The Hidden Complexity Behind Interactive CTV Ads
Everyone talks about how engaging interactive CTV ads are. But few talk about how hard they are to build.
CTV may look seamless to the viewer, but behind the scenes, it’s a fragile, tightly controlled environment. There’s no universal framework, no instant updates, and no second chances if something breaks.
Because every CTV app is built differently, getting interactive formats like scrollable carousels and advergames to run reliably at scale takes a significant amount of behind-the-scenes engineering.
Let's explore the hidden complexity behind interactive CTV ad formats that are redefining viewer engagement."
Mistakes hit harder in CTV
Let’s start with a common misconception in our industry: that building for CTV is like building for the web. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s why.
The first and most important difference between web and CTV is the tolerance for failure. If a website refreshes unexpectedly, a user might be annoyed, but they’ll keep browsing. If a CTV app crashes during the Super Bowl in overtime, it could spark headlines, social backlash, and subscriber loss. This is only one reason decade’s long attempts at a standard like the IAB’s SIMID are pure fantasy, which is just a regurgitated web spec that introduces all the same issues VPAID wrought – an open door invitation to a wild west of malicious, unstable, un-policed code and data leakage.
That’s why premium publishers build their apps in native code bases, prioritizing stability and performance above all else. Every major streaming app is built to deliver 99.99% uptime. Crashing simply isn’t an option—the viewer experience is the top priority.
Different hardware, different rules
Because each publisher develops its own highly controlled CTV app environment, there’s no open standard for how CTV apps are built. While the web runs on HTML5, many CTV apps and some of the most popular devices don’t even support web browsers. Each streaming app is essentially its own universe.
Why? It all boils down to the hardware. Comparing an iPhone to a CTV device is like comparing a sports car to a golf cart—they’re designed for totally different mediums. Let’s look at the differences between an iPhone and a typical CTV device:
CTV hardware is far more limited than phones or laptops. Top CTV devices are being released today with the same amount of RAM as a 20-year-old PC, or the iPhone you got in 2010. Apps need to be lightweight, backward-compatible, and functional on older devices. Developers must work within the constraints of low memory, slow processors, single threading and minimal storage—all while ensuring the app never crashes. Publishers squeeze every bit of performance from these platforms to deliver a premium user experience, leaving very little resource overhead for interactive ad rendering. In CTV, much more can go wrong than anywhere else in the digital world, and yet there is a lower threshold for pain.
So how did BrightLine pull it off?
Creating interactive ads for one or two CTV platforms is tough. Doing it across nearly every streaming app in the ecosystem took close to a decade of focused development. Here’s how we did it:
1 - We started with the right focus: the viewer experience
Our roots in linear TV gave us strong relationships with major publishers. From the beginning, we understood that every content provider cares about one thing above all else—the viewer experience. To match the stability of a cable box, streamers built their CTV apps in native codebases that are performance-optimized and highly controlled.
We didn’t just adapt to that reality; we built around it. By starting with the viewer experience in our design, we earned the trust of publishers who needed to know that interactive functionality wouldn’t compromise their app’s performance.
2 - We built a lightweight SDK for high-stakes environments
When performance is everything, even small additions to a CTV app can have major consequences. Publishers can’t risk introducing features that slow download times, disrupt video playback, or compromise the stability of the app. That’s why we built the BrightLine SDK to be lightweight, resilient, and purpose-built for CTV.
Our SDK displays interactive ads by rendering a transparent layer on top of the video player and receiving input from the viewer’s remote—up, down, left, right, and select—all without adding weight or instability to the app environment. Every BrightLine release undergoes rigorous testing across a wide range of platforms, apps, and chipsets in an automated QA lab of 40+ physical devices. Our standard is simple: never disrupt the viewing experience.
BrightLine’s SDK is now live across a wide range of apps, devices, and chipsets. Our partners include Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and Samsung TV Plus, and our formats work on all major CTV devices—from Roku to smart TVs and even native set-top boxes.
3 - We Integrated One by One
Every CTV app has its own native code, update cadence (typically every 6 months), and performance standards. There’s no shortcut—we integrated individually with each partner, and continue to do so for any new partner we onboard. This means over a decade of battle hardened learnings in close partnership with the largest streamers on the largest stages.
As the CTV space continues to grow, success will belong to those who understand its hidden complexity. Interactive CTV advertising may look simple on the surface, but it’s one of the most technically complex environments in digital media. There are no shortcuts or shared standards, and definitely no room for error.
Formats may evolve, but the foundation will always matter. The infrastructure has to be stable, scalable, and purpose-built for the unique demands of CTV. That’s the only way to deliver interactive experiences that not only look good, but actually work consistently across platforms, at scale.
