Overview

To get your best results on Connected TV (CTV), a clear creative plan is necessary. Yes, what your commercials look like is important, but to guarantee consumer engagement and drive business, you need to be thinking about more than aesthetics.

Key Considerations

Design	Use the best practices below and keep your brand voice clear in every asset. Tell an emotionally engaging story tailored to your audience, while staying true to your brand’s voice.
Alignment	Connect your creative strategy, target audience, and conversion point. If your creative doesn’t account for your other campaign goals, keep refining.
Specificity	Produce creative variations aimed at each audience profile to drive action. Build audience-specific messaging and versions using different shots, voiceovers, CTAs, and end cards. Keep branding consistent. 📘 Example: Variation in Calls to Action (CTA) Shop Online: geared towards Prospecting Campaigns to drive new users to the site. Shop Now: geared towards Retargeting Campaigns to push users down the conversion funnel.
Shelf Life	Refresh creative regularly to avoid fatigue. You can keep it light—swap the CTA or end card on your ad. Cadence guidance: Evergreen 2-3 months; Seasonal 10-20 days.
Test & Iterate	Keep producing new creative to learn what resonates. At the end of your typical sales cycle, evaluate visit rate, conversion rate, CPA, and ROAS to inform iterations. Check Sales Cycle in the Campaign Dashboard. It measures the time from the first site visit to Conversion.

General Best Practices

Click here for Multi-Touch best practices.

Add Brand Logo	Keep your brand logo present and prominent across the ad — show it early, maintain branding throughout, and end with a strong, clear logo moment.
Add Website URL	Keep your website URL visible so viewers know where to go next — add it to the bottom corner of your TV ad for better performance.
Add Voiceover	Voiceover helps your audience connect with your message — add it to your commercial for better performance.
Add Call to Action	End your TV ad with a clear call to action and website URL for 3-5 seconds to maximize performance. 💡Pro Tip: Set up CallRail instead of placing a phone number in your spot. Use a clear website URL in the ad and get reliable call attribution and insights.

Do's and Don'ts

DO this

Best Practice	Recommendation
Logo & Visit URL	Keep your logo and site URL visible throughout the entire video ad. Make the URL easy to read so viewers can type it in or visit later. Continuous logo and URL visibility builds brand recognition and increases the chance viewers will take action after the ad.
Voiceover	Use a clear, confident voiceover to carry your main message. Assume viewers may not always be looking at the screen during commercial breaks. A strong voiceover helps your message land and makes the ad more memorable.
Call To Action (CTA)	Add a clear visual or audio CTA near the end of your ad. Use the end card to show your CTA and URL together. Write action-oriented CTAs that tell viewers exactly what to do next (for example, “Sign up today” or “Visit our website to learn more”).
Messaging	Make sure your creative, target audience, and conversion goal all support the same strategy. Use the same core message in your CTV ad and any linked Multi-Touch ads. Keep offers, wording, and next steps consistent from ad to landing page.
Safe Zone	Place key elements (logo, text, CTAs) in the center “safe zone” of the screen. Avoid putting important information near the edges, where it can be cropped or covered by on-screen controls. Use the outer edges mainly for background visuals, not critical text or branding.

DON'T do this

Topic	Recommendation
QR Codes	MNTN can run QR codes in CTV ads, but they are not recommended as a best practice. The platform’s attribution model already verifies exposure and engagement, so QR codes are not needed for measurement. Scans can be inconvenient in short 15–30 second spots and may hurt the viewing experience. MNTN reports on site visits, not QR scans, so relying on QR performance can limit optimization
Phone Numbers	You can include a phone number in your ad, but it is not recommended by MNTN. MNTN measures engagement through website visits, not phone calls. Call-focused ads can interrupt the viewer experience during short CTV spots and shorten consideration time. Phone calls are not tracked in MNTN reporting, so they cannot be used for optimization

Multi-Touch Ads

If choosing to run with MNTN Multi-Touch, ensure your creatives meet the following best practices.

Best Practice	Recommendation
Logo	Ensure your logo is present on each ad size uploaded. This, coupled with the TV ad best practices, promotes brand recognition.
Call to Action (CTA) and Messaging	Keep the CTA and messaging consistent with its associated CTV asset. When the same message is conveyed across the user's advertising experience, it reinforces the intended message and increases the likelihood of it resonating with your targeted audience.
Video	Add a portion of your TV ad to your multi-touch ad via the video element in our AdBuilder. Users retain 95% of a message when they see it in a video, compared to just 10% when they read it.
Product Carousels	If offering more than 10 products or services on your site, leverage the MNTN Ad Builder's Product Carousel offering. Product carousels can effectively showcase multiple products, enhance user engagement, provide a seamless browsing experience, and create cross-selling opportunities, all within the limited ad space. If your team wants to leverage dynamic media in your multi-touch ads, you must build your multi-touch ads out within MNTN's Ad Builder.
6 Ad Sizes	If uploading static multi-touch ads, we recommend the following ad sizes for every multi-touch group: Square - 300x250 Landscape - 728x90, 320x50, 300x50 Portrait - 300x600 and 160x600 This ensures your campaign can access a wide range of popular inventory, enabling our technology to effectively target your top-performing audiences in the spaces where they consume content.

Seasonal Ads

Small creative variations go a long way when supporting seasonal and promotional pushes.

Best Practice	Recommendation
Design	Make small adjustments to evergreen creative to fall in line with that holiday season.
Specificity	Create alternate end cards and calls to action that speak to seasonal promotions. Leverage variations in voiceover to further highlight the timely promotions.
Shelf Life	Keep holiday-specific creative in-market for 10-20 days to create urgency and combat ad fatigue.
Multi-Touch	Ensure your multi-touch creative is adjusted to fit your team's latest holiday TV commercials: messaging, call to action (CTA), promos, design, etc.

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