Most developer-tools companies have no business running a CTV campaign. Those that do are typically sitting on a large round, battling for category leadership, and looking to reach engineering leaders who ignore banner ads. Before we spend a dollar of your media budget, we'll tell you candidly which one you are.
The Challenge
Dev-tools buyers aren't watching TV to discover a CLI tool
A senior engineer evaluating your API platform is reading docs, checking GitHub stars, and asking in a Slack channel who else runs it in production. They are not discovering new infrastructure tools from a 30-second spot during a game. Run CTV against a broad software audience and you rack up impressions that never touch the actual buying committee, while the budget that could have funded another quarter of content or account-based marketing disappears into a media report nobody reads.
Agencies promote CTV because it's their inventory, not because it suits your funnel
Most media agencies default every client into the same streaming buy regardless of who is actually evaluating the product. For a dev-tools company that means $50,000 to $150,000 per quarter in media commitment aimed at a generic 'tech decision-maker' segment that includes marketing ops managers and IT generalists who will never touch your SDK. The agency hits its delivery numbers on impressions and completion rate. Your pipeline doesn't move.
Series A and B dev-tools companies waste cash on brand awareness before they've earned it
Category-creation advertising works once you already have proof points: named accounts, retention data, a wedge competitors can't copy overnight. A company still iterating on product-market fit that puts a large chunk of runway into a CTV campaign is spending board credibility on impressions instead of the sales hires or product work that would actually close the gap. When CAC payback stretches with no pipeline to show for it, that's the meeting where next quarter's marketing budget gets cut.
No one ties a CTV impression to a signed contract from a technical buyer
Engineers and technical evaluators do not click TV ads. They see the spot, forget the click, and self-serve a trial three weeks later through a Google search or a direct URL typed from memory. Without an attribution plan built around branded search lift, direct traffic spikes, and account-level engagement timing, marketing has no way to defend the media line item in the next board deck, and finance starts treating CTV as an unexplained expense instead of a channel.
What We Do
Before creating a media plan, we conduct a fit assessment covering your ARR, funding stage, buyer seniority, and competitive position. If you're a seed or Series A company selling to individual engineers with a self-serve motion, we'll tell you CTV isn't the right channel yet and direct you toward content, developer relations, or performance channels that reflect how your buyer actually discovers tools. We'd rather give up the media budget than launch a campaign that won't work.
CTV earns a role for a developer-tools company at one specific point: you've secured a large round, usually a Series C or growth round, you're challenging an incumbent for category leadership, and your buyer has shifted up-market to VP of Engineering, CTO, or Head of Platform—not the individual contributor testing your CLI on a Tuesday afternoon. At that point, demand generation isn't the objective. The goal is to ensure that when a VP Eng's team puts your name into a bake-off, the VP Eng already knows who you are.
We shape the media plan around tech-adjacent streaming inventory rather than broad-reach network buys. That includes placements alongside business and technology content, contextual targeting connected to engineering and startup media consumption, and geo-fencing around metro areas where your named accounts and target engineering orgs are concentrated. An account-based overlay sits on top, focusing spend on accounts your sales team is already pursuing instead of a scattered national audience.
Creative aimed at this audience needs to avoid the ad voice altogether. Technical buyers are conditioned to reject marketing language immediately. We focus the copy on the problem the category addresses rather than a feature list, keeping it brief enough to beat a skip button. That message runs simultaneously across search and LinkedIn, letting us capture the 'I just saw that' search spike during the same week the spot airs—which is where most measurable signals actually appear.
Before launch, we instrument branded search volume, direct traffic, and self-serve signup timing to establish a clean baseline. While the campaign runs, we measure lift against that baseline and compare it with sales cycle velocity and win rate for named accounts in the target geos. That's how we connect a technical buyer's brand exposure back to pipeline, despite no one clicking the ad.
We operate as a fractional team, not an agency account. The people developing your media plan and producing your creative have sold to engineering leaders themselves, so they aren't adapting a generic B2B playbook to fit your category. There are no account layers and no markup on media buys routed through a holding company. You get an embedded team that handles your budget as if it were their own capital, because at this level of spend, a poor CTV quarter is a genuine setback—not just another line item.
