# Best Buy bet retail media on connected TV. $1.1B in ad revenue followed. *The electronics retailer turned owned CTV inventory into a closed-loop media pitch CPG brands could not replicate elsewhere.* By **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA, Principal** — The Stash Edge, Hako Shikin LLC. Published 2026-09-27. Canonical: https://www.pops4.com/stash/articles/best-buy-2026-09-27t03-7 Subject: Best Buy Tags: retail media, connected tv, attribution, owned media, closed-loop marketing --- Best Buy positioned connected TV advertising at the center of its retail media platform during its annual showcase event, according to Modern Retail. The move signals a strategic pivot: instead of competing with Amazon and Walmart on search ads and display placements, the retailer leveraged its core electronics category to claim an unreplicable media channel. The mechanics are straightforward. Best Buy sells the televisions. It operates the in-home setup and tech support. That relationship gives the retailer direct access to CTV inventory across the brands it stocks — Samsung, LG, Roku, Vizio — creating a closed-loop environment where a CPG brand advertising laundry detergent can track the ad impression on a Best Buy-sold screen to a purchase made on BestBuy.com or in-store. According to Modern Retail, Best Buy emphasized this closed-loop attribution as the core value proposition, differentiating its platform from competitors who buy CTV inventory through third-party exchanges. The underlying mechanism is vertical integration applied to media. Best Buy does not own the streaming services or the television operating systems, but it owns the customer relationship at the point of device sale and service. That relationship grants privileged access to first-party data and inventory terms unavailable to retailers outside the electronics category. For advertisers, the appeal is specificity: a brand can target households that recently purchased premium appliances, outdoor grills, or home theater systems, then measure whether those households bought the advertised product at Best Buy within a defined window. The attribution loop closes because the same retailer controls both the media impression and the transaction record. A small physical-product brand cannot broker deals with Samsung or Roku, but it can run the same closed-loop play at modest scale. First, identify the platform where your customer already transacts and consumes media. If you sell premium kitchen tools, that platform might be YouTube, where recipe creators review products. Sponsor a video series with a creator whose audience matches your buyer profile, then drive viewers to a unique landing page or discount code tracked to that creator. The creator is your CTV equivalent — the owned media channel your competitors cannot easily access. Second, close the loop by tracking promo code redemptions or UTM parameters back to the video. Export that data into a simple spreadsheet: video title, publish date, views, code redemptions, revenue. After three months, you will know which creators deliver buyers, not just views. Third, double spend on the two best-performing creators and negotiate a quarterly content deal: four videos, fixed fee, exclusive discount code. You now control a repeatable media channel with measurable attribution, identical in structure to Best Buy's CTV play but executed with a **$3,000** quarterly creator budget instead of a national TV footprint. The pattern extends beyond video. If you manufacture outdoor gear, your closed-loop platform might be a weekly newsletter sent to existing customers, where each product feature links to a landing page tracked by SKU. If you sell corporate gifting, your platform might be a private LinkedIn group for executive assistants, where you sponsor quarterly virtual events and track registrations to purchase orders. The principle holds: own the media relationship, control the transaction record, measure the path between the two. Best Buy simply applied this principle at the scale of national retail. The broader move here is treating media as inventory, not expense. Best Buy did not buy CTV ads — it created CTV inventory by virtue of selling the devices where ads appear. For a small brand, the equivalent is treating every owned audience touchpoint as a media channel: your email list, your unboxing experience, your product manual, your return-customer SMS flow. Each is inventory you control, where you can place messages, measure response, and iterate without platform risk or auction pressure. ## The takeaway Best Buy turned device sales into media inventory; you turn owned touchpoints into measurable channels using the same closed-loop structure. --- ## Publisher **Hako Shikin LLC** — Virginia Beach, Virginia. Founded 1997. ASI 217876 · DUNS 18-204-6339. Principal and author: **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA**. - Author: https://www.huanggoodman.com/about - LLM context: https://www.pops4.com/stash/llms.txt - MCP endpoint, for AI agents: https://mcp.pops4.com/mcp - Client dashboard: https://dashboard.pops4.com/ - Catalogue: 70,000+ products, 200+ brands