Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Last year, the Spanish advertising market allocated 174.9 million euros to CTV ( +48.4% year-on-year) and 143.5 million euros to DOOH ( +8.9%). The two most dynamic segments within programmatic video. Both available on the same DSP. Both are purchasable with the same audiences. And yet, in the vast majority of Spanish media plans, they are still watertight compartments with different teams, different KPIs and different budgets. The strategy CTV DOOH is the efficiency lever that is being most ignored in 2026, and the first to activate it will gain a real competitive advantage while the rest continue to plan as if it were 2019.
The silo problem that no one has wanted to solve
To understand why CTV+DOOH integration has not become widespread, it is necessary to trace its origin. TV buying -linear or connected- has always lived in the audiovisual world: media agencies with specialized TV teams, metrics in GRPs, conversations with Mediaset, RTVE or Atresmedia. Outdoor buying, on the other hand, historically belonged to a different logic: negotiation of physical locations, week contracts, foot traffic metrics.
The problem is that this historical separation has survived the digitization of both channels. CTV is now bought programmatically on The Trade Desk or DV360. DOOH is bought on the same DSPs through SSPs such as VIOOH, Hivestack or Vistar Media. The technology infrastructure has been unified for some time. What has not been unified are the internal planning processes and the mindset with which they are approached.
The CTV buyer does not talk to the digital outdoor buyer. And the result is predictable: the same consumer receives uncoordinated impacts, without cross-frequency management, without message coherence according to the context, without the possibility of measuring the real synergistic effect.
Consumers do not live in channels: they live in contexts.
A business manager averages the following route in a typical working day: morning on public transport or driving (DOOH screens at stations, gas stations, transportation hubs), afternoon in the office with laptop and mobile, evening on the couch with the smart TV on. Three different contexts, three different moments of attention, three different roles in the purchase decision process.
Well-executed cross-screen advertising is not about duplicating the same impact on more screens. It is about orchestrating a consistent message that accompanies the consumer in each context with the appropriate creative, format and call-to-action for that particular moment.
CTV has the consumer’s attention in their most relaxing and receptive space: the home, on a big screen, on premium content that they have actively chosen. It is the ideal channel for building brand awareness and emotional associations. Programmatic DOOH intercepts the consumer outside the home – in shopping malls, transportation, leisure environments – at the moment closest to the point of purchase decision. They are complementary, not alternative, functions.
How to buy CTV and DOOH in the same DSP: the infrastructure is already in place
The Trade Desk is today the most advanced example of cross-screen orchestration. From a single platform, it allows to buy CTV inventory in environments such as Samsung TV Ads, Pluto TV, RTVE Play or Sky Glass, and simultaneously activate programmatic DOOH inventory through its integrations with the main digital outdoor SSPs. The key is not just the joint buy, but what it enables operationally:
- Unified audiences: the same audience segment – defined by behavior, purchase intent or CRM data – is activated in both channels without friction. There are no two briefings, no two disconnected parallel audiences.
- Cross-channel frequency control: DOOH and CTV impressions are counted on the same frequency counter. When a user has reached the CTV hit ceiling, the system can redirect budget to the outside environment without manual intervention.
- Retargeting of DOOH audiences to CTV: users exposed to a DOOH screen (identified through deterministic data from mobile devices) can be re-engaged on CTV when they get home. The journey is closed rather than fragmented.
- Integrated reporting: actual incremental reach, total frequency and unified cost per impact. Not two separate reports that no one knows how to consolidate.
DV360, Google’s DSP, offers equivalent capabilities. It operates with DOOH inventory partners such as Hivestack, Magnite, PlaceExchange and VIOOH, and connects with the big outdoor operators-Clear Channel, JCDecaux, Lamar-in the same buying flow that manages CTV campaigns. The omnichannel CTV DOOH campaign doesn’t require new technology. It requires strategic decision-making.
“Programmatic buying is no longer a tactical option but an infrastructure.” – Programmatic Spain, on CTV-DOOH convergence.
The role of AI in cross-screen orchestration
CTV+DOOH integration on a single DSP enables something beyond unified manual buying: real-time algorithmic orchestration. The Trade Desk or DV360 AI bidding systems can dynamically allocate budget between channels based on the performance of each at any given time of the day.
The logic is straightforward: if the frequency on CTV has reached the optimal level in an audience segment and continuing to invest there only generates saturation, the system automatically diverts the budget to outdoor DOOH to keep the pressure on without wasting impressions. In the afternoon, when the consumer is out of the home, the weight shifts to digital screens at transit or retail locations. In the evening, it returns to CTV.