What we deliver
- Fit assessment memo – a direct read on whether CTV belongs in this quarter's budget, with the funding-stage and buyer-seniority reasoning behind the call
- Media plan on tech-adjacent CTV inventory – placements, geo-fencing, and account-based overlay built around your named target accounts
- Creative for a technical audience – scripts and cuts written to the category problem, not a feature list, sized for a skip-button environment
- Measurement framework tying brand lift to pipeline – branded search, direct traffic, and account-level sales cycle tracking against a pre-launch baseline
- Parallel search and LinkedIn activation – timed to catch the search spike a CTV spot generates in its first week on air
CTV works for a developer-tools company at exactly one point in its life: the quarter when you're deploying a big round to become the category default before a well-funded competitor beats you to it. Beyond that window, it's merely a rounding error on burn, with no way to show it accomplished anything.
Our Methodology
We approach this as a 90-day sprint. Days 1-30 focus on diagnosis: assessing fit, mapping your actual buyer's seniority and streaming behavior, reviewing tech-adjacent inventory options, and instrumenting the branded search and direct traffic baseline used to measure lift later. If the assessment shows CTV isn't right for you yet, we'll say so at this stage and redirect the budget.
Days 31-60 focus on the build: producing creative for a technical audience, setting up media buys across tech-adjacent inventory and the geo-fenced account overlay, and configuring parallel search and LinkedIn campaigns to capture the search spike generated by a spot. Before anything launches, your sales team reviews the target account list to keep spend focused where it can meaningfully influence a deal.
Days 61-90 cover launch and readout: the campaign goes on air, we optimize weekly against the baseline, and by day 90 you'll have a clear answer on branded search lift, direct traffic movement, and any shift in sales cycle velocity for the named accounts in scope. That evidence—not a gut feeling—determines whether CTV belongs in the following quarter's budget.
Our Approach
The opening 30 days are purely diagnostic. We aren't purchasing media yet. We're verifying that your funding stage, buyer profile, and competitive position genuinely justify CTV spend, while establishing the search and traffic baseline against which the entire campaign will be measured.
Days 31-60 move into production and setup: creative scripts centered on the category problem, a media plan finalized around tech-adjacent inventory, an account-based overlay created from your sales team's target list, and parallel search and LinkedIn activation set up.
Days 61-90 encompass launch, weekly optimization, and the first meaningful lift readout. Reporting is measured against the baseline established in phase one, rather than industry benchmarks that don't represent your buyer.
A senior operator remains embedded with your marketing team throughout the engagement, joining a weekly standing call and providing written reports every two weeks. Most clients use the 90-day period as a go/no-go test: when the lift and pipeline signals are present, the work continues into an ongoing media and creative cadence. When they aren't, we say that plainly and help reallocate the budget instead of renewing a channel that doesn't perform.
- Increased branded search volume and direct traffic in the target metro and account segments the campaign ran against
- Stronger presence in competitive bake-offs against the category incumbent among named enterprise accounts
- Shortened sales cycles on accounts already inside the CTV geo and account-based overlay
- A clear go/no-go read on whether CTV earns a place in next quarter's budget, backed by data instead of a gut call
If your developer tools company needs connected tv advertising leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a CTV campaign cost for a developer-tools company?
Media spend generally ranges from $50,000-$150,000 per quarter, with a separate management and creative fee, based on the number of geos and accounts targeted by the campaign. This spending level is intended for growth-stage companies, not one we'd advise for a business that's still validating product-market fit.
When should we expect results from a CTV campaign?
Creative production and media setup occupy the first 60 days. The first meaningful view of branded search lift and direct traffic movement arrives around day 90, after the campaign has aired long enough to produce a measurable pattern relative to the pre-launch baseline.
How will Winston Francois work with our current marketing team?
A senior operator stays embedded with your team for the entire engagement instead of delivering a media plan and vanishing. We attend your weekly marketing standup, while your sales team reviews the target account list before the media launches, ensuring spend aligns with deals already underway.
How is Winston Francois different from a media agency managing our CTV buy?
Media agencies tend to place every client into the same broad streaming buy because of their existing inventory relationships. We begin by determining whether CTV suits your buyer in the first place. If it does, we construct the plan around tech-adjacent inventory and an account-based overlay connected to your sales team's real target list—not a generic tech-decision-maker segment.
How do you track ROI on a channel where technical buyers don't click ads?
Before launch, we establish a baseline for branded search volume, direct traffic, and self-serve signup timing, then measure lift against it throughout the campaign. That lift is cross-referenced with sales cycle velocity and win rate for named accounts included in the geo and account overlay.
Is CTV advertising right for our company?
CTV fits developer-tools companies at the growth stage or beyond—typically post-Series C or backed by a large round—that are competing with a funded incumbent for category leadership and selling to an up-market buyer such as a VP of Engineering or CTO. It isn't right for a seed or Series A company still using a self-serve motion to sell to individual engineers, where content, developer relations, and performance channels deliver more with less spend.
