LinkedIn is making a big play for streaming TV ad dollars

• LinkedIn wants to help B2B advertisers reach key businesspeople as they watch TV.
• It has signed a partnership with adtech company The Trade Desk.
• It means The Trade Desk's clients can use LinkedIn data to target their connected-TV ad buys.

LinkedIn wants a bigger chunk of the streaming TV ad business.

The professional networking site exclusively told Business Insider that it has signed up adtech company The Trade Desk as its first demand-side platform partner for connected-TV ads. DSPs are software that allow advertisers to automate their ad buys and target audiences across a range of websites, apps, and platforms like TV.

Advertisers and agencies accustomed to using The Trade Desk for their digital ad buying can now layer in LinkedIn data to reach its audience of more than 1 billion professionals as they relax in front of the TV.

A data management software company might want to precision-target chief marketing officers. A cloud computing company may want to direct its streaming TV ads only to people who make IT spending decisions at their companies.

Streaming TV is one of the fastest-growing segments of the ad business. US advertiser spending on connected-TV ads is forecast to grow 14% this year to more than $37 billion, per the research firm EMARKETER, a sister company of Business Insider.

For LinkedIn, TV offers advertisers a way to reach key businesspeople on a big screen with the sound on, boosting brand awareness and explaining what their products do. Advertisers can also retarget those users with follow-up ads in their news feeds when they next visit LinkedIn.

"The broader trend that I'm hearing and observing is that in a more LLM-first world, B2B brands in particular know they have to get discovered — so they're moving to video," Matt Derella, VP of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, told Business Insider in an interview. LLM refers to large language models that power AI chatbots and search.

LinkedIn has a sizable ad business. EMARKETER forecasts its US ad revenue will grow 8.9% to reach $5.3 billion in 2026. It offers a range of ad formats on the website and app, as well as an audience network that allows advertisers to extend their LinkedIn ad campaigns to third-party apps and websites.

LinkedIn first began offering connected-TV ads in 2024. Derella said partnering with The Trade Desk will make it easier for advertisers to automate their LinkedIn-powered CTV ad buys. It could also potentially open LinkedIn to a bigger pool of advertisers, though the partnership is currently in a test phase with a small group of brands. LinkedIn works with its parent company, Microsoft, through Microsoft's supply-side platform, Monetize, to source and place its CTV ads.

Derella said LinkedIn chose The Trade Desk as its first DSP partner for CTV ads because it is both a major player and an innovator.

"As we talked to different agencies and customers, their name came up consistently," Derella added.

A LinkedIn endorsement for The Trade Desk

LinkedIn's endorsement will be a boost at a turbulent time for The Trade Desk. This week, the French advertising agency giant Publicis Groupe said it would no longer recommend The Trade Desk to clients following an independent audit. A Trade Desk spokesperson said in a statement that any notion it had failed an audit was false and that it had enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Publicis.

The Trade Desk's shares have plummeted more than 50% in the past year. The company faces increased competition and disruption from the rise of AI and from Amazon's yearslong effort to gain market share in the DSP space.

In an interview with Business Insider, The Trade Desk's SVP of inventory development, Will Doherty, said the partnership is significant because it signals "the open internet got bigger." The Trade Desk has positioned itself as an independent adtech platform that helps advertisers buy across the open internet — the ecosystem of websites, streaming services, apps, and other media accessible outside closed or "walled garden" tech platforms such as Meta and Google.

"With our ambitions for the open internet, we love when we get this kind of lean-in from large partners that may not have been as interoperable" in the past, Doherty said.