CTV campaign budgets

Set a CTV campaign budget by separating the total spending ceiling into creative, media, measurement and any reserve. Define the Australian audience, TV-screen inventory, dates and reporting you need, then ask sellers to forecast the buy against that brief. A CPM or minimum spend quoted without those details is a poor basis for approval.

Put the budget in market context

IAB Australia’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report puts Australian video advertising at $5.4 billion in 2025, growing close to 20% year on year. IAB Australia describes big-screen viewing across smart TVs, connected devices and streaming apps as an area where brand, retail and performance budgets are converging.

IAB Australia and Ipsos report more than 22.5 million Australians aged 14+ are online each month, and 96% were online yesterday. Smart TVs are in around 70% of households. These figures describe the broader market; they are not a forecast of the audience or delivery available to an individual campaign.

Key Australian CTV Market Statistics

Build the spending plan

Ask for the total amount the advertiser will pay, including the treatment of currency and tax. A buying platform’s budget may use a different cost basis from the proposal or invoice. Reconcile the platform setting with the commercial agreement.

Price the proposed buy

Give sellers the same locations, dates, audience, TV-device requirement, creative length and permitted inventory. Mark each impression figure as committed delivery, a forecast or an opportunity to bid. Those are different offers even if their quoted CPMs look alike.

Detailed normalisation of quoted CPMs is covered in the supporting article; for approval, ask for the total amount the advertiser will pay and confirm which charges each figure covers.

For illustration, a hypothetical ceiling could allocate a share to creative, measurement and an uncommitted reserve, leaving the balance for media and included buying costs. The seller must establish whether eligible inventory can supply the proposed volume.

Set the approval questions

Before comparing proposals, state what the campaign is meant to achieve and what evidence would make the investment useful. IAB Australia’s Video Measurement Framework groups video assessment into delivery quality, brand impact and sales outcomes, and notes campaigns are assessed using a mix of metrics rather than a single measure.

Ask each seller to specify which of those assessment areas its proposal can support, what reporting is included and what would require a paid study. Make the reporting requirement part of the brief, so proposals can be compared on the same basis rather than treating measurement as an unplanned extra after media has been approved.

The framework identifies attention measurement, brand lift studies, attribution, incrementality testing and marketing mix modelling as methodologies used to assess video performance. The approval decision need not include all of them: identify the method relevant to the campaign question and confirm whether its cost sits within the proposed measurement line.

For a campaign across multiple partners, ask how reporting will be aligned across the proposed environments. Put that alignment requirement in the brief and confirm whether it is included in the measurement line or needs separate funding.

Record any condition attached to approval: for example, whether the media amount is approved only with the stated reporting, or whether a measurement option needs separate approval. This keeps a change in evidence requirements visible as a budget decision, rather than allowing an unpriced requirement to emerge after booking.

The brief should also identify the relevant big-screen environments at a high level. IAB Australia describes the CTV landscape as spanning broadcaster BVOD services, global and local streaming platforms, and other big-screen environments; a seller’s proposal should make clear which parts of that broad landscape it covers.

CTV Campaign Measurement Methods in Australia

Check the forecast and approve

Impressions are ad deliveries, not unique households or viewers. Request estimated reach with its unit, average frequency, inventory coverage and assumptions. Do not add publishers’ separate unique-reach estimates without a method for overlap. Forecastability still depends on the actual plan and eligible inventory.

Record the spending ceiling, included and excluded charges, creative deliverables, dates, delivery commitment, substitution rules and reporting method before booking. Give changes to the budget an approval owner.

During the flight, compare spend and delivery with that scope; investigate creative acceptance, inventory eligibility, targeting and pacing before increasing the budget. At close, report creative and media costs separately and judge the result against the campaign’s original question and measurement limits.