Pricing & Cost
“Why is your CPM so high? Why are your impressions more valuable than everyone else's?"
There are three main areas that affect the cost of a streaming campaign. These are percentage of delivery on the big vs the small screen, the quality of the content, and whether or not other types of digital video are packaged in. We prioritize the big screen delivery, and we eliminate many types of content to only place your brand in programming with the highest likelihood of engagement, and we only run CTV/ OTT with no other digital video. The reason for this is that we have found running campaigns this way delivers better results that achieve cost savings in your ROI even if upfront costs are higher. That said, I would love to understand better in case I can provide more clarity. Can you elaborate on what you're comparing us to?
“CTV won’t work because everyone pays to eliminate ads.”
I understand your concern, as that is a common misconception. There are a few key trends related to this that I’d love to talk you through. First, data actually indicates that a significant portion of viewers prefer ad-supported streaming, with only a smaller percentage willing to pay extra for ad-free content—I recently saw this number at 14%. Further, people willing to watch ads has actually grown over recent years as people add more streaming services to their home. Lastly, when we create a recommendation for you, it is based only on the number of impressions we have access to from people viewing ads—so you can feel confident your message will be seen as intended.
“With Hulu, Disney+, Amazon and Netflix offering ad-supported, why do I need anything else?”
While Hulu, Disney, Amazon, and Netflix are great brands with premium content and some unique offerings, from an ad-supported perspective, they simply don't have enough scale to deliver your campaign in the most effective way… and buying like that can make it hard to manage campaign frequency and measurement. Can I explain this further?
“I get streaming already with my cable buy.”
We often see with cable that a few things can happen to create inefficiencies in your campaign. Primarily, we find that there is a lot of overlap in their audiences because they prioritize serving streaming to their own cable subscriber base. This prohibits you from maximizing reach to your target audience and ultimately affects your ROI. Additionally, they often package in lower cost inventory or other types of digital video, neither of which we run. Can I explain these differences further?
"Everyone says
the same things as you, what makes you different?”
I completely understand—I have seen other presentations, and you’re right, we do all say many of the same things. The biggest reason for this is that everyone is giving you headlines, and generally the headlines are the same… but the differences are in the details. A quick example, You have probably heard many people say they have the same content providers—discovery, pluto, etc. What you may not have heard is how companies are selective about the content within those that they will place your brand. This detail can truly impact your results. What we do is prioritize those important details and how it all comes together. Can I show you more about that?
"I don't have enough budget. Can you do something for like, $1,000? What's the bare minimum we can spend to move the needle?"
That’s a great question. The reality is the goal isn’t to spend the bare minimum — it’s to spend enough to create meaningful exposure. With video, frequency matters because shoppers need to see your message multiple times throughout their buying journey for it to stick. If the goal is to cast a competitive, strategic net in your market, going ‘bare minimum’ and trying to reach the whole DMA can actually do you a disservice because you may not reach enough in-market buyers often enough to influence their decision. From a measurement standpoint, Polk attribution requires a minimum sample size of about 150,000 impressions, but the right investment really depends on how many in-market buyers exist for your audience within your geographic area. Let’s take a look at what that pool of shoppers looks like in your market and we can pull a few budget options that will allow you to drive real impact.”
“Is streaming big enough yet to replace TV reach?”
“That’s a great question. Most advertisers aren’t thinking about streaming as a full replacement for TV — they’re thinking about it as a way to extend reach where traditional TV can’t. As viewing habits shift, more households are consuming content through streaming platforms, especially audiences that may not watch much linear TV at all. By incorporating CTV into the mix, dealers can capture those incremental viewers while maintaining the impact of video on the largest screen in the home. When you look at your current TV strategy, do you have visibility into how many potential buyers may be consuming their content through streaming instead of traditional TV?”
"Why wouldn’t I just buy ads directly from Hulu?”
“Hulu absolutely has strong premium content and a great audience, so buying there can make sense as part of a streaming strategy. The challenge is that most streaming households aren’t watching just one platform — they’re rotating across several apps every week. When advertisers buy a single platform directly, they’re really only capturing a slice of that viewing behavior. By working through a CTV aggregator, you can extend your reach across hundreds of streaming publishers while keeping consistent targeting, frequency management, and unified reporting. If your goal is staying in front of shoppers wherever they’re streaming, would it be valuable to reach them across multiple platforms instead of relying on just one?”
“We already run programmatic through *Programmatic Provider (ex: The Trade Desk/ DV360) outside of C-4.”
“Glad to hear you are in the video space — platforms like The Trade Desk are powerful tools. The difference is those platforms require trading desks and constant optimization to manage inventory, bidding strategies, and brand safety controls. What we provide is a managed approach where our team handles campaign setup, optimization, and reporting while still accessing premium streaming inventory at scale. For many dealers and agencies that simplifies execution significantly. How much of your team’s time currently goes into managing those programmatic campaigns?”
