Connected TV (CTV) advertising is no longer a niche channel. In 2026, US CTV ad spend is estimated to be over $29 billion. With that much budget in play, choosing the right platform matters, but comparing them isn’t straightforward.
The term “CTV advertising platform” can mean very different things, from demand-side platforms (DSPs), where you actually buy media, to more specialized curation platforms that package and optimize inventory before it reaches a DSP.
Both play an important role depending on what you need and where you are in your CTV advertising journey, but it’s hard to evaluate your options when you don’t know what separates them.
That’s why this review covers what each type of platform does, what to look for, and how to choose the right one for your needs, with each platform below clearly labeled by type so you can cleanly compare them on consistent criteria.
Here is a quick summary of the platforms in this review:
Scroll down for the full reviews, including key features, pros and cons, pricing models and more!
A CTV advertising platform helps advertisers buy, manage, optimize, or curate ad inventory on connected TV. These platforms generally split into two types:
In short, DSPs are where you buy and manage media. Curation platforms help determine which inventory is worth buying.
This video by AdRoll gives a neat overview of CTV and CTV advertising:
The right criteria depend on whether you’re evaluating a DSP or a curation platform, though both overlap on inventory quality and targeting.
For DSPs, look for:
For curation platforms, look for:
For this round-up, we intentionally included a mix of platforms, from full-service DSPs to smaller, curation-focused specialists.
Splash Bay Media is a Los Angeles based CTV curation partner for agencies running programmatic ad buying, working directly with major CTV publishers, FAST channels, and AVOD platforms to skip the usual chain of resellers.
Its AI layer, Brunson, unifies agents, SSPs, publishers, and data partners into one interface for planning and optimizing campaigns.
It also pulls near real-time shopper intent data from 4,000+ websites and roughly 48-50 million monthly visitors, plus dedicated packages for live sports and political campaigns.
Type: Curation / Supply-Path Optimization Platform
Best For: Agencies and brands that want a hands-on curation partner with direct publisher access and vertical-specific packages for sports and political advertising.
One case study credits Splash Bay Media with a 63% revenue increase after adopting Nexxen’s Curated Marketplace, driven by faster access to premium CTV inventory. Read the case study. A client quote on Splash Bay’s own site also credits the team with understanding supply-side inefficiencies before making changes.
Splash Bay Media negotiates custom PMP deals directly with each client, typically priced through bid floors and curation fees layered onto the underlying media cost rather than a flat platform fee.
Website: Splash Bay Media
Audigent is one of the more established names in curation, built around its Hadron ID identity system and PMP products (SmartPMP, ContextualPMP, and CognitivePMP) that package first-party and contextual data with premium inventory.
It supports over 100,000 campaigns a month across publishers like Condé Nast, TransUnion, and Warner Music Group. Its scale, cookieless identity resolution, and Google Ad Manager curation partnership give it reach smaller, newer curators haven’t built out yet.
Type: Curation Platform
Best For: Brands and agencies that need cookieless, identity-based targeting at scale across a broad publisher network.
Pros:
Cons:
Audigent’s SmartPMP products are priced through bid floors plus curation fees rather than a subscription, which the company says removes the bid-shading and unfavorable auction dynamics that come with layered intermediaries.
Audigent’s case studies point to concrete, named-client results. Havas credited Audigent’s SmartPMP approach with outperforming every other partner on Swarovski’s media plan, beating the campaign’s click-through benchmark by roughly 4x. Read the case study (vendor-published, not independently verified).
Website: Audigent
MNTN is a self-serve CTV platform built to make TV advertising function like a performance channel, comparable to running search or social.
It gives advertisers real-time optimization across 50+ variables daily, plus Verified Visits attribution that filters out conversions not directly tied to CTV exposure.
Its creative arm, QuickFrame, now includes QuickFrame AI 3.0, generating studio-quality commercials in minutes so you don’t need existing TV-ready creative to launch.
Type: DSP / Ad-Buying Platform
Best For: DTC and performance-driven brands that want a self-serve entry point into CTV without needing existing TV creative or programmatic experience.
Pros:
Cons:
MNTN uses a dynamic CPM (dCPM) model: you pay for the ads placed on publisher networks, and MNTN keeps a percentage of that spend as its service fee, with no separate platform license fee.
