Planned vs. Incremental Budgets: How and Why Smart CTV Buyers Stay Agile Through the Holiday Rush.

As the biggest advertising season of the year kicks off - Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday,  Holidays - brands have already gone through the pressure of how to plan their spend, but the race is not over. Far from it. Now they need move intelligently so that they can:

1. Double down on what's working in the moment.

2. Use historic data offered by their partners to fix a campaign that might not be going the way they need.

Here’s how the smartest CTV buyers use incremental budgets to stay nimble through the chaos of everything that has already been put in place - without derailing the original plan.

Why? Because as anyone in performance media knows, the real world rarely plays ball.

Planned Budgets: The Foundation

Planned budgets are the foundation. They’re approved, allocated and locked in before a campaign launches and they outline the baseline spend designed to deliver on established KPIs: awareness, consideration, conversions, or a mix of all three. These are the budgets that media planners build months in advance, typically based on historic data provided by their partners (eg Origin), projected reach, and audience targets. The goal: deliver consistent, predictable outcomes based on months of preparation and forecasting.

In CTV, this might include pre-committed spend across major streaming platforms, set audience targets, and of course - strategic creative enhancements such as those provided by Origin. 

Incremental Budgets: The Power of Agility

Incremental budgets, on the other hand, are the strategic “stretch funds.” They’re not part of the initial plan, but rather reserved or added to ‘seize an opportunity’ - be it in response to performance, opportunity or timing. In short: incremental budgets give brands the agility to double down where, when and how it matters most.

Incremental budgets give teams the freedom to:

• Double down on what’s working. If a certain creative enhancement is working - or has proven in the past to work in a certain way - incremental spend can instantly scale that success.

• React to market shifts. If a competitor pulls back post–Cyber Monday, that’s a prime moment to surge into the gap with additional impressions.

• Capitalize on momentum. A brand trending on social? Incremental CTV spend can extend that surge onto the biggest screen in the house.

Essentially, these budgets transform campaigns from static to responsive, enabling advertisers to act on insight, not just intention.

Why Incremental Matters Most During the Holidays

Between now and Christmas, consumer behavior is anything but predictable. Demand spikes overnight, attention starts being stretched and CPMs fluctuate.

This is where the combination of CTV’s performance visibility and incremental budget flexibility becomes a serious competitive edge. Media teams can analyze live data, seeing which audiences or creative enhancements are driving lift - and fuel the winning strategies accordingly.

A brand that goes into November with 90% of spend pre-planned and 10% held in reserve can make smarter, faster moves when real-time conditions shift. It’s the difference between reacting and responding with intent.

Planned + Incremental = Peak Performance

Planned budgets set the stage. Incremental budgets let you rewrite the script.

As the holiday retail race accelerates, CTV advertisers who balance planned and incremental budgets will outperform those who cling to static plans. Because this season, success won’t belong to the biggest spenders - it’ll belong to the most adaptive.

Incremental budgets are a buffer against uncertainty. Take these scenarios for instance:

• If a campaign under-delivers early on, buyers can use incremental funds to test new creative enhancements mid-flight without derailing the original plan.

• If a brand suddenly goes viral on social media, incremental CTV spend can quickly reinforce that surge in awareness across high-impact screens.

• Take Black Friday and Cyber Monday - two events that compress consumer attention and purchasing intent into an incredibly short window. A brand running a CTV campaign in early November might identify an ad creative or audience segment outperforming the rest. Deploying incremental budget here allows them to amplify that winning combination while the buying intent is at its peak.

• Imagine your own life post-Thanksgiving through December when you are one of a million last-minute shoppers who for some reason could not shop until now. Incremental budgets let advertisers capitalize on these shifts, sustaining momentum rather than losing it to rigid planning cycles.

It’s only thanks to having true visibility that smart planners can justify reallocating or expanding spend once a campaign has already been planned. CTV provides granular performance feedback: which audience cohorts are converting, which creative enhancements are driving lift, which platforms or publishers are over or under delivering. That visibility makes it easier to justify reallocating or expanding spend in real-time.

For media buying teams, the strategic use of incremental budgets on CTV isn’t just about spending more, it’s about spending smarter. 

If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, you can schedule a consultation with one of Origin's CTV specialists by clicking here.

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ABOUT ORIGIN 

Origin is a multi-award winning provider of creative solutions and services for media buyers, creative teams and brands who want to transform conventional CTV ad creatives into powerful, personal and provocative advertising experiences.

With unparalleled creative capabilities and proprietary ad serving technology, Origin’s unique suite of dynamic ad overlays and native CTV ad extensions allows advertisers to engage distracted audiences and achieve the results they need.

Founded by media veterans Stephen Strong and Fred Godfrey, Origin is driven by the belief that winning viewers today requires breaking free from how it was done yesterday.

Learn more at: originmedia.tv