Streaming has pulled enough of the TV audience off linear broadcast that “TV advertising” and “connected TV (CTV) advertising” are converging into one budget line. But buying ad space on a streaming device isn’t like buying a display banner, and the three biggest on-ramps — Roku Ads Manager, Amazon’s DSP (newly folded into Amazon Ads Agent), and YouTube/Google Ads — work in meaningfully different ways. This guide compares how advertisers actually buy on each in late 2026: self-serve versus managed access, what’s known about budgets, targeting depth, and the measurement problems specific to television-sized screens rather than browser tabs.
This is a companion piece to our broader look at DSPs for programmatic advertising (The Trade Desk vs Google DV360 vs Amazon DSP), which covers general-purpose demand-side platforms across every channel. This one narrows in on streaming TV specifically, including the self-serve, platform-native tools a general DSP doesn’t replace.
At a Glance
| Platform | Access model | Published minimum spend | Core inventory | Standout targeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roku Ads Manager | Self-serve (plus separate managed Programmatic/Brand Studio options) | None published; Action Ads explicitly state “no additional costs or minimums” | The Roku Channel + Roku OS home screen/device inventory | First-party/custom audiences, demographics, interests, streaming & shopping habits |
| Amazon DSP / Amazon Ads Agent (DVA+) | Both: an AI-driven “DVA+” default path and an “advanced settings” toggle for the traditional self-serve/managed DSP experience | None published on advertising.amazon.com; third-party resellers commonly cite $35K–$50K for managed service, unverified by Amazon directly | Prime Video, Twitch, Thursday Night Football, Fire TV, Amazon.com, plus third-party exchanges | Amazon shopping/first-party signals carried into DVA+; Performance+ and Brand+ auto-optimization |
| YouTube / Google Ads (CTV) | Self-serve via Google Ads; larger/managed buys via Display & Video 360 (DV360) | No published minimum; standard auction-based budgets apply | YouTube on TV screens (smart TVs, set-top boxes, consoles, streaming sticks) plus DV360 CTV exchange inventory | “TV screens” device targeting, Video action campaigns, DV360 audience/category/genre targeting |
Short Verdict
None of these three is a strict upgrade over the others — they solve different buying problems. Roku Ads Manager is the easiest on-ramp for a growth marketer who wants to run CTV the way they run paid social, with a self-serve console and no stated minimum. Amazon’s newly rebranded DSP/Ads Agent is the deepest option for brands that already sell on Amazon and want shopping-signal-informed targeting across Prime Video and Fire TV, but it’s mid-transition to an AI-agent interface as of late 2026. YouTube/Google Ads is the default choice for advertisers already running Google/YouTube campaigns who want to extend existing audiences onto the TV screen with minimal new tooling, with DV360 as the upgrade path for more granular CTV controls.
How Each Platform Is Actually Bought
Roku Ads Manager launched as a self-service product aimed specifically at performance marketers who were used to buying search and social but had never touched TV. According to Roku’s own advertiser resources, it lets brands build and launch CTV campaigns — including “Action Ads,” interactive overlays viewers can respond to with their Roku remote — without going through a sales team. A Shopify integration extends this into fully shoppable ads, where a viewer can add an item to cart and check out on the TV screen. Roku states there are “no additional costs or minimums” to get started with Action Ads specifically. Roku also maintains separate “Programmatic solutions” and “Brand Studio” offerings for advertisers who want managed service or custom creative production, though Roku’s public pages don’t spell out exactly how those differ in budget or access from Ads Manager itself.
Amazon’s DSP has historically supported both self-service (advertiser-managed) and managed-service (Amazon-run) access, with managed service typically requiring a larger commitment arranged through an Amazon Ads account executive. That structure changed significantly at Amazon’s unBoxed event on September 29, 2026: Amazon Ads merged its DSP and its sponsored-ads console into one interface, Amazon Ads Agent, with the DSP itself renamed DVA (display, video, audio). The new default path, DVA+, is AI-driven and routes campaigns into either Performance+ (lower-funnel conversions) or Brand+ (video branding and prospecting). Advertisers who want the familiar manual-control experience can still find it behind an “advanced settings” toggle, and a new “Full-Funnel Campaigns” product targets smaller advertisers expanding into streaming TV and audio without channel-specific expertise. Amazon’s own pages don’t publish a minimum spend for DSP/DVA+; figures like $35,000–$50,000 circulate among agencies and resellers, but we couldn’t verify that directly, so treat it as unconfirmed.
YouTube and Google Ads take the most familiar self-serve route for anyone already running search or YouTube video campaigns: CTV is addressed as a device category rather than a separate buying system. Google Ads and DV360 added a “TV screens” device type — covering smart TVs, set-top boxes, gaming consoles, and streaming devices such as Chromecast — letting advertisers adjust bids or creative for the living-room screen specifically, and Video action campaigns have been extended to run there too. For finer control over CTV-specific inventory, audience lists, and deals, DV360’s dedicated Connected TV tools sit one tier up from standard Google Ads.
Targeting: What Each Platform Can Actually Do
- Roku: demographics, interests, geography, and streaming or shopping behavior; custom first-party audiences, including excluding existing customers.
- Amazon DSP/DVA+: Amazon’s own shopping and streaming signals (Prime Video/Fire TV viewership, purchase and browsing behavior); existing DSP audience segments migrate into DVA+’s advanced mode.
