‘There’s no playbook’: Inside Netflix’s quest to double ad revenue to $3 billion

Netflix revolutionized TV. Now it wants to do the same thing with its advertising business.

The entertainment giant is targeting $3 billion in ad revenue in 2026, double the $1.5 billion it generated last year — an ambitious goal as the broader streaming market matures.

Overall, Netflix projects $6 billion in revenue growth, meaning 25% of Netflix’s total gains are expected to come from advertising. Less than four years after launching its ad-supported tier, the company is positioning ads as one of its next major growth drivers.

“There’s no playbook for what we’re doing because we’re actually looking to do things in a different way,” Netflix Vice President of Advertising Nicolle Pangis told The Current. “What Netflix has been great at is not being the same as everywhere else. And that’s really why we drive such high member engagement.”

Netflix is not only trying to build a better ad product; it wants to build a different ad product.

Even without a clear precedent, its advertising strategy is anchored by three ideas: being data-driven, global and easy to work with. Netflix’s ad suite, which launched in the U.S. in April 2025 and internationally in June 2025, is central to that acceleration.

The platform offers brands expanded measurement and targeting capabilities and allows them to transact how they want — programmatically. Pangis estimated that 80% of CTV ad buys now run through programmatic channels.

Media buyers are noticing. Independent agency Ovative Group has poured a lot more money into Netflix in recent months.

“The progression of Netflix’s ad operation has been really unique, where the barriers to entry right away were crazy high,” Tommy McQuillan, director of video and programmatic media at Ovative Group, told The Current. “And as soon as those barriers came down, they went straight into ‘Cool, the barriers are down and we’re programmatic now.’”

When Netflix debuted its ad-supported model in 2022, it said it would take a “crawl, walk, run” approach. Now, the company is “walking to a light jog,” according to Pangis.

Staying true to Netflix’s ethos

Netflix has access to extensive first-party data, with 190 million monthly active viewers watching ads. Expanding the use of that data for advertisers and tapping into the growing volume of historical campaign data through the ad suite is one of the company’s priorities, co-CEO Greg Peters said.

“They’re just in the early innings,” Christine Grammier, LiveRamp’s vice president of global measurement products, told The Current. “They got it up and running and they have so much more they can offer.”

The global streaming giant added 23 million subscribers in 2025. Netflix is also exploring using the company’s content recommendation algorithm to power predictive signals for advertisers.

“Now that we’ve grown to relevant scale, meaning consumer reach in all our ads countries, our main focus is on increasing the monetization of that growing inventory,” Peters said during the earnings call in January. “It’s likely to remain our focus for at least the next several years.”

Still, Netflix insists it is prioritizing the viewing experience over growing revenue at all costs. The service runs about four minutes of commercials an hour — among the lowest levels in streaming.

“We’re not going to deliver an ad just because we can get paid in that moment,” Pangis said.

She believes understanding the right moment to deploy an ad is key to building a long-term business. Netflix uses viewership habits, engagement, context and how much content a viewer watches to determine when to show an ad.

That commitment to the viewing experience has long been part of Netflix’s approach. It has the lowest churn rate of any streaming service. For example, the company did not automatically shift its subscribers onto an ad-supported plan when it launched, unlike Amazon with Prime Video.

Global hits for viewers and advertisers

Netflix’s ad-supported tier now operates in 12 markets — U.S., U.K., Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Italy and South Korea — representing around 65% of global ad spend, according to estimates from WARC.

The company has not announced plans to expand into additional countries at this time, according to Pangis. Regardless, its global power is one of the most attractive parts of its business for advertisers.

“Their international business has a lot of runway in more emerging markets,” Scott Ensign, chief strategy officer at independent agency Butler/Till, told The Current.

By 2027, WARC projects Netflix will earn over 9% of global CTV spend, triple the percentage that it brought in last year.

“International and local hits indicate Netflix’s ability to draw on a huge range of content to engage a range of audiences, and very few media companies could build international hits from local commissions, for example, Baby Reindeer or Squid Game,” said Paul McGee, head of video planning at the U.K. agency Goodstuff.

Getting close to those hits allows global brands like Unilever to “come in and buy across these 12 major markets, which they can do with us very easily,” Pangis said.

“For the big global brands, like the autos, pharmas and the CPGs, they’re thrilled when they can find a global solution that they don’t have to do differently in any country,” LiveRamp’s Grammier added. “So the upside there is in those big global brands.”

All of this underpins Netflix’s game plan to scale its ad business. In 2025, the global giant increased revenue by 250% to $1.5 billion. Its next goal is doubling its ad revenue to $3 billion in 2026. Beyond that, research firm Omdia projects much bigger future targets — $8 billion in 2030.

Netflix appears to be building for the long game rather than the quick win. The global giant may not be following an established playbook, but it is betting its streaming scale — and its data — can turn advertising into its next major growth engine.

“There’s a lot that we can do to really drive what we believe is the special sauce of Netflix, which is bringing brands much closer to highly engaged members, that really drives the attention for those brands and ultimately outcomes,” Pangis said.