Added to this is the Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) capability: the same campaign can automatically adapt the message according to the channel, the geographic context and the time of day. The copy that builds a brand in CTV prime time is different from the copy that reinforces the purchase decision in front of a screen in a shopping mall. Without cross-channel DCO, creativity becomes the link that breaks the coherence of the strategy.
How to build a CTV + DOOH campaign: a case study
Time needed: 21 days
A FMCG brand launches a new product. The budget is significant but finite. The objective: maximize qualified reach and generate conversion at the physical point of sale. The cross-screen strategy has three phases:
- Phase 1 – Construction of awareness in CTV (weeks 1-3).
Premium 30″ video in high quality streaming environments. Segmentation by socio-demographic profile and consumer affinity. The objective is to anchor the brand message in the consumer’s memory with the highest quality of attention. Platforms: Samsung TV Ads, RTVE Play, Pluto TV, Sky Glass.
- Phase 2 – Reinforcement at decision point with programmatic DOOH (weeks 2-5, overlapping with CTV).
Activation of digital screens in shopping malls, high traffic areas and public transportation near the product’s points of sale. Audiences impacted on CTV are retargeted on DOOH through mobile device data. The message is adapted: from branding to reminder and call to action. OOH exposure at this point amplifies attention on private screens by 52%, according to industry data.
- Phase 3 – Digital retargeting and conversion (weeks 3-6).
Users exposed to both channels are retargeted on mobile and display with conversion creative: targeted offer, point-of-sale locator, direct CTA. It is the cumulative cross-channel frequency that determines the optimal timing for this last push.
The result is a complete funnel with message consistency, no saturation and measurable attribution at every stage. Something that is not possible when CTV and DOOH are planned separately.
The metrics that define cross-screen success
An omnichannel CTV DOOH campaign requires its own metrics, different from those used for each channel in isolation. The most relevant ones:
- Actual incremental reach: what percentage of the total audience was reached by CTV alone, by DOOH alone and by both. Excessive overlap indicates inefficiency; complementary reach confirms the value of integration.
- Total controlled frequency: the cumulative number of impacts received by each user across all channels. Without this unified view, it is impossible to avoid overexposure or to identify the saturation point.
- Brand search lift: increase in brand searches during and after the campaign. It is the cleanest indicator of the combined awareness+recall effect generated by the cross-screen strategy.
- Combined ROI vs. separate activation: the comparison between the return generated by the integrated campaign and the hypothetical return if the same budget had been invested in each channel independently. This is the definitive argument to consolidate the budget.
How to get started if your budget is not that of a major brand
The integration of CTV and digital outdoor does not require national television budgets. The programmatic logic allows activating both channels with investments much more contained than assumed, as long as the strategy is hyper-localized.
For CTV, platforms such as Samsung TV Ads or RTVE Play offer programmatic access with competitive CPMs and no minimum investment equivalent to linear TV. For DOOH, programmatic buying allows the activation of specific screens in specific geographic areas -an industrial park, the three shopping malls of a medium-sized city, the subway stations of a target neighborhood- without the need to contract national circuits.
A regional launch, a local brand campaign or a seasonal activation can take advantage of the same cross-screen logic used by the big brands, with budgets that are starting to become accessible to medium-sized companies with ambitions for growth.
Frequently asked questions about CTV + DOOH strategy
It is an advertising strategy that integrates Connected TV and Digital Out of Home within a single campaign, managed from a single DSP. It allows using the same audiences, controlling cross-frequency between channels and measuring the combined impact in a unified way, instead of treating each channel as a separate campaign.
The Trade Desk and DV360 (Google Display & Video 360) are the two main DSPs that enable programmatic CTV and DOOH within the same platform, with unified audience, frequency and reporting management. The Trade Desk operates through integrations with DOOH SSPs such as VIOOH, Hivestack and Vistar Media. DV360 also adds access to Clear Channel and JCDecaux in Spain.
There is no universal minimum, but programmatic buying has drastically reduced the barriers to entry. A hyper-localized campaign combining CTV on inbound platforms such as Samsung TV Ads or RTVE Play with DOOH screen activation in specific zones can begin to operate with monthly budgets that were unthinkable in traditional outdoor and TV advertising. The key is hyper-localization and precise audience segment definition.
The infrastructure is deployed. The DSPs deliver it. Inventories are connected. The question is not whether the CTV DOOH strategy is technically feasible in Spain – it has been for some time – but who will be the first to activate it before it becomes standard practice.
If you are evaluating how to integrate CTV and DOOH into your next media planning, we can help you define the most suitable campaign architecture and DSPs for your objective. Contact our team.
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