Why Brands Are Shifting CTV and Linear Budgets to YouTube Creators

YouTube is the #1 streamed Platform on TV

Market Reality
Up to 50% of YouTube consumption now happens on TV screens. YouTube commands 13.4% of all U.S. TV viewing time - larger than Netflix, Hulu/Disney, or any other single streaming platform.

Why This Matters
For Brands, this has a simple implication: if CTV budgets exist to reach audiences watching premium video content, YouTube is where that attention already lives.

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YouTube Creator videos are a library, not a feed

CTV is rented reach. Once the spend stops, the value stops. YouTube Creator integrations behave differently.

In other social platforms posts disappear within hours, and traditional paid media channels are rented reach - once the spend stops, the value stops. YouTube videos on the other hand, function as a searchable content library. Videos remain indexed, recommended, and rediscovered indefinitely.

The data shows that, on average, 40% of views come from content published more than 30 days ago. On Agentio, CPMs blend 20-50% below contracted rates as bonus views accumulate over time.

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How Creator integrations outperform CTV

There are three structural advantages that make Creator integrations the most efficient ad unit on TV.

1. Leverage consumer trust

Reach without trust is wasted attention.

Today, 70% of consumers say they trust Creator recommendations more than direct Brand advertising.

This trust advantage is structural. Creator integrations are delivered by voices audiences actively choose to watch, often over years of consistent content. The Brand message is contextual, personal, and embedded.

In a TV environment where viewers increasingly tune out ads, trust becomes the most valuable currency.

2. Reach premium audiences

More than 125 million people globally pay for YouTube Premium specifically to avoid advertising. These viewers skew higher income and highly engaged - and they are completely unreachable via traditional ads.

Creator integrations bypass this limitation. Since they are embedded in a Creator’s video, they reach Premium subscribers, who still watch these integrations in full.

3. Get 5x more attention per dollar

Integrations run on Agentio average 85% completion/ View-through Rates on 94 second average integrations.

We also know that 40% of views happen after the 30-day window that is used to determines contracted CPM for partnerships with YouTube Influencers. This means that effective CPM is, on average, 60% of contracted CPM.

In practice, this means YouTube Creators deliver almost 5x more minutes of attention than CTV:

And, even when assuming identical CPM, YouTube Creators still deliver 3x more minutes of attention:

5x more attention per dollar.

From premium, high-income earners.

Through voices 70% of consumers trust more than your current ads.

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The math of the shift: increase in attention for no additional spend

To understand the impact of "Attention Yield," consider a $1,000,000 marketing video budget. Moving just a fraction of your spend to Creator integrations creates massive "Bonus Attention".

By moving 10% ($100k) of that CTV budget to YouTube Creators, a Brand generates an additional 5 Million minutes of watch-time (~83k hours).

That is an 37% increase in total Brand attention for $0 in additional spend.

The bottom line

CTV budgets are shifting to YouTube because YouTube now dominates TV viewing time.

Within YouTube, Brands that rely solely on traditional ads inherit the same limitations they faced in linear TV and CTV. Creator integrations unlock something different: trusted attention, access to premium audiences, and compounding value over time.

One of Agentio’s Clients shifted $600K of Linear TV budget to Creator integrations on YouTube in Q4 2025 - that is a shift we continue to see happening as well. For Brands serious about performance, the shift isn’t just from CTV to YouTube.

It’s from CTV to YouTube Creators specifically.

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How Agentio helps

Agentio makes Creator partnerships on YouTube scalable, predictable, and performance-driven. 

By combining a closed, opted-in Creator marketplace with first-party performance data and end-to-end automation, Agentio removes the manual friction that makes partnership ads hard to execute at scale. 

Brands can test broadly, identify winning Creators and assets quickly, and put media behind what works without upfront guesswork, fragmented tooling, or slow human coordination. 

Every transaction on Agentio generates thousands of data points: matching gets sharper, performance predictions get tighter. This means that, as a Brand scales spend on Agentio, performance improves. 

The result is Creator advertising that behaves like a true media channel: measurable, repeatable, and built to scale with confidence