CTV, Retail Media, or Audio? Where Marketing Leaders Are Scaling Programmatic.
Published by Spinutech on August 29, 2025
For enterprise marketing leaders, the real budget debate isn’t, “Where should we spend?”
It’s, “Where does the next $1 million still deliver efficiency at scale?”
Search and Meta remain table stakes, but for many brands, those ecosystems are close to maxed out. That’s why high-potential programmatic channels like Retail Media Networks (RMNs), Connected TV (CTV), and Programmatic Audio are now taking center stage.
The shift isn’t about chasing shiny objects. It’s about moving into channels where control, transparency, and scale can compound. And leading brands are treating these investments less like experiments and more like infrastructure.
Retail Media Networks: Not Low-Hanging Fruit, But Still Strategic
RMNs aren’t the effortless performance play they were a few years ago. But for retail and eCommerce brands, they remain a non-negotiable piece of the funnel.
The value is real: Loyalty activations, in-cart visibility, and amplification of owned channels. But the leaders leaning into RMNs are doing it differently:
- Benchmarking mROI to identify oversaturation before dollars are wasted
- Prioritizing partners with cleaner inventory and transparent reporting
- Using clean rooms and cohort-based targeting to unlock smarter 1P data usage
- Watching partnerships like Amazon + Roku that reduce OTT CPMs while improving addressability
The strategic reminder here: RMNs are rented access. Without disciplined data strategy and spend controls, inflated CPMs and murky attribution quickly erode value.
CTV: The Most Powerful Screen in the House
CTV is foundational to your paid media strategy. With ad-supported streaming expanding and better access to first-party data, CTV now blends reach with surgical precision.
Top brands are scaling here because they can:
- Deploy sequential messaging powered by CRM signals
- Retarget lapsed users or high-value accounts with tailored creative
- Track measurable lift across awareness, consideration, and conversion
- Leverage interactive formats that increase recall and mid-funnel engagement
But leaders are also drawing a hard line: Open-market CTV is a non-starter. At scale, quality, placement, and audience data are too unreliable. PMPs are the only safe path.
Audio’s Quiet Power: Brand-Led Performance
Programmatic audio is still underutilized, but it’s proving to be a high-trust, high-recall channel when layered correctly.
Top-performing strategies include:
- Sponsoring niche-relevant podcast hosts for contextual credibility
- Using dynamic ad insertion to tailor mid-funnel messaging
- Pairing audio with display or native ads for cross-channel lift
Audio excels in “lean-in” moments — commutes, workouts, household routines — where attention is high and clutter is low. Leaders aren’t using it as a standalone engine, but as a reinforcement layer that compounds impact.
Rethinking Performance Ceilings & Budget Allocation
Before pouring another million dollars into any one ecosystem, top marketers are asking three hard questions:
- Channel Capacity: Are we still seeing incremental returns, or are we just saturating?
- Incrementality: Is this driving net-new demand, or reshuffling existing intent?
- Operational Readiness: Does the team have the tools, creative, and reporting needed to run at scale?
These checkpoints are the difference between compounding performance and compounding waste.
Decisioning Framework: Where Should Your Next $1M Go?
Enterprise Brands Aren’t Chasing Channels. They’re Reframing Scale.
The real programmatic advantage isn’t access. It’s control, context, and the ability to compound results across ecosystems.
Without a performance floor, a feedback loop, and cross-channel alignment, dollars don’t scale. They scatter.
Want a second set of eyes on your channel mix? Spinutech audits full-funnel programmatic strategies for ROI, creative readiness, and scale potential. Let’s talk.