Every media planning conversation eventually gets to the same question: should this budget go to TV or digital? It’s the wrong question. The real one is what job each channel is actually good at — because the brands splitting budget well aren’t choosing a side, they’re matching the channel to what they’re trying to achieve.
The Global Shift (And Why It Isn't a Clean Break)
Globally, digital now accounts for roughly 73% of total ad spend, up from 67% just a year earlier — a real and fast shift. But TV and video advertising haven’t disappeared; they still hold close to 27% of global spend, and a majority of large brands say they’re planning to increase investment in Connected TV specifically over the next year. The money is moving, but it’s redistributing, not abandoning ship.
What TV Still Does Better
TV’s strength has never really been precision — it’s scale and trust. A national TV spot reaches an audience that hasn’t opted into anything, builds the kind of broad brand recognition that digital retargeting can’t manufacture on its own, and still carries a credibility that “sponsored post” doesn’t quite match in categories like banking and healthcare, where trust is the actual product being sold.
“Digital tells you who already knows your brand. TV is how some of them found out in the first place.”
Lead with TV or video for credibility and reach, use digital to capture the people who then go searching for you.
Lead with digital, where every taka is trackable back to a sale; TV plays a smaller, brand-awareness role here, if at all.
A hybrid: geo-targeted digital and local radio do the heavy lifting, with TV reserved for brand moments, not everyday spend.
A Practical Starting Split
- Start with the job, not the budget — decide what you need the channel to do before deciding how much it gets
- Trust-building categories should weight meaningfully toward TV/video, even in a digital-first plan
- Direct-response categories should weight meaningfully toward trackable digital channels
- Treat Connected TV as a bridge, not a tiebreaker — it carries TV’s reach with digital’s targeting
- Revisit the split every two quarters — the right ratio for a launch is rarely the right ratio a year in
The brands that get this right don’t ask “TV or digital.” They ask what each channel is actually for, fund both accordingly, and let the ratio shift as the goal shifts — launch, growth, retention — rather than picking one lane and defending it out of habit.