Feedback from MNTN users points to a platform that strips out much of the overhead of traditional agency-run TV buying, with self-service tools and responsive account support making it easy to track conversions day to day. Read reviews on G2.
Website: MNTN
Multilocal offers a single point of contact for programmatic digital advertising across markets, removing the complexity of running campaigns through multiple regional partners.
It’s one of the named partners using Nexxen’s Curated Marketplace alongside Audigent, delivering billions of digital ads annually through partnerships with leading SSPs. Rather than a proprietary AI layer, its edge is operational: simplifying curated deals across countries and supply paths at once.
Type: Curation Platform
Best For: Agencies and brands running programmatic campaigns across multiple countries who want one partner instead of juggling several regional supply relationships.
Pros:
Cons:
As a curation partner operating across multiple regional SSPs, Multilocal’s pricing is negotiated per deal and per market, similar to Audigent and Splash Bay Media.
Multilocal’s own case studies point to real, named results: Coca-Cola lifted click-through rates by 700% in smaller markets (read the case study), and American Express saw a meaningful shift in conversion and engagement performance in Australia (read the case study). Both are vendor-published, not independent reviews.
Website: Multilocal
Roku Ads Manager, built on the OneView platform (formerly Dataxu, acquired by Roku in 2019), gives advertisers access to Roku’s owned-and-operated inventory alongside a broader demand-side platform for cross-channel buying across CTV, display, mobile, and video.
It leans on Roku’s first-party viewing data from millions of connected devices and claims reach into four in five American homes.
Type: DSP / Ad-Buying Platform
Best For: Advertisers who want strong, direct access to Roku’s own inventory and audience data alongside broader cross-channel programmatic buying.
Pros:
Cons:
Roku’s self-serve model, with no long-term contract, lets you set your own campaign budget. Roku bills you based on actual ad spend rather than a separate subscription or platform fee.
Customer feedback consistently highlights ease of use and support quality as strengths, with specific praise for how well the platform handles OTT/CTV buying. Read reviews on G2.
Website: Roku Ads Manager
Simulmedia is a cross-channel TV advertising platform built around its TV+ product, which uses machine learning to unify planning, buying, and measurement across linear and CTV in one workflow.
Its Cross-Channel Insights feature shows how much of a target audience sits on linear TV, ad-supported CTV, or both, and its Reach Optimizer forecasts reach across budget scenarios. It also extends into gaming audiences through PlayerWON, its monetization platform for free-to-play PC and console games.
Type: DSP / Ad-Buying Platform
Best For: Advertisers who want a hybrid of managed service and self-serve buying across both linear and CTV, particularly for reaching audiences harder to find on traditional TV alone.
Pros:
Cons:
Simulmedia operates on a managed-campaign model with a minimum spend threshold. Contact them for a demo and exact pricing.
Independent feedback is currently limited, but the one available review highlights strong communication from account reps, quick to catch and correct campaign errors before they became bigger problems. Read the review on G2.
Website: Simulmedia
SWYM (short for “Stop Wasting Your Money”) takes a different approach to the other curators here. Rather than packaging static PMP deals, it’s an AI-native decisioning layer that sits in the transaction itself, filtering out poor-performing and fraudulent inventory before a bid goes out.
It runs like a standard PMP inside your existing DSP, with no workflow rebuild needed, and has cross-SSP containerized access across partners including Index Exchange, Magnite, and PubMatic.
Type: Curation Platform
Best For: Brands and agencies that want real-time, algorithmic inventory filtering layered on top of their existing DSP rather than a static curated deal.
Pros:
Cons:
Since SWYM runs as a standard PMP inside your existing DSP, its pricing is presumably a fee or margin on the media it optimizes, similar to other curation-layer tools, though the exact mechanism isn’t publicly documented, so you’ll need to contact them for pricing.
Case studies point to a meaningful drop in cost per acquisition after adopting SWYM’s real-time decisioning layer, with no change to underlying audience targeting (read the customer story), and a separate industry awards case study cites a notable lift in return on ad spend from the same approach (read the case study).
Website: SWYM
Tatari is a convergent TV platform for brands and agencies that want to plan, buy, and measure campaigns across linear TV, streaming CTV, and online video from a single dashboard.
