LAS VEGAS – Roku is leaning into a message advertisers have long wanted to hear: connected TV can now drive measurable business outcomes, not just awareness.
Speaking with Beet.TV Editorial Director Lisa Granatstein at CES 2026, Lauren Benedict, vice president of global ad sales and partnerships at Roku, said the company is seeing growing demand from marketers to treat CTV as a true performance channel.
“Proof of performance has changed,” Benedict said. “We are now able to support both upper funnel and lower funnel KPIs based on what a marketer actually needs.”
Roku expands its view of performance
Benedict described Roku’s advertising strategy as resting on three pillars that together widen how brands can engage with viewers.
The first is the Roku experience itself. As an operating system, Roku reaches about half of all U.S. streaming activity and serves as what Benedict called the lead into TV. Around 125 million people pass through the Roku home screen each day, giving the platform scale that rivals marquee live events.
That reach matters, she said, because Roku can follow viewers across their viewing journey and connect advertising exposure to downstream outcomes.
The second pillar is Roku as a publisher. The Roku Channel, the company’s free ad-supported streaming service, now ranks second in time watched among ad-supported platforms, behind YouTube. That position gives advertisers another high-engagement environment inside Roku’s broader ecosystem of apps.
Interoperability meets buyers where they transact
The third pillar is where performance marketing becomes most tangible. Benedict said Roku has focused heavily on interoperability over the past year to align with how buyers plan and transact.
Roku has expanded integrations with The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP, and recently announced a new partnership with Amazon DSP. These connections allow advertisers to plan, buy and optimize campaigns using the tools they already rely on.
The goal, Benedict said, is to let brands focus less on mechanics and more on achieving business outcomes tied to their own KPIs.
Deterministic data strengthens targeting and measurement
Roku’s ability to support performance is rooted in its data foundation. Because Roku users are logged in, the platform operates on deterministic identity rather than probabilistic signals.
That data allows Roku to understand viewing behavior, search activity and engagement patterns. Benedict said the company can combine those insights with advertiser first-party data and partner datasets to create richer targeting and sequencing opportunities.
The result is advertising that anticipates what a viewer may do next, not just what they are watching now, while improving relevance for both audiences and brands.
Aggregation helps solve fragmentation
Fragmentation remains one of the biggest challenges in streaming, both for viewers and advertisers. Benedict pointed to sports viewing as a clear example, where fans may need several subscriptions just to follow one league.
Roku addresses this through aggregation. Its home screen curates content into zones such as sports, food or home, reducing the need for viewers to search across apps. That same aggregation benefits advertisers by offering consistent reach across viewing contexts.
On average, viewers engage with Roku about 25 days each month, far more frequently than individual apps. That level of engagement gives brands a way to maintain presence even when viewers move between services.
Closed-loop measurement pushes CTV down the funnel
At CES, Roku highlighted new measurement capabilities developed with iSpot. The companies have extended their relationship to include outcomes-based measurement, allowing advertisers to connect ad exposure to site visits and lead generation.
Benedict said early tests confirmed that brands can use these signals to optimize campaigns in near real time. That creates closed-loop attribution that supports planning, buying and optimization within the same framework.
She said the approach brings speed and accuracy to CTV and reinforces Roku’s position as a performance platform, not just a branding medium.
AI personalizes the TV experience
Artificial intelligence is also shaping how Roku connects viewers and advertisers. Benedict said AI plays a role in audience discovery and planning, but its biggest impact may be on the consumer experience itself.
AI powers Roku’s home screen and interface, surfacing content based on individual preferences. With millions of unique combinations of apps across its user base, each Roku experience is effectively personalized.
“Roku is TV for you, but also TV for everyone,” Benedict said. That personalization helps brands appear in more relevant contexts, making ads feel more integrated into the viewing experience rather than interruptive.
Taken together, the strategy reflects Roku’s broader bet that connected TV has moved beyond awareness alone. For advertisers under pressure to prove results, Benedict said, CTV is now firmly part of the performance conversation.
You’re watching “Unlocking the True Potential of CTV Through the Power of Deterministic Data,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series at CES 2026, presented by Intuit SMB MediaLabs. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
