2026 CTV Predictions With JamLoop: Part One

2025 was another year of monumental growth for Connected TV (and JamLoop). There was a surge of original content, services merged, and major media acquisitions were made. 2026 shows no signs of slowing down, so to help plan for the future we recruited several key players at JamLoop to give their thoughts on what awaits in the new year. 

Q: What Will Surprise the Industry And/Or Advertisers By Q4 2026? Why?

Daniel Patton, VP of Business Operations: How many small local businesses will pile into CTV. Suddenly every local realtor, car dealer, and healthcare clinic will be advertising on streaming, making it feel way less like an exclusive club for national brands. Also: how fast everyone will let AI actually run their campaigns instead of just playing around with it.

Jeff Fagel, Chief Marketing Officer: Everyone will wake up shocked that the “local thing” isn’t cute anymore—it’s the whole game. Because once you show marketers they can control where every impression lands, they stop accepting anything less. It’s like ditching dial-up for high-speed—once you feel the difference, the old way is unacceptable

Bubba Burns, Sr. Director of Sales: Streaming will continue to increase its percentage of viewership versus broadcast/cable viewership combined. Streaming will represent over 60% of viewership.

Daniel Gulick, Head of Product: First-time TV buyers will increase by more than 50% year over year through CTV. We have reduced the barrier to entry and complexity so much that small businesses comfortable with social & search will give CTV a try.

Q: What Metric Would You Kill In 2026? Is There a Smarter Replacement?

Luke Ryan, Director of CTV & AI Strategies: VCR (video completion rates). While important, I love to show results of the campaign as much as possible instead. JamLoop shows view-through campaign conversions, which is a little unique for the industry; others have a high barrier to entry for advanced attribution tracking.

Bubba Burns: Device R&F (reach and frequency) isn’t a metric our clients care much about. The only R&F that matters is unique IP addresses. 

Jeff Fagel: Completed views are the ‘participation trophies’ of ad metrics. We celebrate them even though they don’t explain anything we actually care about. Let’s replace them with, ‘did this do anything useful?’ measured through household-level reach with incremental action—clicks, lift, visits, and sales.

Nick Simonetti, VP of Sales: Advertisers and agencies all use different metrics for different reasons; I wouldn’t kill any.

Q: What Factors Will Most Influence CTV Ad Strategies in 2026, Especially For Local Players?

Nick Simonetti:  Local vendors are much better with CTV than they were two years ago. There’s also a wide array of vendors that specialize in specific verticals—specifically auto, healthcare and home services that include CTV in their omnichannel offering. Local advertisers will demand some sort of “proof” that CTV is working for them, which will drive CTV lower into the funnel and take budgets away from vendors without attribution capabilities.  

Luke Ryan: Proving ROI and ad exposure that drove interest and results. Everyone is in the hot seat right now to prove their campaign is working, and this will increase. I think we will see advertisers giving less credit to Google as a conversion driver once we go from awareness to purchase/appointment near-instantly with personal AI agents and hyper-targeted marketing messaging.

Daniel Gulick: Goal-based campaigns. Why are you advertising? Awareness or performance? How do you quantify awareness beyond “reach?” 

Daniel Patton: Political midterms—prices will spike hard in the fall as campaigns flood in. At the same time, local advertisers are finally understanding that CTV targeting and self-serve tools are way better than linear TV’s broad reach approach, so the shift is accelerating. Better attribution helps prove ROI which unlocks more budget.