Smartly integrates Roku Ads API to automate cross-channel streaming campaigns
Smartly has integrated its AI-powered advertising platform with Roku Ads Manager via a direct API, enabling performance marketers to launch, manage, and measure CTV campaigns from their existing social media workflows. The partnership also introduces Smartly's AI Studio to help advertisers automatically convert horizontal and vertical social video assets for streaming television. This integration connects Smartly's active advertiser base to Roku's extensive US footprint of over 125 million daily home screen users.
Key Takeaways
- Direct API integration allows marketers to manage Roku campaigns without leaving the Smartly dashboard.
- Smartly AI Studio automatically adapts horizontal and vertical social video assets for Roku's streaming environment.
- Roku reaches over 125 million daily home screen users, with 44% share of U.S. CTV viewing time as of Q4 2025.
- The integration provides access to Smartly's Predictive Budget Allocation and Brand Pulse audience deduplication tools.
- Roku Ads Manager advertiser count more than doubled year over year in Q1 2026.
Why It Matters
The partnership removes the creative and operational friction that has prevented social-first performance marketers from scaling into connected television. By treating CTV inventory like a social feed, Smartly and Roku are positioning streaming as a high-intent performance channel rather than just a brand awareness vehicle. This strategy leverages Roku’s authenticated identity layer to provide the deterministic targeting signals that growth marketers require for ROI-focused spend. As fragmentation continues, unifying creative production and measurement across social and CTV will likely become a baseline requirement for efficiency. Watch for Smartly’s pending acquisition of INCRMNTAL to potentially add causal AI measurement to this cross-channel workflow.
Additional Context
The partnership arrives amid a transformative period for Roku's corporate structure. Per Marketing Dive and Forbes in June 2026, Fox Corporation announced plans to acquire Roku for $22 billion to combine its massive live sports and news portfolio with North America's leading CTV operating system. This transaction, expected to close following regulatory review, would unite the Fox One streaming service and Tubi with Roku’s 100 million-plus streaming households, creating what executives describe as the third-largest player in U.S. television by viewing share. Roku’s commercial momentum is also accelerating. Per MediaPost and the company’s Q1 2026 earnings reporting, Roku disclosed quarterly advertising revenue for the first time, reaching $613 million, a 27% year-over-year increase. Total platform revenue rose to $1.25 billion in the same period. This revenue growth is supported by Roku’s dominant market position; according to Nielsen data from late 2025, the Roku platform accounted for 21.2% of all U.S. TV viewing time, while The Roku Channel reached a record 3% share of total domestic viewership. Smartly has been executing a parallel expansion of its CTV footprint through high-level DSP integrations. Per PPC Land in March 2026, Smartly integrated with Amazon DSP to connect its AI creative tools to Prime Video, Twitch, and Fire TV. This followed a September 2025 integration with Spotify Ads Manager for cross-channel audio and video management. By adding a direct API to Roku, Smartly now offers its 800+ brand clients a unified interface for the two largest walled gardens in Western CTV—Amazon and Roku—paired with its established social media footprint across Meta and Google.
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