Moloco Brings AI-Powered Performance Advertising to CTV — and App Marketers Should Pay Attention

Introduction

For years, app marketers have lived and died by mobile performance advertising — measurable, optimisable, and accountable down to the install. Connected TV, meanwhile, has sat in a different drawer entirely: big audiences, premium attention, but frustratingly brand-focused metrics and little real-time feedback. That divide is now being challenged. Moloco has launched a CTV advertising product built from the ground up as a performance system — not a brand tool retrofitted with performance language. For marketers in India and globally who are watching CTV audiences grow while struggling to justify the spend, this launch changes the calculus.

The Big Announcement

Moloco, known for its AI-driven mobile performance advertising technology, has officially launched Moloco Ads for Performance CTV — a product designed specifically to bring the measurability and real-time optimisation of mobile advertising to the connected television environment.

The product is built on the same artificial intelligence infrastructure that powers Moloco's mobile ads business, making it one of the first CTV solutions designed as a true performance system from its foundation rather than adapted from a brand-advertising framework. Every impression is optimised in real time against specific marketing outcomes, with attribution running through the advertiser's preferred mobile measurement partner.

Early campaign data indicates meaningful results: advertisers running campaigns across both CTV and mobile have seen up to 1.5 times higher return on investment on CTV than on mobile alone. Additionally, approximately two-thirds of users who install an app after viewing a Moloco-delivered CTV ad do so within six hours of exposure — a conversion window that challenges the assumption that television drives only delayed or unmeasurable action.

What This Means for Your Brand

The launch of Performance CTV is not just a product story — it is a structural shift in how performance marketers can think about screen strategy.

Three implications stand out for Indian and global app marketers. First, CTV is no longer a brand-only environment. The persistent criticism of CTV advertising has been that it optimises for reach and frequency rather than outcomes — useful for awareness, unreliable for conversion. Moloco's architecture directly addresses this by connecting CTV impressions to real attribution data through existing measurement partner integrations, removing the need for separate measurement frameworks.

Second, the living room audience is genuinely underserved by performance advertising today. Global CTV ad spending is currently estimated between 40 and 45 billion dollars annually according to eMarketer, yet the majority of that investment is driven by brand budgets. Performance marketers have largely stayed on mobile because the feedback loops were reliable. A CTV product with real-time optimisation opens an entirely new inventory pool for app install campaigns, re-engagement, and user acquisition at scale.

Third, for India specifically, CTV adoption is accelerating rapidly alongside the growth of smart television penetration and streaming platform usage. Indian app marketers — particularly in gaming, fintech, edtech, and e-commerce — now have a pathway to reach high-attention audiences in a lean-back viewing environment that mobile simply cannot replicate.

The forward-looking challenge: measurement standardisation across CTV ecosystems remains work in progress globally, and Indian CTV inventory depth will need to scale to support performance campaign volumes.

Expert Take

The CTV advertising market's growth trajectory is substantial and well-documented. Yet the gap between available inventory and performance-ready infrastructure has been a persistent frustration for app marketers who have built sophisticated mobile measurement stacks. Moloco's mobile advertising pedigree gives its CTV product a credibility advantage that newer entrants lack — the AI optimisation engine has been proven at scale in mobile environments before being extended to television screens.

Sunil Rayan, Chief Business Officer and General Manager at Moloco Ads, noted that Performance CTV brings the measurability and precision that app marketers expect from mobile to television, offering a genuinely new way to reach audiences where attention is at its most valuable. The product's real-world validation came during the college basketball season in the United States, where Fanatics Betting and Gaming used it as a core component of their campaign strategy. Blair Hilton, Director of Performance Marketing at Fanatics Betting and Gaming, confirmed the campaign delivered results that exceeded expectations while enabling efficient access to a broader audience — an early signal that the performance promise is grounded in actual campaign outcomes, not just product positioning.

The brands.in Perspective

Indian performance marketers have spent the last decade building extraordinary precision on mobile. Cost per install, return on ad spend, cohort analysis, incrementality testing — the mobile performance toolkit is mature and deeply understood. CTV has existed as a parallel universe: premium, expensive, and largely unmeasurable by the same standards. Moloco's launch is not the final word on CTV performance advertising, but it is the most credible opening argument yet. For Indian app companies — and there are hundreds operating at serious scale — the ability to run accountable CTV campaigns alongside mobile could meaningfully expand reach without sacrificing the measurement discipline that performance teams have built their entire operating model around. Watch this space carefully.

Key Takeaways for Marketers

• Moloco's Performance CTV brings real-time AI optimisation to connected television — a first for true performance advertising on the big screen
• Early data shows CTV can deliver up to 1.5 times higher ROI than mobile when both channels run together
• Attribution runs through existing mobile measurement partner integrations — no new measurement infrastructure required
• Two-thirds of app installs driven by CTV ads occur within six hours of exposure, challenging assumptions about TV's delayed conversion window
• Indian app marketers in gaming, fintech, and e-commerce should begin evaluating CTV as a performance channel alongside mobile

FAQ

What is Performance CTV and how is it different from standard CTV advertising? Standard CTV advertising typically uses demographic targeting and measures results after a campaign ends. Moloco's Performance CTV optimises every impression in real time against specific outcomes — such as app installs or engagement — using AI, with attribution running through the advertiser's existing mobile measurement partner.

Which app categories benefit most from Performance CTV? Any app category with strong user acquisition goals stands to benefit — particularly gaming, sports betting, fintech, streaming, and e-commerce apps that already run scaled mobile performance campaigns and are looking to extend reach to high-attention living room audiences.

Is Moloco's Performance CTV relevant for Indian marketers? Yes. As smart television penetration and streaming consumption grow rapidly in India, CTV is becoming an increasingly viable channel. Indian app marketers with global or urban-focused user acquisition strategies should evaluate this product as part of a cross-screen performance approach.

Closing

The living room has always had attention. Now it is starting to have accountability too. Moloco's Performance CTV launch is one of the more technically credible attempts to bridge the gap between television's reach and performance marketing's precision — and it arrives at a moment when app marketers are actively looking for the next scalable channel beyond mobile. Are you already exploring CTV as a performance channel, or does mobile still own your entire acquisition budget? Share your thinking below, and follow brands.in every day for the sharpest brand and marketing intelligence in India.