Fall 2025 Tentpoles on CTV: How Smarter Buying Is Driving Better Deals

Q4 is when everything tightens...budgets, timelines, and the margin for error. And if you’re planning to win the holidays, your CTV strategy has to be precise, not broad.

At Mavern, we’ve been helping buyers deliver better results by combining smarter contextual targeting with clean, rights-aware supply access across every major SSP.

With more dollars moving into ad-supported streaming, and more brands expecting real performance from their CTV spend, we’re seeing that curation is no longer optional, it’s a requirement. That’s exactly where our platform, SignalTap, comes in.

Where Performance Lives This Fall

CTV attention in Q4 orbits around tentpole moments and live sports. And we’re not just talking generic bundles...we’re talking granular activations built for moments that move product.

Here’s the core calendar:

• NFL – Sunday Night Football (NBC/Peacock), Thursday Night (Prime Video), and Sunday Ticket (YouTube)

• MLB Postseason – October on FOX, FS1, TNT, and streaming via Max

• College Football – Saturdays starting August 23 (Week Zero)

• NBA’s new rights windows – Including a national Prime Video package

• Holidays – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Christmas

These are the spikes that matter. We build deal IDs around each one, then layer in shopping intent and contextual cues to ensure every bid has purpose.

What Makes Our Deals Better

With SignalTap, we combine two things that typically don’t coexist:

1. Broad supply access across every major SSP and direct publisher deals

2. Clean, purpose-built PMP deals shaped by context, not guesswork

That means we can move fast—but still keep quality and control high. Here’s how:

• We split by moment. Custom deals for Thursday NFL, College Saturdays, October Baseball, and Retail Weeks.

• We map by meaning. SignalTap uses semantic analysis at the URL and stream level to align creative with content that actually fits.

• We clean the path. Every deal is rights-aware, deduplicated, verified by app/channel ID, and tied to a clean seller chain.

  
  

The result? Fewer wasted impressions. Higher video completion. And more consistency in site traffic and ROAS.

For Buyers, It’s Fully Actionable

Everything we’ve described is live and ready, whether you want to run through your DSP via PMP or use our managed service for a turnkey activation.

We’ve already helped partners build:

• National sports-focused PMPs with clean reach and controlled frequency

• Holiday retail packages tuned to price, urgency, and time-of-day response

• Smart TV home screen deals that behave more like shoppable storefronts than video ads

And we’ll keep measuring what matters: clean reach, completion, CTR, assisted conversion, and incremental lift.

Our Thoughts

CTV is no longer about being in the stream, it’s about being in the right stream, at the right moment, on the right path.

That’s what we’re building every day here at Mavern. And if you’re looking to tighten up your Q4 strategy, we’d love to show you what smart curation can do.