B2B CTV tactics that go beyond brand awareness

B2B connected TV (CTV) is usually positioned as an awareness play. The B2B marketers I talk to are measured on leads and pipeline velocity. Awareness alone won’t hold up in a pipeline review.

CTV is still an emerging channel in B2B marketing, and coverage focuses on its capacity for reach and brand lift. Less attention goes to its targeting capabilities. You can reach people at the companies you sell to on their living room TVs, including accounts not yet in your pipeline.

Here are three ways to use CTV that go beyond awareness. Each builds on audiences or account data you already have.

1. Build CTV around your trade shows

B2B leaders are pressuring event teams to do more with fewer shows. Forrester’s Q1 2026 State of B2B Events Survey found that seven in 10 respondents are cutting back on events and working to improve the attendee experience. More than half of organizations focus on net-new lead generation.

Yet trade shows still have big budget lines. Brian Pagel, chairperson of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, notes that recent industry research shows a significant portion of exhibitors’ marketing budgets continue to go to exhibitions.

Exhibitors typically use social media, email, and search to amplify these events. Television isn’t on the list of most common promotion channels, even though it can extend a show on both ends.

What to do before the show

Target the industries and job titles most likely to attend the show. Limit your target audience to nearby states where attendees are likely to come from. Or filter for states where companies you know are based and plan to send attendees. 

You can reach an audience well beyond the crowd that walks past your booth. You don’t need an attendee list or an account list to do it.

Run your CTV campaign in the weeks leading up to the show, using high-quality streaming inventory that targets your audience. You want your brand name to be familiar by the time prospects reach the floor.

Align the campaign scale with the event’s size. A regional show generally supports a smaller campaign than a national one.

What to do after the show

Turn booth scans into an account list by keeping company names and setting individual contacts aside. Forrester’s 2026 buying research indicates that 13 internal stakeholders are typically involved in a buying decision, so you need an effective way to connect with the rest.

CTV can reach the ones who never stopped by your booth while the deal is still forming. If your list is too short to support a CTV flight (one scheduled run of the campaign), extend the pre-show campaign into online video instead.

Measure website visits by tracking how many scanned accounts return to your site in the weeks after the show. With a long enough list, hold back half on purpose and compare the two groups. This is the same holdout design I recommend for CTV incrementality tests.

When to skip this tactic

Avoid it if you exhibit at only one or two niche shows a year. There won’t be enough audience on either side of the booth to read a result.

2. Reach competitors’ customers before their contracts renew

A competitor’s unhappy customer is one of the shortest paths to a net-new account. As Capterra’s 2026 Software Buying Trends Report reveals, purchasing software isn’t always smooth. Two-thirds of software buyers report problems with implementation, buyer’s remorse, or both.

This regret matters most at renewal, when an account decision-maker must decide whether to sign again. If you already retarget customers with renewal campaigns as their contracts wind down, you can apply the same play to competitors’ customers.

Build a prospect list from two places

Start with the closed-lost records in your customer relationship management (CRM) tool, provided your team logs who won the deal. Then, consider competitor tags. Many software products put a tag on their customers’ websites, and site lookup tools can show which companies have your competitor’s tag installed.

Combine them into a single prospect list. Use it to target the decision-makers at each account.

Use your records to time the outreach

Say a prospect picked your competitor in March 2025 and signed a two-year contract. That means renewal happens around March 2027.

But the internal conversation about alternatives starts well before that, so begin your campaign about six months before the renewal date. If they renew with your competitor anyway, keep showing up for the next cycle.

Make the case for switching

Build a strong case for switching without naming the competitor. I wouldn’t name a rival in a TV ad.

These accounts are close to a decision, so they need problem-solving creative built around the pain points your product solves, rather than a general brand spot. Show the problem competitors’ customers complain about and let viewers connect it to the product they use. A customer story showing a company that’s already switched makes a stronger argument than a feature list.

To measure the results, hold back part of the list and compare site visits and new opportunities between the two groups.

Skip it when it doesn’t fit your solution

Avoid this tactic if you can’t estimate renewal timing or if your category locks customers into multiyear contracts. Without a renewal date, you’ll have to guess when to spend.

3. Run CTV with channel partners, paid from co-op funds

This tactic is for marketers at companies that sell through channel partners, such as software vendors with resellers or manufacturers with distributors. Your partners’ customers are accounts you can’t easily reach under your own name.

For many companies, these customers account for a large share of revenue. Forrester’s latest partner ecosystem research indicates that nearly six in 10 respondents attribute 41% or more of their revenue to partners and indirect routes to market.

How to add CTV to your partner marketing initiatives

Forrester’s 2026 incentives research says partner incentives have traditionally centered on market development funds (MDFs) and co-op funding. And nearly two-thirds of organizations plan to add or overhaul incentives in the next 12 months. If your program is one of these, get CTV onto the list of activities it pays for.

Mobile carriers and insurance companies already do this, giving their dealers and agents money for CTV campaigns. There’s no reason a B2B vendor can’t run the same program for resellers and distributors.

Run it on each partner’s behalf. Target that partner’s customer list or territory, and co-brand it under the partner’s name. Start with one partner whose customer base is worth the effort.

Measure site visits from the partner’s accounts and partner-registered deals. Placement reports showing where the ads ran can serve as proof of performance. Check your program’s rules before you launch.

When to avoid this tactic

Skip this tactic if your channel is small or your partners won’t co-brand. A partner campaign without the partner’s name is just an owned campaign with extra approvals.

Tip: If deals stall at the bottom of your funnel, adding net-new accounts at the top won’t fix that. If you’ve never run CTV against your own accounts, start with a smaller test. Use one account segment, built to show what reach, cost, and creative look like against your own list before you commit more budget.

Why the list comes before the budget

The B2B CTV plans I see tend to work backward from a budget. But the approaches I’ve recommended put the list first. You start with accounts you can already name, letting you trace results back to pipeline.

Pull the booth scan export from your last trade show before you finalize your 2027 events calendar. Ask sales to share lost deals from the previous year that include a competitor name and contract term. Have your channel team tell you what next year’s co-op program will fund and whether you still have time to add CTV before it’s rewritten.

Start with the tactic you can launch fastest. Whichever you choose, keep in mind that you need account-level website-visit tracking and a sales team to follow up when a targeted account engages.

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