Andrew Policastro is the Sr. Director of Publisher Development at FreeWheel.  He leads strategic partnerships with some of the industry’s largest programmers, OEMs and streaming platforms. With over a decade of experience, he works in a consultative capacity to help clients grow their digital, linear and programmatic business within the FreeWheel platform.

What do you see as unique advantages of contextual signals in today's CTV ecosystem?

Contextual targeting provides a reliable way to deliver relevance at a time where consumer privacy expectations and regulatory requirements are asking more of advertisers and publishers.

It is more than just finding the right audience – contextual targeting is about finding the right moment because that right moment leads to higher engagement and stronger brand lift. 

The FreeWheel Viewer Experience Lab found that people are twice as engaged when ads reflect or complement the content they’re watching. For example, if I’m watching the Premier League on Peacock, tourism ads for England or athletic sneakers would match and likely improve my viewing experience, showing just how powerful contextual targeting can be in making ads more memorable. 

What are some of the new and ongoing challenges advertisers face in CTV - possibly around suitability, scale, quality, and analytics?

While the scale and premium content available on streaming presents endless opportunities for advertisers, it comes with its own set of challenges. We often hear about fragmentation, inefficiency, and transparency as the biggest issues for advertisers, who, at the end of the day, are looking for the most direct, transparent path to content. The shortest, most efficient path from advertiser to publisher gives brands the clarity they need to see how their campaigns are reaching audiences and impacting their underlying business goals. 

How are advertisers you work with approaching performance, audience information, and optimization in reporting?

Advertisers have really turned their focus to outcomes and attribution. Reach and viewability are no longer the primary metrics. With the data and sophistication available, especially when you look at social media advertising, advertisers want to not only understand how they’re reaching audiences across platforms but optimize their strategies to improve campaign outcomes in real time. 

This is why identity resolution is vital, which is what FreeWheel’s DSP, Buyer Cloud, was built for. We take an ID agnostic approach so that whether it’s first-party, third-party, device or contextual insights, advertisers and agencies can leverage various forms of identity for programmatic execution and connect the ad exposures to outcomes. 

As more and more inventory moves towards programmatic, what recommendations are you making for customized targeting in CTV, allowing advertisers to create unique solutions for program-level controls and  combinations?

The most successful CTV campaigns will combine audience, identity and contextual strategies.  That’s how you get both scale and precision.  And executing these multi-faceted strategies with FreeWheel has never been easier – despite the challenges we’ve discussed earlier. Advertisers can integrate first-party data, contextual metadata, and target on first or third-party signals to  enable dynamic decisioning and real-time optimizations. This ensures campaigns stay relevant and effective. 

For agencies and brands who want even more customization, Buyer Cloud has completely customizable features that allow them to tailor their bidding strategies to specific content types, viewer behaviors and campaign goals. 

These are just a few offerings within our Advertiser Suite, that support many of the goals and capabilities a brand needs. 

The CTV market seems to be diverging into two different advertising types, based on the platforms. On one side are the top streamers and big advertisers and the other are the rapidly growing FAST channels with new-to-CTV advertisers and mid-size advertisers. Helping advertisers discover content that’s relevant and suitable is super important… How are you thinking about enabling this part of the market?

CTV is a premium environment—across the board.  Major brands are already investing in FAST, not because it’s a fallback, but because it works. FAST channels offer professionally produced, brand-safe content and reaches audiences at scale, making the environment a strategic choice for advertisers across the spectrum.

FAST platforms are attracting massive audiences with a wide range of premium content—from live news and sports to classic TV and niche programming. Xumo is a prime example of the high-quality, curated content that FAST channels can deliver to viewers while offering advertisers a trusted, scalable platform. For mid-size and emerging advertisers, this opens the door to cost-effective, high-reach campaigns, and for larger advertisers, FAST offers new ways to diversify reach and engage audiences in lean-back, TV-like experiences. 

To further empower advertisers, especially those dipping their toes into CTV for the first time, Universal Ads, powered by FreeWheel, offers brands a simple and seamless way to activate campaigns across premium streaming platforms.  

Whether its FAST channels or digitally native brands new to TV advertising, the opportunities across CTV just keep growing and we’re excited to be a part of growing this market.

Thank you, Andrew.

For anyone interested in learning more about Freewheel's capabilities, you can follow Freewheel on LinkedIn, visit freewheel.com, or reach out to your Peer39 Account Manager to learn more about how we partner together.