Who should buy it
Linear is cable and broadcast TV. Streaming, also sold as CTV or OTT, is TV delivered over the internet, as Tatari, a TV ad platform, puts it.
“I've never actually successfully bought TV and I think you need somebody who really understands that cuz it's a very different skill set”
Limited Supply, August 2026
- TV sellers recruit brands with sign-up credits. Cody calls the offer "a bad bad judge of character when you're starting TV", and the credits "icing on the cake".
- One programmatic partner gave Jones Road one of its more efficient CPAs on a first test, then was "wildly unprofitable" on the second, and Cody "could never get an answer from them on it".
How big the first test was
| Jones Road's first TV test | What it was |
|---|---|
| Ads | About $50,000 of production for 8 ads |
| Media | $150,000 to $200,000 over a month, committed no matter what |
| Launch | Christmas Day, on remnant linear TV, meaning unsold spots, in 15 or 30 second ads |
| Later | Streaming added after linear, and TV at about 25% of the mix at one point |
Source: Cody Plofker on Limited Supply, August 2026
- Cody's warning: "you also can't, you know, go with no creative and then spend 500 bucks and shut it off".
- On the same show, Tatari's Sean says a "$5,000 test or something" is "really not going to give you much".
- Tier 11, an ad agency, started a premium pet brand on CTV with about 6% of its ad budget, ran it at least 2 months, and only then saw the top line numbers move.
Which ads to run
- Many of Jones Road's best TV ads started as organic TikToks with founder Bobby, edited or shot again for TV.
- The pet brand sends its influencers the product and a script. They film, and the footage comes back as a professionally done 15 second CTV ad. A QR code on screen got few scans.
- Ridge's Tony Hawk ads let it run linear TV in bars, at gyms and on the fishing network. Response rates about doubled, and TV almost doubled as a share of Ridge's budget.
How to measure it
- "Never allow anyone to grade their own homework," Cody says. Start with a post purchase survey, and if half your buyers answer it, double the count.
- Holdout tests cost more on linear TV, where you pay a premium on the price of each view.
- A linear spot shows a spike in site traffic right after it airs. Cody says you don't get that spike with CTV.
- Watch organic and direct traffic as the TV budget moves. When Jones Road launched TV, its new visitor rate shot up.
- Expect more searches for your name, and test your brand search ads before paying more for them.
Who it fits
In our notes from Marketing Operators, Zach Stuck says $20 to $30 million brands that get Meta right can take the same idea to TV, and that's where $20 to $100 million starts to happen.
What we do
We don't buy TV. We book the creators and run their videos on Meta, TikTok and YouTube, the footage a TV agency can cut from.
See what the winning YouTube ads do and the share of budget DTC brands give to YouTube advertising.
This audit comes from Influencer Advisory, our influencer marketing agency.