Cross Platform Video & CTV – Unified Planning for Fragmented Media

Introduction 

As marketers invest billions into streaming channels, fragmentation is the new norm—spanning CTV, OTT, FAST, online video, and social video. The IAB’s recent 2025 Unified Media Planning Playbook lays out guidance to unify planning, identity, measurement, and execution across these diverse platforms. 

The Rise of CTV & FAST 

Global CTV ad spend is projected to hit $48 billion in 2025, up ~33% from 2023. Most of that investment—over 90%—will flow programmatically across display and video formats. Meanwhile, FAST services add another layer of viewing complexity, requiring unified campaign strategy across free ad-supported environments. 

The Operational Challenges 

1. Platform Silos: Unique identity systems and metrics per channel make consistent planning and measurement extremely difficult.

2. Reporting Inconsistency: KPIs vary—view-through rates on social, completion rates on CTV, dwell time for FAST—forcing operations teams to normalize across reporting standards.

3. Trafficking Complexity: Ad creatives and metadata need alignment across formats, devices, and insertion tech like client side or SSAI.

4. Content Signals & Brand Safety Alignment: Granular program level metadata adoption remains uneven—especially among publishers—leading to mismatched expectations.

5. Signal Loss & Identity Friction: Identity fragmentation in a privacy-first world adds mapping complexity that must be solved via clean rooms, unified IDs, or CDP integration. 

How a Unified Planning Framework Helps 

Using guidance from IAB’s playbook, teams can: 

• Standardize KPIs, measurement windows, and output metrics. 

• Coordinate identity stitching strategies via CDPs or clean rooms. 

• Define shared metadata taxonomies and trafficking specs. 

• Build holistic dashboards to report homogeneously across channels. 

AI & Automation Enablement 

• AI models forecast reach, frequency, and outcomes across devices using market mix modelling and predictive analytics. 

• Generative AI is fueling video creative workflows—nearly 90% of advertisers now use GenAI for ad creative creation, enabling personalization at scale. 

The Role of Managed Services Operations 

Operational teams play a pivotal role—they configure metadata, standardize campaigns across DSPs, ensure trafficking integrity, map creatives to formats, and reconcile delivery data. Seamless suppression of fraud and consistent reporting across platforms also relies on robust operations. 

Outcome & Value Delivered 

• Brands using unified planning realize more coherent targeting, cleaner attribution, and higher trust in performance metrics. 

• Operations teams minimize errors while scaling volume across platforms. 

• Advertisers can plan, execute, and optimize media buys using one framework—regardless of channel complexity. 

Conclusion 

With programmatic CTV and video dominating the media landscape, fragmented media environments demand operational agility and unified strategy. IAB’s playbook offers a structured path forward, and operational excellence makes it practical. 

Partner with Paragon CTA 

Paragon Digital Services delivers expert-backed campaign operations across CTV, OTT, FAST, and online video. We help configure unified metadata taxonomies, normalize reporting, manage trafficking across platforms, and drive transparent, scalable results. Ready to harmonize your omnichannel video operations? Let’s talk.