Advertising, Connected TV

Roku Advertising in 2025: Complete Guide for Marketers

Roku Advertising in 2025: Complete Guide for Marketers

9 Min Read

Roku remains a leading Connected TV (CTV) platform, offering advertisers access to millions of engaged streaming viewers in 2025. With advanced targeting, premium inventory, and data-driven insights, brands can deliver highly relevant ads across Roku’s extensive network of channels.

This guide covers ad formats, pricing, targeting strategies, and best practices to help marketers maximize their Roku advertising campaigns in 2025.

What Is Roku Advertising?

Roku advertising refers to the suite of ad products and solutions offered by Roku, one of the most prominent and leading streaming platforms. 

Advertising on Roku is a great way to expand your reach and connect with niche audiences based on their streaming preferences and viewing habits. This form of CTV advertising gives you a few different options — namely static images and video ads — to connect with prospective customers and boost your brand awareness. 

Benefits of Roku Advertising

Roku’s expansive platform provides advertisers with numerous advantages, including:

1. Large, Engaged Streaming Audience

Roku boasts millions of active users, making it one of the most widely used streaming platforms. Advertisers can reach cord-cutters and digital-first audiences who are highly engaged with streaming content.

2. Advanced Targeting and First-Party Data

With Roku’s first-party data and audience insights, advertisers can precisely target viewers based on demographics, interests, and viewing behavior. This ensures streaming ads are shown to the right audience at the right time, improving efficiency and ROI.

3. Premium Inventory on Top Channels

Roku offers access to high-quality ad placements across major streaming services and exclusive Roku content. Brands benefit from non-skippable, brand-safe inventory on some of the most-watched streaming channels.

4. Flexible Ad Formats for Any Goal

Advertisers can choose from video ads, interactive ads, and sponsorships, allowing for customized campaigns that match different objectives. Whether the goal is brand awareness, lead generation, or conversions, Roku provides adaptable solutions.

5. Comprehensive Performance Analytics

Roku’s detailed reporting and attribution tools help advertisers track impressions, engagement, and conversions in real-time. These insights allow brands to optimize their television advertising campaigns for maximum impact and efficiency.

How Does Roku Advertising Work?

Roku advertising leverages its users’ data and viewing habits to deliver targeted ads. When advertising on Roku, you’ll be able to customize a wide range of campaign settings, including your budget, targeting preferences, and ad length, among other factors. 

Roku will then programmatically place your ads in front of viewers who are most likely to be interested, ensuring a better return on investment (ROI). 

Roku Ads Manager, Explained

The Roku Ads Manager is the platform’s built-in advertising interface. It is a self-service tool that simplifies the process of creating and managing your ad campaigns on the platform by offering user-friendly features for creating ads, targeting audiences, budgeting, and tracking performance.

If, however, you are running video ads on multiple CTV platforms, it is more beneficial to adopt an all-in-one CTV ad management solution like MNTN Performance TV. In doing so, you’ll be able to view the results of your Roku advertising efforts in the context of your overarching CTV marketing strategy. 

Types of Roku Ads

When advertising on Roku, you’ll be able to run several types of ads, which include the following:

Standard Video Ads

These full-screen, non-skippable ads play during streaming content, ensuring maximum viewer attention. With advanced targeting capabilities, advertisers can reach their ideal audience based on demographics, interests, and viewing habits.

Spotlight Ads

Spotlight ads appear immediately when users activate their Roku device, making them one of the most prominent placements available. This format ensures brands capture attention right from the start of the viewing experience.

Theme Ads

Theme ads integrate branding into Roku’s home screen or The Roku Channel’s interface, creating an immersive ad experience. By surrounding navigation features, these ads provide high visibility without disrupting content consumption.

Marquee Ads

Marquee ads offer premium placement at key Roku entry points, using static, animated, or video formats to enhance engagement. This format allows brands to create eye-catching, memorable moments that connect with viewers instantly.

Action Ads

Designed for direct engagement, action ads allow viewers to interact using their Roku remote, whether it’s requesting more information or making a purchase. This format encourages immediate consumer response, turning passive viewers into active participants.

How to Advertise on Roku

Advertising on Roku is an easy, frictionless process. You can get started by following these simple steps:

1. Create a Roku Ads Manager Account

As is the case with all streaming platforms, Roku requires you to create an advertiser’s account before uploading your content. Thankfully, creating a Roku Ads Manager account is quick and easy, but if you do need some help, Roku can connect you with an advertising expert who will guide you through the account and campaign creation process. 

