If your business already runs Google, Meta, email, and maybe LinkedIn, the next growth question is usually uncomfortable:
Where do you go next?
More budget in the same channels often means higher acquisition costs, more creative fatigue, and weaker marginal returns. But jumping into a new channel without a clear reason is just another way to waste money.
The goal is not to advertise everywhere. The goal is to find new environments where your audience already spends time, where competition is still manageable, and where the channel can do a specific job in your marketing mix.
For SMBs and mid-market companies, the best “new” advertising channels are usually not experimental for the sake of being experimental. They are channels that open up a different kind of reach: streaming TV, retail marketplaces, community platforms, private newsletters, conversational ads, and digital screens in the physical world.
Here are the platforms worth considering.
1. Connected TV and Streaming Platforms
Connected TV is no longer just a brand channel for national advertisers with large production budgets. Streaming platforms have made TV-style advertising more accessible, more targeted, and more measurable than traditional broadcast buying.
For businesses evaluating the best way to advertise your business, CTV offers something different from search and social: premium video visibility in environments where viewers are more engaged and less distracted, often on the biggest screen in the home.
Why This Channel Is Worth Testing
CTV is useful when you want to reach people outside crowded feed environments and build recognition before they search, click, or convert elsewhere.
It is especially relevant for:
- Local and regional businesses trying to look more established
- Ecommerce brands with a simple visual product story
- Service businesses where trust matters
- B2B or consumer brands with a clear video message
- Advertisers looking for incremental reach beyond Meta and YouTube
CTV works best when the ad is simple. The viewer should understand who you are, what you offer, and why it matters within the first few seconds.
Viable Platforms to Consider
Adwave is a practical option for businesses that want to test CTV without building a traditional TV workflow. The platform positions itself around AI-powered TV advertising for small businesses and creators, with self-service campaign creation and accessible launch mechanics.
Adwave’s fit is strongest when a business wants to move quickly from website or brand assets into a TV-ready ad, then run locally or across streaming environments without hiring an agency. In a new-channel test, that matters because production friction often kills experimentation before the first campaign launches.
Other CTV options include performance-oriented CTV platforms, streaming ecosystem ad managers, and DSP-based CTV buying. Those may be better for advertisers that already have creative assets, larger budgets, and a more developed measurement stack.
How to Measure It
CTV should not be judged only by last-click conversions. Better measurement signals include:
- Completed views
- Reach and frequency
- Branded search lift
- Direct traffic lift
- Site visit lift
- Assisted conversions
- Local or regional lead trends
For a first test, keep the measurement plan simple. Pick one or two business outcomes the channel is supposed to influence before the campaign starts.
Where It Breaks Down
CTV fails when advertisers expect it to behave like paid search. It is not a bottom-funnel intent channel. It is a video reach channel that can support demand creation, recall, and assisted performance.
It also fails when the creative is too vague. A beautiful video that does not explain the offer is still a weak ad.
Operator Take
Test CTV when you need more trusted video reach and your current channels are hitting saturation. Use Adwave when speed, accessibility, and low production friction matter. Use more advanced CTV or DSP routes when you need deeper audience strategy, custom attribution, or larger-scale planning.
2. Retail Media Networks
Retail media networks are advertising platforms operated by retailers. They let brands advertise across retailer-owned websites, apps, in-store media, and sometimes off-site inventory using retailer data.
That is why the category has exploded. Retailers know what people search for, browse, add to cart, and buy. For brands that sell through those retailers, the ad exposure can sit very close to the purchase decision.
Amazon describes retail media networks as advertising infrastructure made up of digital channels such as websites and apps offered by a retail company to third-party brands. Amazon Ads also offers self-service sponsored ads and Brand Stores for businesses of different sizes. Walmart Connect positions its network around reaching customers across Walmart’s site, app, and stores using data-driven advertising. Instacart Ads similarly focuses on reaching customers searching for products on Instacart.
Why This Channel Is Worth Testing
Retail media is worth testing when your product is sold through a retailer and you need to influence shoppers close to the buying moment.
It is especially relevant for:
- CPG brands
- Food and beverage companies
- Beauty and personal care brands
- Household products
- Consumer electronics accessories
- Pet, health, grocery, and home goods brands
The channel is strongest when there is already product-market fit and retail availability. If your product detail pages, pricing, reviews, or inventory are weak, retail media will expose those problems quickly.
Viable Platforms to Consider
Amazon Ads is usually the default starting point for marketplace-driven brands because the shopper intent is already inside Amazon’s environment. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Amazon DSP can support different levels of sophistication.
