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Smartly’s AI-powered advertising platform is integrating with Roku to allow performance marketers to run Connected TV (CTV) campaigns at the speed of social media.
Below, we break down how advertisers can use this new partnership to launch, manage, and measure CTV campaigns using their existing social advertising workflows.
Smartly and Roku partner to close the gap between social and CTV
We’ve joined forces with Smartly to help marketers take their social campaigns straight to CTV. By connecting Smartly’s AI-powered advertising platform to Roku Ads Manager via the Roku Ads API, marketers will be able to set up, optimize, and measure their CTV campaigns without changing how they work.
In the process, growth marketers, who are always on the lookout for the kind of scale, precision, and ease of buying that they’re used to in search and social channels, can now access incremental audiences on TV. Meanwhile, always-on measurement tracks results across every screen.
How generative AI converts social video into CTV ads
This is the beginning of the scroll-to-screen era. With Smartly, marketers can turn their existing vertical social video into streaming ads that are ready for the biggest screen in the house. They can then launch and manage their streaming campaigns directly alongside their social campaigns: no additional workflow required. And with consolidated reporting, there's no need to pull results from yet another standalone dashboard.
“Advertisers want streaming to work as hard as their best-performing channels," said Patrick Harris, SVP, Global Advertising Sales & Partnerships, Roku. “At Roku, we are strategically positioned to deliver that at scale. This partnership with Smartly makes it simple for brands to bring the speed and precision of social into TV, enabling them to turn proven strategies into measurable growth on the biggest screen.”
Smartly will offer the following capabilities to build and optimize creative for CTV campaigns on Roku:
- AI Studio: Create and edit creative with AI-powered tools for image enhancement, scene generation, copy creation, and video production, all in one workspace.
- Creative insights: Identify patterns that drive performance by analyzing key elements such as visuals, messaging, formats, and branding across campaigns.
- Creative predictive potential: Predict how creative is likely to perform before launch, helping teams make smarter creative decisions and reduce wasted spend.
- Video & image templates: Scale creative production with reusable, customizable templates that automatically generate high volumes of on-brand assets across formats and channels.
By applying these tools to the enormous streaming ecosystem, mobile advertisers have the opportunity to reach new audiences at scale with high-impact creative.
Reaching the audiences social can't
CTV viewership continues to shatter records. Every day, the Roku Home Screen reaches more than 125 million people in the US, and more than half of Roku streaming households use the platform 25 days per month. 1
This scale comes at the right time for growth marketers, who have seen social and short-form video environments grow steadily more competitive. CTV cuts through the noise with the kind of brand-safe, high-attention reach that’s difficult to replicate in social. And on Roku, performance marketers can reach cord-cutters and streamers no longer reachable through social and traditional media, while also fueling the funnel earlier to drive faster conversions across search and social.
Smartly is well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. Its clients already achieve a 5.5x return on ad spend (ROAS) and save 42 minutes every hour. 2 The partnership brings this performance engine to CTV.
"CTV's performance era is here. The best advertising follows attention across every screen, and streaming is where we can now finally unlock the same proven results. Partnering with Roku brings the same rigor, scale, and incrementality advertisers have built on social to the biggest screen in the home. Together, we are creating a structural shift in how brands grow.”
- Laura Desmond, CEO of Smartly.
Here are four ways Smartly can drive performance for advertisers:
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Brand pulse: Understand your true audience reach across channels by eliminating duplication and revealing frequency saturation, so you can invest where it drives the greatest incremental impact.
- Dynamic Product Ads (DPA): Automatically generate personalized product ads using live catalog data, ensuring the right products are shown to the right audience.
- Optimization triggers: Automate campaign actions based on performance, budget, timing, or custom business rules.
- Predictive Budget Allocation: Use AI to automatically distribute budget toward the campaigns and audiences most likely to drive results.
