OTT CPMs By State
We believe an informed advertiser is a successful one. To bring some adult supervision to the landscape, we’re releasing our pricing index of OTT/CTV pricing across the U.S. This data is based primarily on our own spends over the last 12 months across multiple DSPs, client submissions of rates they’ve used with other vendors, vendor pitches, competitors surveys and feedback from agencies and media vendors. These numbers reflect what an average advertiser is paying when all is said and done. (Different vendors have different ways of including their fees, be it a flat rate, % management fee, or CPM add ons for target layering or attribution features.)
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| State | Est. Advertiser eCPM (All-in) | Video Completion Rate |
| Alabama | $29.89 | 97.68% |
| Alaska | $34.24 | 97.12% |
| Arizona | $31.55 | 97.25% |
| Arkansas | $26.03 | 98.02% |
| California | $33.10 | 95.95% |
| Colorado | $29.56 | 96.64% |
| Connecticut | $33.04 | 97.33% |
| Delaware | $26.40 | 96.59% |
| District of Columbia | $36.30 | 96.08% |
| Florida | $26.77 | 97.91% |
| Georgia | $30.92 | 97.65% |
| Hawaii | $25.93 | 95.90% |
| Idaho | $29.63 | 97.69% |
| Illinois | $29.38 | 96.80% |
| Indiana | $30.10 | 97.55% |
| Iowa | $32.39 | 96.92% |
| Kansas | $27.89 | 97.31% |
| Kentucky | $32.54 | 97.64% |
| Louisiana | $30.38 | 97.68% |
| Maine | $32.44 | 97.42% |
| Maryland | $30.43 | 97.32% |
| Massachusetts | $27.25 | 97.13% |
| Michigan | $30.08 | 97.25% |
| Minnesota | $29.75 | 97.76% |
| Mississippi | $30.23 | 98.00% |
| Missouri | $29.77 | 97.62% |
| Montana | $31.79 | 97.25% |
| Nebraska | $36.71 | 96.84% |
| Nevada | $29.39 | 97.30% |
| New Hampshire | $28.62 | 97.53% |
| New Jersey | $29.62 | 97.44% |
| New Mexico | $34.06 | 96.25% |
| New York | $29.96 | 97.02% |
| North Carolina | $27.29 | 97.48% |
| North Dakota | $28.54 | 98.16% |
| Ohio | $31.59 | 97.55% |
| Oklahoma | $30.91 | 97.19% |
| Oregon | $27.80 | 97.44% |
| Pennsylvania | $27.91 | 97.41% |
| Rhode Island | $28.43 | 97.29% |
| South Carolina | $28.18 | 97.58% |
| South Dakota | $28.68 | 98.10% |
| Tennessee | $27.52 | 97.91% |
| Texas | $28.36 | 97.68% |
| Utah | $30.86 | 97.28% |
| Vermont | $27.79 | 97.47% |
| Virginia | $31.24 | 97.54% |
| Washington | $26.48 | 97.20% |
| West Virginia | $29.42 | 97.51% |
| Wisconsin | $26.15 | 98.37% |
| Wyoming | $29.86 | 97.77% |
The Washington “Early Adopter” OTT Advantage
Our home market of Washington has always been an affordable place to reach affluent early adopters. It’s been the trend with every wave of digital advertising. Our population of tech workers led the nation in cord-cutting while the rest of the country was still trying to figure out their TiVo remotes.
There’s usually a massive, mature pool of inventory. However, advertiser budgets haven’t fully caught up. This creates a “Supply vs. Demand” arbitrage opportunity: You’re reaching a high-income, tech-savvy audience at low prices. It’s also worth noting that traditional media tends to lag drastically among the more technically affluent.
Highs, Lows, and Lobbyists
We speculate that Nebraska ($36.71) is expensive because of scarcity. Not a lot of people live there and adoption rates tend to be lower in rural areas. D.C. ($36.30) is expensive because lobbying and advocacy groups are always trying to get their ads in front of policymakers. We’re guessing the same lobbying pushes Virginia and Maryland slightly up as well.
Your OTT price might be higher and that’s OK (Really)
Before you fire off an angry email to your current agency, take a breath. Media is a natroiously competative environment and every salesperson knows that its only a matter of time before their client sees another vendor’s rates. If they’re worth their salt (That’s a big “if”, but lets assume the positive), they are doing everything rationally to keep your CPM down in order to keep you happy. If your pricing is higher, it’s likely because your agency is doing their job. Several factors can push a CPM north.
Hyperlocal Geofencing: Targeting the whole state of Washington is easy. Targeting a 2-block radius around your biggest competitor’s store is hard, and the auction price will reflect that.
The “Precision” Tax: If you insist on targeting “Left-handed marathon runners who earn $200k and recently bought a golden retriever,” you’ve narrowed the audience so much that the algorithm is going to charge you a premium to find those three people.
The Political Cage Match: If you’re trying to run ads during a political window in a “swing state,” good luck. Costs can become exponentially higher (3x or 4x) as candidates or ballot initiatives dump millions into the market to bum everyone out and bring down the general expectation level of human decency. During these windows, survival of the wealthiest takes over. We usually encourage clients to either pause spending, or divert to affordable avenues if available.
The January Hangover vs. The Holiday Binge: Timing is everything. In January, prices can often drop to 40% of the usual rate. Consumers are broke and saving for the new year, and advertisers are exhausted from blowing their entire budgets during the Q4 holiday sprint. If you have the stomach for it, January is the “clearance aisle” of the advertising world. We work with several clients who negotiate their entire year in January when all of the vendors are in panic mode.
“Cheaper” OTT is Usually the Red Flag
In media and life in general, “Cheap” is usually the biggest indicator of fraud. If something is too good to be true, it usually is.
1. The Ad-Mix Bait-and-Switch
Watch out for vendors “blending” their rates with other advertising vehicles like social video or preroll. They’ll give you a little bit of premium CTV (the good stuff) and mix it with a mountain of cheap mobile display ads or tiny video boxes buried at the bottom of a flashlight app.
2. The Bot Problem
Watch out for the cheap inventory that magically delivers a 100% completion rate. The programmatic space is full of bots designed to steal your ad budget. HMG and our partners use industry-grade blockers like Forensiq and TAG-verified inventory to keep the robots out of your invoices.
We also perform a manual weekly cull. We look at the delivery data. If we see a site that looks like it was built by a caffeinated AI in 2004 or a platform that seems “too good to be true,” we block it.