Walmart Connect is relevant for brands selling through Walmart’s marketplace, stores, or omnichannel ecosystem. The appeal is shopper scale and purchase signals across online and offline retail touchpoints.
Instacart Ads is especially relevant for grocery, household, CPG, and replenishment categories where shoppers are actively building baskets.
Other networks may matter depending on category: Target Roundel, Kroger Precision Marketing, Home Depot Retail Media+, Best Buy Ads, and specialty retailer networks.
How to Measure It
Retail media measurement is strongest when it connects ad spend to commerce outcomes. Key metrics usually include:
- Sales attributed to ads
- ROAS
- New-to-brand customers
- Share of search
- Incremental sales lift
- Basket size
- Repeat purchase behavior
The trap is overvaluing platform-reported ROAS without asking whether the ads created incremental sales or simply captured customers who would have bought anyway.
Where It Breaks Down
Retail media is not useful for every business. If you do not sell through the retailer, you are not the primary fit. If your product pages are weak, your availability is inconsistent, or your margins are thin, the channel can become expensive quickly.
Retail media can also fragment reporting. Every network has its own definitions, attribution windows, and dashboards.
Operator Take
Test retail media when you sell through a retailer and need to win closer to the digital shelf. Do not treat it as just another display channel. Treat it as shopper marketing with performance reporting attached.
3. Community-Driven and Decentralized Networks
Some audiences do not move through neat ad funnels. They ask questions in Reddit threads. They join Discord servers. They follow niche newsletters. They trust creators, operators, analysts, moderators, and peer communities more than polished brand campaigns.
That is the opportunity in community-driven advertising.
This channel is not new because people recently discovered communities. It is new because more businesses are starting to treat community environments as serious paid media options.
Why This Channel Is Worth Testing
Community-driven channels work when the audience cares deeply about a category and actively discusses it before buying.
They are especially relevant for:
- Software and developer tools
- Gaming and entertainment
- Finance and investing
- Health, wellness, and fitness
- Career, education, and creator tools
- B2B services with niche buyer groups
- Enthusiast products
The channel rewards specificity. Generic messaging performs poorly because community audiences can smell it immediately.
Reddit Ads
Reddit Ads are useful when buyers research products, compare options, or discuss problems inside subreddits. Reddit offers measurement tools and partners for conversions, brand lift, ROAS optimization, and campaign goals. Reddit also offers a Conversions API that lets advertisers share conversion events for measurement, targeting, and optimization.
Reddit is strongest when the ad speaks like it belongs in the conversation. The angle should be problem-aware, specific, and transparent.
Good Reddit tests usually start with:
- Specific subreddit or interest clusters
- Educational creative
- Honest positioning
- Comment-aware messaging
- Conversion tracking through Pixel and CAPI
Where it breaks down: brands try to run the same polished social creative they use on Meta. Reddit usually requires more context and less gloss.
Discord
Discord’s advertising products are still more controlled and sales-led than self-serve social platforms. Discord says its Quests ads are purchased through its sales team. Discord has also expanded Video Quests to mobile, positioning the format around reward-focused advertising experiences.
Discord is most relevant for gaming, entertainment, fandom, community, and youth-skewing categories. It is not a universal SMB ad channel yet.
Where it works: when the brand has a natural reason to show up in a community or entertainment context.
Where it breaks down: when the advertiser treats Discord like a standard display network.
Substack and Private Newsletter Networks
Substack itself is not an ad network in the traditional sense. Its support documentation says publishers are allowed to host sponsored content, while Substack’s own business model is based on subscriptions rather than advertiser revenue.
That means advertisers usually approach newsletter advertising through direct sponsorships, creator partnerships, or marketplaces such as Paved. Paved describes itself as a newsletter ad network connecting advertisers with 3,000+ premium newsletters.
Newsletter ads are useful when trust is concentrated around a writer or publication. The audience may be smaller than a social platform, but the attention can be much stronger.
How to Measure It
Community-driven channels should be measured with a mix of direct and indirect signals:
- Clicks and conversions
- Qualified traffic
- Newsletter subscriber lift
- Branded search movement
- Referral quality
- Promo code usage
- Pipeline influence
- Post-campaign surveys
The biggest mistake is forcing every community channel into a last-click model. Some communities influence decisions long before the conversion event.
Operator Take
Test community channels when trust and context matter more than raw reach. Start narrow. Write for the audience, not at the audience.
4. Conversational Marketing and Automated DM Channels
Conversational advertising changes the destination of the click.
