Peter Hamilton shared on LinkedIn that a colleague at Roku told him, “Social ads have a distinct advantage because advertisers are already on their platforms.” It sounds obvious, but it reveals something important about why CTV still feels unfamiliar for many brands.

The Built-In Scaffolding of Social

In social and mobile, performance marketers start with home field advantage.

They already have an account. They already have a presence. Many brands have spent years investing in a native app, user experience, consumer value proposition, and organic messaging.

So when they choose to advertise, they are not starting from a cold position. They are layering paid media on top of something that already has momentum. They know the platform. They know what content works. They understand the audience and the feedback loops. Even if organic reach is modest, the scaffolding already exists.

The Cold-Start Reality of CTV

CTV is a different experience. Outside of media companies, most brands have no native footprint in streaming environments. A household brand like Charmin is not producing sitcoms. There is no channel to follow. No pre-existing presence.

A viewer sees a brand on CTV for one reason. The brand paid to be there.

Every campaign begins from zero. That alone raises the bar for creative, contextual alignment, and the sequencing of messaging across channels. Tools powered by AI are making production easier, but CTV still feels foreign for marketers who did not come up through traditional television.

This makes the current industry shift even more interesting.

Regardless of its challenges, performance marketers are moving into CTV faster than expected. Retail media efforts, stronger attribution with improved identity signals, and QR-based formats are pulling performance budgets into streaming for the first time. The capabilities have matured, yet the mental model has not fully caught up. Many marketers still approach CTV as an upper-funnel channel, even though the measurement and outcomes are starting to resemble other performance environments.

The Open Internet Has Its Own Challenge

While CTV struggles with cold starts, the open internet faces a different friction point.

Brands know how to show up online. The real challenge is protecting the value of each impression in a crowded, unpredictable environment that no one fully controls.

If a buying platform chooses not to serve an ad in a particular moment, the impression does not sit empty. Another platform fills it. Over time, this constant filling of every slot can wear down the audience. The more that space is always occupied, the more desensitized the audience becomes.

Closed ecosystems like Meta do not face this dynamic. If the platform cannot match a relevant ad to a moment, it simply does not serve one. That protects attention inside the walls of the platform. It also gives them full influence over supply, pacing, and visual density.

The open internet never gets that choice. Every opportunity is taken. Every gap is filled. Buyers do not all share the same standards or objectives. That lack of alignment makes it harder to sustain impression value over time.

And this is becoming a larger discussion across the industry.

The impacts of supply quality on the open internet are driving marketers to pay close attention to which SSPs, domains, and inventory paths actually drive outcomes. Not all impressions are created equal, and the rise of MFA detection, publisher-level transparency, and new SSP scorecards is pushing the market toward more intentional buying. Impression value is no longer something to optimize after the fact. It is something you choose upfront through your supply strategy.

How Marketers Can Navigate Both

For marketers and agency buyers, the path forward is less about choosing one channel and more about recognizing the different dynamics at play.

On CTV, the question is how to reduce the cold start.

On the open internet, the question is how to protect the attention you earn.

A few practical ways to think about it:

• Treat CTV like a channel where your creative and measurement need more upfront intention.
• Borrow from social when possible. Familiarity shortens the learning curve.
• Use identity and frequency controls to protect impression value on the open internet.
• Focus on quality inventory and context signals that drive high returns with controlled impressions.
• Build your supply path deliberately so you do not contribute to audience fatigue or low-value placements.

This is not a conclusion. It is a frame of reference. CTV and the open internet both offer meaningful reach, but each operates under a different reality. Anything that makes CTV feel more familiar will help it grow. Anything that brings more control and predictability to open-internet buying will help maintain the value of your impressions.