From immediately after the morning alarm to during the daily commute.
Sharing a meal to lounging on the sofa.
Regardless of the scenario, you’d be hard pressed to find a person that doesn’t spend a significant portion of their day on a digital device—watching Hulu or YouTube, scrolling the latest news, shopping, streaming connected TV (CTV), etc.
The average consumer now spends eight hours a day on a connected device, and 81% of the U.S. population watches digital video across a mix of screens. All of this streaming video consumption gives brands a rare opportunity to maintain continuous, personalized conversations with consumers in a highly engaging format.
As a result, 2026 is gearing up to be the year of video.
Let’s explore more about why, what’s changing in the video landscape—and how Epsilon can help brands develop and execute a winning programmatic video strategy.
Digital screens have become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. People interact daily (and throughout the day) with phones, connected TVs, tablets, gaming consoles, smart speakers or home devices and retail media screens. These interactions include both passive and active engagement with digital content.
Video, in particular, uniquely suits users’ preferences for snackable content and their tendency to multitask on their devices—but it also serves as a connection point to people who are locked-in to long form content (binge session, anyone?). And with its engaging, captivating and often entertaining appeal to consumers, it is the stand-out leader in today’s programmatic landscape.
The continued growth of video and advancement of programmatic technology presents several opportunities for forward-thinking marketers:
While video is everywhere, effective video isn’t. Video’s rise has outpaced most brands’ data capabilities. As a result, most still struggle with key aspects of video performance. Conversely, “future-ready” digital video must be:
Most brands struggle to personalize video at the individual level, but effective video is not one-size-fits-all (or even one-size-fits-many). Future-ready video personalizes creative not only based on each viewer’s demographics, but also their behaviors and transactions, ultimately producing limitless video iterations.
Brands don’t have all day to produce those limitless video iterations—to effectively reach viewers with video, versions must adapt in real-time. Best practice is to use dynamic creative optimization (DCO) to automatically review signals to deliver the right version to the person instantly.
Most brands still struggle to connect video performance to the rest of the customer journey, scaling reach to consumers in the right channel, on the right device and in the right format. But the future of video is not siloed. Programmatic video—OLV, CTV and native video—must integrate seamlessly with display and audio and other formats as part of a holistic brand story and customer journey.
Unfortunately, most brands struggle to tie video impressions to more meaningful metrics. Successful video programs in 2026 will be able to measure from impression delivery to sales, as well as everything in between, including:
Digital video should be the most reached-for tool in marketers’ toolkits moving into 2026, but as we’ve outlined, not all video is created equal. To get the most out of your 2026 video strategy, you need a partner with:
To unlock the full value of a video in 2026, brands need a partner that can move creative fluidly across channels and formats—not one that treats each placement as a separate execution. As audiences shift between CTV, mobile, desktop, etc., speed and adaptability become critical. The right partner will help you evolve and iterate on new video opportunities—in the channels and formats where consumers are actually spending their time.
To the point above, your video partner must be able to create the video iterations required to reach and engage individual viewers with creative that resonates, automatically and in real time. This requires advanced dynamic creative optimization capabilities with AI optimizations, which allows you to achieve maximum reach and engagement in the moments that matter—all while saving your team thousands of manual hours creating each video iteration.
Identity resolution is the connective tissue that ties your videos and your other channels together to reach your sales goals. When done right, it allows brands to effectively reach your audience with the right message—but the key is good data. Your video partner must also be able to integrate your first-party data, which brings richer insights into your video strategy to enable personalization centered around conversion and transaction habits. Strong data and identity gives you a more precise, end-to-end view of the customer journey, so you can see how video drives real results (far beyond impressions).
Future-ready video requires digital reach and scale, real-time creative personalization and identity-powered measurement. Epsilon brings all three together in a single, closed-loop system.
With Epsilon Digital, brands gain unmatched access to premium video inventory across OLV, CTV, native video and retail media—backed by AI-driven dynamic creative optimization that delivers the right video variation at the right moment.
But what truly sets Epsilon apart is COREid, the industry’s most accurate and durable identity solution. COREid connects every video impression to a real household and individual—not a cookie or anonymous device—so advertisers can personalize based on real behaviors and measure real outcomes.
Consumers now move through their days surrounded by screens—scrolling, streaming and watching video in countless moments.
To meet them there, brands need more than great creative or broad reach. They need the ability to recognize real people, personalize at scale and prove impact across the full customer journey. As video becomes the backbone of omnichannel experiences in 2026, the brands that will stand out are those that ground their strategies in identity, data and dynamic creative.
And Epsilon is the partner built for this next era.
Video is here to stay. If you want to dive deeper and learn how to take the next step with your Connected TV advertising, download our comprehensive guide.
