Overall CTV spend tells one story. The way individual categories use CTV tells another that is actionable. Some sectors already give CTV a central role in budgets, while others are still experimenting at the edges. Understanding those patterns helps marketers decide whether to follow, stretch, or deliberately diverge from category norms.
AdClarity data shows that CTV accounted for 29 percent of digital spend in 2024 and reached 31 percent in 2025. That rise is not driven only by higher prices. It reflects decisions to redirect money from other formats into connected screens that offer both attention and accountability.
Verticals That Lead on CTV Adoption
Health brands are among the most advanced CTV users. They devote a majority of their digital budgets to connected environments, with CTV’s share of digital spend rising from 50.6 percent in 2024 to an expected 55 percent in 2025. The ability to reach households on large screens, with sound on and high completion rates, is a natural fit for messages that require trust and repetition.
Food and drink advertisers also assign a significant share of digital budgets to CTV. In this category, CTV’s share grows from 35.6 to 38.6 percent year over year. For them, the living room is a place to shape preference and memory before consumers approach a shelf or app.
Categories with Balanced CTV Roles
Financial services brands use CTV to build familiarity and credibility around products that consumers do not buy impulsively. Their CTV share of digital spend edges up from 38.6 to 39.9 percent, supporting brand narrative and reassurance while search and social handle comparison, quotes, and applications.
Technology and electronics brands run a more balanced mix. They use CTV for flagship launches and storytelling, then rely on online video and social for demonstrations and feature education. In these cases, CTV’s share of digital spend increases from 20.0 to 20.7 percent and acts as the halo that lifts performance for the rest of the digital campaign. Lifestyle is the main outlier: its CTV share dips from 17.6 to 15.6 percent as budgets lean harder into other formats.
Common Lessons for Any CTV Strategy
Across verticals, lessons repeat. CTV works best when it is integrated with other channels, not isolated. Interest generated on the big screen needs search, social, and sometimes email or retail media to capture demand. Creative discipline is vital. Simple, focused messages perform better in living rooms than overloaded narratives that assume perfect attention.
Measurement must match the role CTV plays, whether that is brand equity, incremental reach, or performance contribution. Marketers do not need to copy category leaders, but understanding how they use CTV provides a benchmark and shows whether you are underinvested, overexposed, or differentiated in a deliberate way.
This article focuses on category level usage and lessons from leading verticals. The first article in the series explained how viewing habits and subscription dynamics pushed CTV into the center of the living room. The second article examined how budgets followed that shift between 2024 and 2025 and offered principles for 2026 planning. Read together or separately, the three pieces are designed to help teams move from awareness of CTV trends to a clear, defensible strategy for their own brand.
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