Yield optimisation for a CTV publisher is the practice of maximising ad revenue from every available ad impression. The goal is to fill as many ad slots as possible at the highest achievable CPM — without harming the viewer experience that makes your inventory valuable in the first place.
There are five main levers a CTV publisher controls: floor prices (the minimum CPM you will accept), demand partners (more SSPs and direct buyers mean more competition for your inventory), ad pod structure (how many slots per break, how breaks are timed, which slots are priced at a premium), fill rate (ensuring unfilled slots are minimised through backfill), and first-party audience data (which lets buyers bid more precisely and improves CPMs). Moving any one lever affects the others — yield optimisation is about managing all five simultaneously.
In CTV, yield is often measured as revenue per hour (RPH) — total ad revenue divided by total content hours viewed. RPH captures the real monetisation outcome better than CPM alone, because CPM only counts filled impressions and ignores the revenue cost of unfilled slots.
India CTV publishers face a specific challenge: programmatic demand is thinner than in the US or Europe, which limits what the open exchange will pay. The highest-yield path for India publishers is a combination of direct IO relationships for premium inventory, PMP deals for mid-tier inventory, and open exchange as a backfill layer — rather than relying on open exchange as the primary revenue channel.
Full guide
For a complete explanation, read: What is yield optimisation in CTV? A publisher's guide to maximising ad revenue