The Ultimate Roku Advertising Playbook for Digital Marketers in 2025

In 2025, television is no longer confined to a cable box it’s on demand, personalized, and powered by data.
And when it comes to reaching the modern viewer, Roku is leading the revolution.

Now through the end of the year is prime streaming time on Roku, with viewers spending 3.5 hours each day streaming content and shopping online. Roku Ads Manager simplifies campaign setup, lets you segment audiences, and provides real-time reporting. And, you can test creative variants and run shoppable ads to drive purchases directly on-screen.

Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.

Use code GET5K now

With more than 80 million active accounts and billions of streaming hours logged each month, Roku has become a central hub for connected TV (CTV) advertising.
For digital marketers looking to expand beyond search and social, Roku Ads offer the perfect blend of targeting, storytelling, and measurement all within the comfort of consumers’ living rooms.

This playbook breaks down exactly how marketers can use Roku’s ecosystem to reach audiences smarter, spend efficiently, and dominate the streaming economy.

Traditional TV is fading fast. In 2024, streaming officially surpassed linear TV in total viewing time (Nielsen).
With Roku sitting at the heart of this transformation, advertisers now have access to an audience that’s more engaged, data-rich, and measurable than ever before.

What makes Roku especially powerful is its scale and precision it’s not just where people stream, it’s how and when they engage. Roku’s platform gives marketers visibility into household behavior, viewing habits, and even purchase intent.

As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies disappear, first-party data has become the new gold standard. Roku owns one of the most robust datasets in the streaming world.

This allows advertisers to:

With Roku’s proprietary data, marketers no longer guess who’s watching they know.

Roku’s advertising environment revolves around three core pillars:

This trifecta allows marketers to build end-to-end campaigns from targeting and creative deployment to real-time measurement all inside one ecosystem.

Roku offers multiple ad formats tailored to different objectives:

These ad types let marketers mix awareness, engagement, and conversion tactics in a single campaign bridging the gap between TV storytelling and digital performance.

Roku’s OneView platform enables advertisers to build custom audiences using:

For example:
A fitness brand can target Roku users who stream health documentaries and have downloaded a workout app on their mobile device ensuring contextual precision and minimal ad waste.

Roku’s identity graph links streaming activity with other household devices, letting advertisers retarget viewers across mobile, desktop, and tablet.

This creates a full-funnel experience:

It’s a seamless path from awareness to action powered by Roku’s unified audience insights.

Roku ads are full-screen and unskippable meaning attention is guaranteed.
This gives brands the rare opportunity to deliver cinematic storytelling without distraction.

Marketers should focus on:

In 2025, creative that blends authenticity with storytelling performs best especially when adapted for streaming audiences.

Roku’s interactive ad units allow viewers to engage directly from signing up for newsletters to purchasing via remote click.

These “lean-in” experiences deliver higher engagement rates and offer measurable ROI, especially for e-commerce and service-based brands.

AI is reshaping how creatives are optimized. Roku’s OneView uses machine learning to test variations of ad creative, analyze audience response, and automatically serve the best-performing version.

For instance:

This continuous optimization ensures that every impression counts.

Roku’s attribution tools connect ad exposure to downstream outcomes like web visits, app installs, and purchases.
You can see exactly how many viewers watched your ad and later converted something traditional TV could never deliver.

Marketers can also analyze how Roku campaigns expand overall reach compared to other platforms (e.g., YouTube or Meta).
This helps advertisers identify unique audiences they can’t access anywhere else.

Roku’s reporting dashboard provides granular insights into:

With these metrics, marketers can continually refine campaigns and prove real business impact.

Shopify partnered with Roku to help small businesses advertise on TV for the first time.
Using Roku’s self-serve ad manager, merchants could launch campaigns starting at just $500.

Results:

This proved that CTV advertising is no longer just for big brands it’s accessible to all.

Lexus used Roku’s OneView platform to deliver personalized video ads based on audience interests and zip codes.
The campaign achieved:

It was a masterclass in data-driven storytelling.

Step 1: Define your goal brand awareness, lead generation, or conversions.
Step 2: Use Roku’s audience builder to define high-intent segments.
Step 3: Create short, emotionally engaging video content.
Step 4: Implement retargeting to close the loop on conversions.
Step 5: Measure, test, and iterate with Roku’s analytics suite.

When done right, Roku campaigns can outperform traditional channels while delivering TV-level impact with digital-level precision.

By 2026, Roku plans to integrate AI-generated creative assistance, predictive bidding, and real-time shoppable video formats.

Imagine a world where viewers can buy a product directly from their TV remote that’s the future Roku is building.

For marketers, this means even greater opportunities to:

Roku isn’t just part of the advertising ecosystem it’s shaping the next decade of it.

In a world where attention is fragmented, Roku delivers what every brand needs focus, engagement, and measurable impact.

For digital marketers in 2025, mastering Roku advertising isn’t just an option it’s a competitive advantage.

So whether you’re an agency, e-commerce brand, or startup, it’s time to take your campaigns to where your audience already is streaming smarter on Roku.