costs
More video traffic and greater bandwidth requirements mean higher infrastructure costs. Teams need to consider how much added capacity costs and how often it will be needed.
Different workloads require different infrastructure setups. Dedicated infrastructure can provide predictable access to compute and bandwidth - ideally suitable for ev ryday traffic, while cloud resources can offer flexibility when workloads change - ideally suited for live events. You may benefit from combining dedicated and cloud infrastructure rather than relying on a single infrastructure model for every workload.
The right setup depends on traffic patterns, bandwidth requirements, geographic reach, and how quickly capacity needs to change. Regular reviews can help teams see whether their infrastructure and costs are keeping up with growth.
Preparing for what comes next
As your CTV advertising grows, keep an eye on latency, bandwidth, available capacity, and cost. CTV may use many of the same programmatic tools as display advertising, but video delivery requires more data and puts more pressure on performance.
Servers.com by Nexcess will be at DMEXCO on September 23–24 at booth C028 in Hall 06.1, where we can help you find infrastructure solutions to improve performance, support growth, and manage costs.
About Servers.com by Nexcess
Servers.com by Nexcess is a bare metal infrastructure platform built for streaming media teams. It operates 28 ISO-certified data centers across the US, EU, UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong. 18,000+ devices deployed. 1,000+ partnerships. Average support response under 15 minutes.
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