Canada’s CTV market is growing fast. One of its biggest broadcasters is making it better.

When The Current asked marketing leaders in Canada last month what the fastest-growing advertising channels in the country are, connected TV was a common answer.

The data backs that up. CTV ad spend in Canada has almost tripled over the last three years, according to eMarketer, and could grow nearly 12% this year, partly due to increased smart TV adoption and streaming viewership.

Some of the country’s top broadcasters have been evolving their offerings as CTV surges — including Bell Media, which recently announced a partnership aimed at making CTV advertising and measurement in Canada much more efficient.

The company announced that it integrated tools from its Bell Marketing Platform into The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform, which will provide advertisers with access to Bell’s first-party data, and that it would support Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), a privacy-conscious identity solution.

The integration will allow advertisers to build custom audiences and more seamlessly access the activity and consumption patterns of over 22 million Bell customers across more than 8 million Canadian households.

“This gives brands access to unified measurement tools — like reach, frequency and sales lift — across linear and streaming environments, while ensuring full transparency and control in a premium, brand-safe ecosystem,” Matt McGowan, SVP of business solutions at Bell Media, tells The Current.

Go deeper

The Canadian TV industry, along with advertisers, is following the consumer.

Fifty-five percent of TV viewers in Canada are now streamers that use an ad-supported streaming service in an average month, according to a Roku report published last year — up from 44% in 2023.

Further, 79% of Canadians live in a home with a smart TV, according to a Think TV report.

Amid this surge, Bell had previously unified its premium video offerings, such as the streaming service Crave and the CTV app (the TV network, not to be confused with connected TV). Bell has also expanded its CTV ad inventory by 350%, according to McGowan.

“This rapid CTV adoption enables Bell to monetize both live and on-demand content more effectively across all screens, strengthening its direct-to-consumer strategy and giving advertisers scalable reach across a brand-safe, data-rich environment,” McGowan says.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.