Social video ad growth is set to outrun CTV this year

Social video is shaping up to be one of the biggest winners in media buying this year. While connected TV still holds a central place in many brand plans, social video ad spending is expected to grow at a faster rate, pointing to a meaningful shift in advertiser momentum.

That does not mean CTV is suddenly losing relevance. Far from it. But the latest outlook suggests social platforms are doing a better job right now of pulling incremental video dollars, especially from marketers who want speed, flexibility, and cleaner links between spend and results.

The contrast matters because CTV has spent the last few years as the breakout story in digital video. Buyers liked the premium feel, the migration of audiences from linear TV, and the promise of more precise targeting than traditional television could offer. In many ways, those advantages are still intact.

What is changing is the growth curve.

Social video now sits in a sweet spot for advertisers. It offers massive reach, familiar buying tools, creator and platform-native formats, and feedback loops that can arrive much faster than in more fragmented TV environments. For performance-minded marketers, that makes it easier to test, optimize, and scale without waiting too long to see what is working.

Short-form video has also trained both users and advertisers to think differently about premium inventory. Brand-safe, polished content still matters, but marketers are increasingly comfortable placing budgets into feeds where attention is high, creative can be refreshed quickly, and outcomes can be measured in near real time.

There is also a practical budget angle. In a market where many advertisers are still under pressure to justify spend quickly, social video can look like a safer place to put incremental dollars. It can support upper-funnel awareness, but it can also plug into direct response, app installs, ecommerce, and lead generation more smoothly than many TV-style environments.

That dual role is important. CTV remains a strong branding channel, and it continues to attract spend from advertisers chasing TV audiences outside the traditional bundle. But buyers have also become more selective. Questions around measurement consistency, frequency management, signal loss, and inventory quality have not gone away. As those issues persist, some of the easy-growth narrative around CTV starts to look more complicated.

Meanwhile, social platforms have kept improving their video products and ad systems. Vertical video is now native behavior, not an experiment. Creator ecosystems remain powerful demand drivers. And platform ad stacks are generally built for fast iteration, which gives media teams more room to adjust creative, audience settings, and pacing on the fly.

That does not mean social video is replacing CTV. For many marketers, the two channels will continue to work together. CTV can deliver lean-back viewing and big-screen brand presence. Social video can amplify reach, reinforce messaging, and drive a quicker response. The growing advantage for social video is less about one channel defeating another and more about where marginal budget is easiest to deploy.

For adtech companies, agencies, and publishers, the message is pretty clear. Video budgets are still expanding, but the conditions attached to that growth are changing. Advertisers want measurable outcomes, flexible execution, and formats that match how people actually consume media now.

This year, social video looks especially well positioned to meet that demand.