The rise of Shoppable TV ads

The more channels brands add to their media mix, the harder it gets to see what’s actually driving results. Complexity goes up. Costs follow. And fragmented systems with siloed data make it nearly impossible to deliver what actually drives what really moves the needle: seamless experiences that convert on the spot.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a smarter way to approach TV advertising. One that closes the gap between attention and action, and helps brands get more from their media investments. It starts by embedding direct shopping opportunities into every layer of your Connected TV strategy. That’s why I’m excited about the rise of Shoppable TV ads.

What are Shoppable TV ads?

At their core, Shoppable TV ads embed direct purchase opportunities into television commercials, using interactive elements like QR codes to drive real-time conversion. This unlocks greater efficiency and enables more proactive, personalized customer engagement.

Shoppable TV also continually identifies and seizes new avenues for conversion, making sure no impulse buying opportunity or second-screen engagement is left unexplored. But to make all of this happen, you have to start with a rigorous, viewer-centric approach to ad experience design. We see this taking shape through a structured, four-step approach:

1. By unifying your brand's consumer journey (phase 1) with a seamless TV-to-mobile approach, it becomes possible to eliminate friction between awareness and purchase.
2. The interactive nature of these ads generates valuable analytics and actionable insights (phase 2) into your customers' preferences, engagement patterns, and conversion behavior.
3. Subsequently, these insights can be fed into your measurement systems to deliver predictive analytics (phase 3) that enable you to identify which products and messaging drive the highest conversion rates.
4. As a final step, automation is deployed to optimize ad delivery (phase 4) - for example, showing different QR-enabled products to different household segments based on their viewing and purchasing history.

To make the process continual, the performance data from each campaign is captured and fed back into your planning systems. This ensures that your campaigns get smarter and smarter – and better at keeping your customers engaged and converting.

Shoppable TV in action: Real-life business impact

Shoppable TV ads are proving to be an effective strategy for building stronger and continuous connections with customers from awareness to consideration to conversion. Amazon Prime is leading the way with several innovative ad formats. Their advantage comes from controlling the entire viewing, advertising, and purchasing chain, making for much easier integrations. Their Shoppable Carousel Ads let viewers browse multiple related products during ad breaks without disrupting their viewing experience. The content pauses automatically during interaction and resumes once the viewer is finished exploring.

Shoppable TV is also enabling brands to reach customers like never before through Interactive Pause Ads. Thanks to these innovations, viewers who pause content see translucent ads with "Add to Cart" or "Learn More" options, converting passive moments into commercial opportunities. With predictive modeling and automated execution, this creates an entirely new conversion touchpoint. The Shoppable TV approach enables brands to monetize what would otherwise be wasted viewer attention.

A closer look at implementation

Developing effective shoppable TV requires system-level thinking across the entire consumer journey. For brands without Amazon's end-to-end ecosystem control, strategic partnerships become essential.

Whether integrating with your existing apps or connecting to third-party shopping environments (like Amazon or local platforms such as Bol.com in the Netherlands), collaboration accelerates development and simplifies implementation. Each component needs to work together seamlessly, ensuring that the viewer can interact with the ad and make a purchase with minimal friction.

The integration becomes significantly more challenging for smaller players without established retail platforms or proprietary ad delivery systems. The optimal approach is partnering with specialists who understand both the technical and commercial requirements. By developing these capabilities with experienced partners, you can overcome integration hurdles and create a cohesive viewing and shopping experience that drives real business results.

Learn all about Shoppable TV Ads

If you're curious about how Shoppable TV can help you quickly derive more value at every stage of your company's customer journey, let's start a conversation. We can walk you through our approach in detail and provide real-life examples of how forward-thinking brands are already using this approach to maximize their business impact through Connected TV innovation.