“Will this work? How do I know
I’ll reach enough people to make a difference in sales?”
Our goal is the same as yours, to drive business results for you. With reach specifically, I am confident enough people will see your message, and I will put those numbers in to context for you and your business goals so you feel confident as well. Ultimately, success will depend on multiple things… the strategy, your creative message, and the way we communicate together on what you’re seeing…. But please know, we are happy to be held accountable and expect that. There are a few ways we can track and measure performance, and we will work together on the best way to do that based on your business needs.
“What’s the average a dealership spends?”
“That’s a great question. While we do see common investment ranges across dealerships, we try not to start with averages because every market and audience pool is different. Instead, we start by pulling avails for your target audience and geography to understand how many in-market buyers we can realistically reach. From there, we recommend budget ranges that give you the reach and frequency needed to capture meaningful market share. Our goal is never to recommend something the data doesn’t support. Out of curiosity, what kind of market presence are you hoping to achieve with your campaign?”
"My market is different. We don't have many people that stream their TV."
“That’s a fair point — streaming adoption can vary by market, which is why we try not to make assumptions. We actually have access to tools like AdImpact and streaming viewership penetration maps that allow us to analyze how households in your specific area are consuming content across linear and streaming. Instead of guessing, we can dig into that data and bring back a clear picture of streaming penetration and audience availability in your market. Would it be helpful if we pulled that analysis and walked through what the actual streaming audience looks like before making any recommendations?”
“I thought streaming didn’t have live sports like TV.”
“That used to be the case, but a lot of live sports have moved into streaming environments as well. While these placements are typically DMA-wide and A18+ rather than audience-targeted, they allow advertisers to reach highly engaged viewers in live programming at a much more cost-effective level than traditional TV. In many cases, the investment it takes to run a full season of live streaming sports can be comparable to just one or two spots on linear TV, which gives you consistent exposure throughout the entire season rather than a single moment in the game. If you could complement your existing TV sports buy with a full season of streaming coverage at a lower cost, would that be something worth exploring?”
"We already run videos on YouTube and social media."
“That’s great — those channels can play an important role in the video strategy. The difference with Connected TV is the viewing environment: ads appear on the largest screen in the home within professionally produced content, which tends to drive stronger attention and brand recall. Many advertisers find the most effective approach is combining social video for engagement with CTV for high-impact brand exposure. How are you currently balancing upper-funnel awareness with your digital campaigns today?”
How does this drive car sales?
“Video itself doesn’t sell cars — you do. What video does is create demand higher up in the funnel so shoppers see your dealership message throughout their buying journey. By the time they start researching vehicles or visiting inventory sites, your dealership is already familiar. From a measurement standpoint, we look for incremental lift in website traffic driven by CTV exposure, and we use retargeting to bring those shoppers back once they’ve engaged. We also use Polk attribution and sales conversion reporting to understand which households exposed to the campaign ultimately purchased, and we cross-reference that with your pump-in/pump-out reporting to ensure we’re moving inventory strategically and identifying what’s truly driving results.”
"When do we recommend Amazon vs. C-4 Video (TEGNA)?"
So instead of thinking about them as competing options, it’s helpful to think about the objective of the campaign and the operational resources available. Are we trying to maximize platform-specific audiences, or deploy a scalable managed CTV strategy across premium streaming environments? Which type of client or campaign objective are you most often encountering when these decisions come up?”
“What’s the point of having reach and scale if my budget is not a big national budget? Is it fine to just do a walled garden like Hulu instead in that case?”
“That’s a great question. Even for local advertisers with smaller budgets, reach and scale are important because streaming audiences are spread across many different apps. If you run in just one walled garden like Hulu, you’re only reaching viewers inside that single platform, which can limit how many potential shoppers you actually touch. With an aggregated CTV approach, your budget can still be distributed efficiently across multiple premium publishers so you’re reaching a broader portion of in-market buyers instead of concentrating impressions in one environment which can lead to ad fatigue and waste. That often helps maintain healthier reach and frequency, even at a local budget level. Out of curiosity, is your goal more about maximizing the number of unique households you reach, or focusing heavily within one specific platform?”
“What’s better — live sports packs or always-on campaigns?”
That’s a bit of a trick question, because the strongest campaigns usually include both. Always-on video helps keep your dealership visible year-round so you’re consistently reaching in-market shoppers as they enter the buying cycle. Live sports, on the other hand, can act as powerful tentpole moments where you capture large, highly engaged audiences during key events. When those two strategies work together, you’re maintaining consistent presence while also capitalizing on big seasonal opportunities. The best approach is typically building a year-round plan that supports all parts of your business — new, used, fixed ops — and layering in tentpole moments like live sports that resonate with your hometown fan base. Would it be helpful if we mapped out what a balanced, year-round strategy could look like for your market?”
“We’re already working with Comcast’s EffecTV for TV and streaming.”