- YouTube/Google Ads: device-level TV screens targeting with bid adjustments; DV360 adds Customer Match, third-party audience lists (need a device ad ID like IFA/IDFA/AAID for CTV), category/genre contextual targeting, and demographic targeting Google says is strongest in the U.S. and varies by publisher.
Measurement: Where CTV Gets Genuinely Hard
CTV measurement has structural problems that don’t exist in click-based digital advertising. There’s no click on a TV ad — a viewer can’t tap a 55-inch screen to convert — so every platform infers impact rather than tracking a direct path. Device identifiers (IFAs, IDFAs) differ by manufacturer and app, fragmenting reach and frequency measurement across a household that might see the same ad on a Roku device, a smart TV’s built-in OS, and a game console. Multiple people often watch together on one device, which complicates “unique reach” counts. And because CTV inventory is split across walled gardens (Roku’s own OS, Amazon’s Fire TV and Prime Video, YouTube on TV screens) and third-party exchanges, advertisers rarely get one unified, cross-platform view of frequency or incrementality.
Google is one of the few to publish a controlled study here: a Google/Ipsos lab experiment, cited on Google’s own support pages, found YouTube ads on the TV screen produced an average 47% lift in ad recall and a 35% lift in purchase intent versus a control group — useful directional evidence, though it’s a single vendor-run study rather than independent, cross-platform research. None of the three platforms publishes third-party-audited, apples-to-apples CTV attribution benchmarks, which is the honest state of CTV measurement industry-wide in 2026: better than a black box, still short of the click-level precision marketers got used to on search and social.
Pros and Cons
- Roku — Pros: genuinely self-serve, no stated minimum for Action Ads, direct Shopify checkout. Cons: smaller walled-garden inventory than Amazon or YouTube; less public detail on measurement tooling.
- Amazon DSP/DVA+ — Pros: unmatched first-party shopping-signal targeting; inventory spans Prime Video, Twitch, live NFL football, and Fire TV. Cons: mid-rebrand uncertainty in late 2026; no published minimum, plus third-party reports of a historically high managed-service threshold.
- YouTube/Google Ads — Pros: lowest-friction entry for existing Google/YouTube advertisers; a published lift study backs the format; DV360 adds real CTV-specific controls. Cons: CTV audience/demographic coverage is U.S.-weighted and varies by publisher; combined first-party lists aren’t supported on non-YouTube CTV inventory in DV360.
Who Should Use Which
A DTC or performance team testing CTV for the first time, with a modest budget and no agency, is best served by Roku Ads Manager — built for exactly that self-serve, no-minimum use case. A retail or Amazon-native brand that wants to extend its shopping and browsing audiences onto the big screen should go with Amazon DSP/DVA+, accepting some near-term change-management cost as the interface transitions to its agentic model. A brand already spending heavily in Google Ads or YouTube, especially one wanting a single reporting view across search, video, and TV, should extend into YouTube/Google Ads CTV first and graduate to DV360 for finer-grained targeting or deal-based inventory.
Bottom Line
CTV advertising in 2026 no longer requires a six-figure linear-TV-style commitment to get started — Roku and Google/YouTube both offer genuinely self-serve, low-friction entry points, and even Amazon’s historically higher-touch DSP is being redesigned around a lower-friction, AI-assisted default. The real trade-off isn’t cost of entry anymore; it’s measurement maturity. Pick the platform whose existing audience data and attribution reporting line up with the rest of your stack, and treat published lift or recall studies as directional rather than a substitute for your own incrementality testing.
FAQ
Is there a minimum budget to advertise on Roku, Amazon, or YouTube’s CTV inventory?
None of the three publishes a hard minimum on its own advertiser pages as of late 2026. Roku explicitly states no minimum for Action Ads. Amazon and Google don’t state one either, though managed-service tiers (historically on Amazon’s DSP) are commonly reported by agencies to require a larger budget commitment — confirm directly with the platform before assuming a number.
What happened to the Amazon DSP?
As of Amazon’s September 29, 2026 unBoxed event, the Amazon DSP was renamed DVA (display, video, audio) and merged with Amazon’s sponsored-ads console into a unified interface called Amazon Ads Agent. The AI-driven DVA+ path is now the default, though an advanced-settings toggle preserves the traditional DSP-style manual experience.
Can I retarget website visitors with CTV ads?
Yes, on all three, though the mechanics differ. Roku and Amazon let advertisers upload first-party audience data for custom targeting; Google Ads/DV360 support this via Customer Match and third-party audience lists, though third-party lists need a device ad ID to serve on CTV specifically.
Why not just use a general DSP like The Trade Desk for CTV?
Many advertisers do — general-purpose DSPs aggregate CTV inventory across publishers. But platform-native tools give access to first-party inventory, audience signals, and formats (Roku’s Action Ads, Amazon’s shopping signals) a third-party DSP can’t replicate. See our DSP comparison for how general programmatic buying stacks up.
How is CTV measurement different from a web or app ad?
There’s no click to track, device IDs fragment across manufacturers and apps, multiple household members often watch on one device, and inventory is split across walled gardens and exchanges — so advertisers rarely get one unified cross-platform frequency or attribution report.
Sources
- Roku: Introducing Roku Ads Manager
- Roku: Mastering CTV Advertising — A Marketer’s Guide to Roku Ads Manager
- Amazon Ads: Amazon DSP / Amazon Ads Agent product page
- AdExchanger: Amazon Ads and the Amazon DSP Get an Agentic Rebrand
- Google Ads Help: TV screens device targeting
- Google Display & Video 360 Help: Connected TV campaigns
- Google Ads Help: Video action campaigns
