Cross-channel compare

Display vs CTV CPM

By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated July 2026

Benchmarks reviewed July 2026 · next review October 2026

The short answer

Everyone in adtech will tell you CTV costs several times banner display per thousand; nobody publishes a current citable average for either side, so this page prints no ratio. What can be documented is what the premium consists of, attribute by attribute, and how to decide whether those attributes are worth paying for in your plan.

Display sideno single rateOpen-exchange CPMs clear per-impression in real-time auctions; no authority publishes one current averageUK CMA digital advertising market studyretrieved July 2026

CTV sideno published rateHulu's ad manager describes self-serve buying; current minimums surface in the buying flow, not a public rate cardHulu Ad Managerretrieved July 2026

The premium, decomposed

Completion by construction. CTV spots are typically non-skippable on the living-room screen; display banners are scrolled past. You pay for guaranteed message delivery time.
Viewability solved vs bought.Display viewability under the MRC's 50%-for-1-second standard is a variable you pay to fix (the vCPM conversion); a full-screen CTV impression is viewable by definition.
Sound-on, big-screen context plus household co-viewing: one impression may reach multiple people, which the per-household pricing partially reflects.
What display keeps: click-through response, granular retargeting, and reach at prices that make frequency mistakes survivable. A CTV frequency error costs multiples of a display one.

When cheap reach beats expensive reach

Display wins when the job is presence at scale: retargeting pools, price-promotion reminders, always-on coverage where response is measurable per click. CTV wins when the job is persuasion: launches, brand repositioning, considered purchases where 30 seconds of forced attention does work a banner cannot. Split budgets should buy the persuasion moments on CTV and the surrounding frequency on display, then check the split's arithmetic at a fixed budget in the calculator with the rates your own IOs quote, since public benchmarks will not fill that cell (the table shows both as quote-only, honestly).

Depth: Google Display CPM · CTV CPM · the open-exchange fee chain.