It works through direct publisher relationships with networks like NBCU, Disney, and Netflix rather than relying purely on open programmatic supply, and its AI planning engine draws on close to a decade of data to generate plans with predicted outcomes.
Tatari holds 18 patented attribution technologies built for TV measurement, and its clients include Calm, Chime, and Rocket Money.
Type: DSP / Ad-Buying Platform
Best For: Brands and agencies that want unified planning and measurement across linear TV and CTV, not just CTV alone.
Pros:
Cons:
Tatari’s core platform is priced around the media you buy through its direct publisher relationships, with an optional fee for dedicated strategy and media-buying services if you’d rather not run campaigns self-serve. Agencies can also license the platform for white-label use.
Tatari’s client case studies describe the platform making it easy to track and compare performance metrics like CAC and CPA side by side, crediting that visibility with helping teams understand what’s actually working across TV as a channel. Read Tatari’s case studies.
Website: Tatari
tvScientific is built around performance-based CTV buying, letting advertisers purchase inventory on a cost-per-outcome basis rather than paying for impressions alone, with every dollar tied to a result like ROAS, impressions, or purchases.
It combines patented AI optimization with deterministic ID technology, adjusting campaigns automatically as performance data comes in.
Type: DSP / Ad-Buying Platform
Best For: Performance marketers who want to buy CTV strictly on a cost-per-outcome basis and treat TV as a measurable, ROI-driven channel rather than a brand-awareness buy.
Pros:
Cons:
tvScientific operates on a cost-per-outcome (CPO) model, meaning what you pay is tied to results like ROAS, impressions, or purchases rather than a flat CPM. Contact tvScientific for detailed pricing.
Independent commentary describes user sentiment as mixed overall, calling out audience targeting specifically as a strength while suggesting other areas could improve, without detailing exactly what those areas are. Read the comparison.
Website: tvScientific
The choice usually comes down to a few honest questions about your own situation.
Start with your objective. For brand awareness and reach, Simulmedia’s linear-TV crossover or Roku Ads Manager’s owned inventory can help. For performance-focused campaigns, tvScientific and MNTN offer stronger conversion-oriented measurement.
Next, weigh your budget and buying model. Self-serve platforms like MNTN and Roku Ads Manager suit smaller test budgets, while managed-service platforms like Tatari and Simulmedia suit larger campaigns that benefit from hands-on support.
Check each platform’s type. If you already buy through a DSP but want better inventory or supply efficiency, a curation platform like Audigent or SWYM can complement your setup. If you don’t have a DSP relationship yet, start there.
Finally, confirm how conversions are attributed and how reporting compares with your own analytics, then pilot with a modest campaign before committing more budget.
CTV advertising platforms aren’t one-size-fits-all, and the right pick depends on whether you need somewhere to spend your budget, a partner to make that spend go further, or both.
Use the Type label on each entry above to match a platform to the actual job you need done, and don’t be afraid to pilot before committing real budget.
A DSP is where you actually spend your media budget, buying and managing campaigns directly. A curation platform doesn’t spend your budget, it packages premium, data-enriched inventory into deals that you then buy through your DSP, making your existing spend more efficient rather than replacing it.
Self-serve platforms with low minimums and built-in creative tools, like MNTN or Roku Ads Manager, tend to be the easiest entry point, since they don’t require an existing agency relationship, TV-ready creative, or a large managed-service budget commitment.
Not necessarily, but many established advertisers eventually use both. You need a DSP to spend at all. A curation partner is an optional add-on once you’re already spending and want to improve the quality and efficiency of the inventory you’re buying.
CTV refers to the device, any internet-connected television. OTT (over-the-top) refers to the content delivery method, streaming video sent over the internet rather than through traditional broadcast or cable. In practice, OTT content is usually what you’re watching on a CTV device.
IAB: U.S. Digital Video Ad Spend to Surpass $80B in 2026
Adwave: CTV Advertising Market Size Q2 2026
eMarketer: Video Completion Rate (VCR) Industry KPI
IAB UK: Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Jargon Buster
IAB Europe: Guide to Supply Path Optimisation (SPO)
AppsFlyer: Private Marketplace (PMP) Glossary
Wurl: What Is Marketing Attribution?
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