2. Define Your Campaign Goals

With your account created and verified, you can launch a new campaign. During the campaign creation process, Roku will prompt you to select campaign goals. Its algorithm will then optimize your ad placements based on your stated goals. 

3. Select Your Target Audience

Next, you can customize your target audience. Roku offers several audience segmentation options, meaning you can get your ads in front of the right people at the ideal time in their customer journeys.

4. Choose Your Ad Format

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make involves choosing your ad format and creating your ad with Roku’s creative requirements in mind. As we alluded to earlier, banner and screensaver ads are the more economical ad formats, but videos tend to be more impactful. If you are running multiple types of ads at once, you’re likely trying to strike a balance between efficacy and cost. 

5. Set Your Budget and Launch

On the subject of costs, setting your spending limits is one of the final steps for advertising on Roku. You can set a campaign limit, as well as daily or weekly spending caps. 

After you choose your budget, you are ready to upload your content and launch your campaign. 

How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on Roku?

Advertising on Roku is budget-friendly, as the platform’s minimum campaign spending limit is currently just $500. The more you spend, the wider your reach and the higher your odds of driving conversions. 

However, the cost to advertise on Roku will vary significantly depending on the campaign setup. Here are the main cost drivers for ads:

  • Ad Format – Premium placements like Spotlight and Marquee ads typically cost more than standard video ads due to their high visibility.
  • Audience Targeting – More precise targeting, such as demographic, behavioral, or first-party data segmentation, increases ad costs.
  • Campaign Duration & Frequency – Running ads more frequently or over an extended period requires a larger budget.
  • Bidding Competition – Prices fluctuate based on demand for specific audience segments and prime viewing times.
  • Buying Method – Costs vary depending on whether ads are purchased via self-serve, programmatic, or direct deals with Roku.

With all of that in mind, if you’re new to advertising on Roku, it’s best to start with a small budget that you can test the waters with.

Roku Ads Best Practices

Roku advertising may seem pretty easy — and for the most part, it is — but there is still a learning curve associated with the process. The good news is that you can soften that learning curve by following a few tried and true best practices.

1. Use Advanced Targeting

Roku’s advanced targeting options are designed to help you reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. This ensures your ads are seen by viewers most likely to be interested in your product or service, increasing engagement and conversion rates.

2. Optimize Creative for TV Screens

Design your ads with the big screen in mind. Use high-resolution images and videos, clear and legible text, and ensure that your messaging is easily understood when viewed from a distance. For more details, check out our complete guide to CTV ad specs.

3. Incorporate Interactive Elements

Take advantage of Roku’s interactive ad capabilities to engage viewers more deeply. Interactive ads can include clickable elements that lead to a landing page, offer more information, or provide special offers, enhancing viewer engagement and the likelihood of conversion.

4. Utilize Sequential Messaging

Develop a campaign that tells a story over time rather than relying on a single ad. By using sequential messaging, you can guide the viewer through a journey, building awareness and interest progressively.

5. Measure and Optimize

Use Roku’s analytics tools to track the performance of your OTT ads, including reach, frequency, engagement, and other critical marketing metrics. Analyze this data to understand what’s working and what’s not, then adjust your campaigns accordingly.

What Is Performance TV?

Roku advertising offers a strong entry point into the world of Connected TV—but why limit your reach to just one platform? MNTN Performance TV expands your campaigns across 150+ premium streaming networks, giving you greater scale, precision targeting, and real-time performance tracking.

With MNTN Performance TV, you also get:

  • Premium CTV Inventory – Extend beyond Roku with top-tier streaming networks like ESPN, CNN, and Discovery+, ensuring your ads appear alongside high-quality content.
  • Verified Visits™ Attribution – Gain real-time visibility into how your ads drive traffic and conversions, with insights into post-ad engagement across devices.
  • MNTN Matched: AI-Powered Targeting – Use first- and third-party data to precisely reach your ideal audience and maximize ad performance.
  • Transparent, Real-Time Reporting – Get full visibility into campaign results, including network performance, audience insights, and ROI tracking.
  • Creative-as-a-Subscription™ (CaaS) – Access high-quality, performance-driven ad creative, seamlessly integrated with your media spend.

Take your CTV strategy beyond Roku and reach more premium audiences with MNTN Performance TV. Launch your performance marketing campaign today.

Advertising on Roku: Final Thoughts

Roku advertising presents a compelling opportunity for your brand to engage with a large and diverse audience through CTV. By combining the platform’s targeting options and versatile ad formats with the principles of Performance TV, you can make every marketing dollar count. Connect with MNTN today to learn more about the power of Performance TV and its ability to magnify the efficacy of CTV platforms like Roku.