“EffecTV certainly has strong roots in the traditional television ecosystem. The opportunity many advertisers are exploring now is expanding beyond a single cable footprint to reach incremental streaming audiences across multiple platforms and devices. Since so many viewers are consuming content outside of the cable ecosystem today, expanding reach can help capture additional in-market buyers. Do you know how much of your current EffecTV campaign is reaching audiences beyond Comcast subscribers?”
"I've heard Polk data takes a long time to come in."
“That’s a fair concern and something we hear occasionally. Polk sales attribution does have a natural delay because it’s based on verified vehicle registrations, which means the data is extremely accurate but not always immediate. That’s why we look at Polk as the validation layer, not the only performance metric. During the campaign we’re also monitoring leading indicators like website traffic from CTV exposure and retargeting engagement so we can see shopper activity much sooner.
If faster sales insight is important to you, we also have additional attribution options like sales conversion matching, which can provide quicker feedback. That does require sharing CRM sales data with your account lead before the 6th of each month so it can be uploaded and matched against exposed households. And like any attribution model, we need enough campaign scale to generate strong sample sizes. If getting faster visibility into sales impact is valuable for your team, would you be open to exploring that option?”
“My client is pushing back on the cost and wants to measure this like a search campaign. I’m overwhelmed and honestly thinking about just shifting the budget somewhere easier to justify.”
That’s a really common situation, and it usually comes down to aligning the measurement with the role each channel plays in the funnel. Search is fantastic for capturing demand once someone is already looking for a vehicle, but video helps create that demand earlier in the buying journey so those shoppers eventually end up searching in the first place. Because of that, we measure success a little differently — looking at indicators like incremental website traffic, retargeting engagement, and ultimately sales attribution through tools like Polk or sales conversion matching.
Now, we can absolutely make tactical adjustments — things like shifting budget, tightening the geo, or removing some ZIP codes to concentrate spend — but that’s often a short-term fix rather than the best long-term strategy. Sometimes the real issue is that the campaign simply isn’t funded at a level that supports the client’s goals, or the creative needs refreshing so the message resonates more strongly with shoppers. Before we pull budget away, it’s usually worth stepping back and making sure the strategy, investment level, and creative are all aligned with what the client wants to achieve.
Do you think the client would be open to looking at whether the campaign structure and investment level match their expectations before shifting the budget elsewhere?”
“How do we make sure we’re not just hitting the same households over and over?”
“That’s a great question, and it’s exactly why we look closely at household reach and frequency management when building a CTV campaign. Our goal is to make sure your budget is reaching as many relevant households as possible rather than oversaturating the same viewers.
We also have the ability to incorporate first-party data through partners like Cadent. That means we can either use your CRM or shopper data to create another touchpoint across the funnel, reinforcing your message with known prospects, or we can suppress those audiences entirely so this video tactic focuses on reaching brand new households you may not be reaching through your other marketing efforts.
Would you be more interested in using video to reinforce messaging to shoppers already in your funnel, or expanding reach to entirely new potential buyers?”
“I already buy local TV. I want to make sure we aren’t duplicating efforts.”
That’s a really smart thing to consider. The good news is that CTV and linear TV audiences actually have minimal overlap, because a large portion of streaming viewers are cord-cutters or light TV viewers who may never see traditional broadcast advertising. What that means is you’re often reaching two different audiences under a single video strategy — linear TV continues to reach traditional viewers, while CTV helps capture incremental households who are primarily watching through streaming. We also have broadcast partnerships across many markets, so if you’re already investing in local TV we can look at which stations or markets you’re currently buying and explore incorporating those into the strategy as well to keep everything aligned and easy to manage. Out of curiosity, which stations or markets are you currently running your TV campaign in?”
“We’re already running ads through iHeart’s digital network.”
“iHeart has strong audio reach and can be effective for certain campaigns. Video environments, especially on connected televisions, provide a different level of engagement because viewers experience sight, sound, and motion on the largest screen in the home. Many advertisers find that combining audio and video helps reinforce messaging throughout the buying journey. How are you currently balancing audio and video channels within your marketing mix?”
"Why doesn't live sports show web responses?"
That’s a great question. Live sports streaming inventory is structured a little differently than most audience-targeted CTV campaigns. Because those placements are typically bought DMA-wide and A18+ — similar to traditional TV — the attribution capabilities are more limited today than campaigns where we’re targeting specific households.
It’s also worth noting that the industry as a whole is still evolving when it comes to measurement across streaming environments. With so many platforms, devices, and publishers involved, the ecosystem is highly fragmented, which makes consistent attribution and cross-platform reporting more complex than channels like search or social. We do provide channel and game delivery data.
That’s why many advertisers pair live sports with targeted CTV campaigns. The sports placements provide the large, highly engaged audience moments, while the targeted campaigns allow for deeper attribution and performance measurement. Would it make sense to look at a strategy that combines both — so you get the scale of live sports along with the measurement capabilities you’re looking for?”