Instead of sending someone to a website, the ad opens a conversation in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, TikTok DMs, or another messaging environment.
That is a big shift. A landing page asks the customer to read and decide. A message thread lets the customer ask, qualify, book, negotiate, or buy.
Meta’s click-to-message ads can send potential customers to Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger to start a conversation with a business. WhatsApp’s business product pages describe ads that click to WhatsApp as placements across Facebook and Instagram that can support lead generation, sales, and marketing objectives. TikTok Messaging Ads allow prospective customers to start conversations with businesses through TikTok Direct Messages or instant messaging apps.
Why This Channel Is Worth Testing
Conversational channels are useful when the customer needs answers before converting.
They are especially relevant for:
- High-consideration purchases
- Local services
- Education and coaching
- Travel and hospitality
- Beauty and wellness
- Healthcare-adjacent services
- B2B lead qualification
- Ecommerce products with sizing, customization, or consultation needs
The format works best when conversation speed is part of the value proposition.
Viable Platforms to Consider
WhatsApp Business Platform and Click-to-WhatsApp Ads are strong in markets where WhatsApp is a primary communication channel. The best fit is sales-assisted conversion, customer support, bookings, and repeat engagement.
Meta Click-to-Message Ads are useful when your audience is already active on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp. They reduce landing page friction and move the prospect into a direct conversation.
Instagram and TikTok DM automation platforms, such as Manychat, support automated conversations across Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and TikTok-style workflows. Manychat positions its platform around automating two-way conversations across Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and TikTok.
TikTok Direct Messaging Ads and automated chat are relevant when short-form video generates interest but the customer needs a guided next step. TikTok says automated chat helps businesses engage users and capture more qualified leads through structured conversations.
How to Measure It
Conversational campaigns should not stop at “messages started.” The useful metrics are:
- Conversation start rate
- Qualified conversation rate
- Response time
- Appointment or demo booking rate
- Revenue per conversation
- Cost per qualified lead
- Close rate from chat
- Automation completion rate
A high message volume is not automatically good. If the automation qualifies poorly or the sales team responds slowly, the channel will look busy and still fail.
Where It Breaks Down
Conversational marketing breaks when businesses treat DMs like a form fill.
People expect speed, clarity, and usefulness. If the first reply is slow or the automation feels like a maze, the user disappears.
This channel also creates operational pressure. Someone has to manage the conversations, routing, follow-up, and CRM handoff.
Operator Take
Test conversational ads when your customers need guidance before buying. Do not launch them unless you know who responds, how fast they respond, and what counts as a qualified conversation.
5. Digital Out-of-Home
Digital out-of-home advertising brings programmatic buying to real-world screens: billboards, transit displays, malls, gyms, office buildings, elevators, taxis, airports, retail locations, and other public environments.
It is not the same as old-school billboard buying. Programmatic DOOH can use location, venue type, timing, and contextual signals to make campaigns more flexible.
StackAdapt describes programmatic DOOH as buying and optimizing ads on digital screens in high-traffic real-world locations, planned around location, venue type, and timing signals such as time of day or weather. Vistar Media describes programmatic OOH as connecting with audiences using real-time data and provides OOH planning and buying tools. Anzu focuses on intrinsic in-game advertising across mobile, PC, console, and gaming metaverse environments, with non-disruptive ads integrated into gameplay.
Why This Channel Is Worth Testing
DOOH is useful when physical presence matters. It can create local visibility, event-area dominance, retail proximity, commuter awareness, and cultural relevance.
It is especially relevant for:
- Local and regional brands
- Events and entertainment
- Retail launches
- Restaurants and hospitality
- Universities and education
- Consumer apps
- Healthcare groups
- Real estate and financial services
- Gaming and youth-oriented brands through in-game environments
The channel works best when location is part of the strategy, not just a media placement.
StackAdapt
StackAdapt is useful for advertisers that want DOOH as part of a broader programmatic plan. Its DOOH offering emphasizes premium screens, data-powered planning, platform-level activation, reporting, and real-time optimization.
Best fit: advertisers already comfortable with digital media buying who want to add out-of-home reach without managing a traditional OOH buy manually.
Vistar Media
Vistar Media is built specifically around OOH and DOOH. It describes itself as an out-of-home platform with programmatic OOH, traditional OOH planning, and enterprise solutions.
Best fit: advertisers or agencies that want deeper OOH expertise, screen-level planning, and access to a dedicated DOOH ecosystem.
Anzu
Anzu is not DOOH in the classic billboard sense. It is more accurately a programmatic intrinsic in-game advertising platform. But for advertisers exploring newer screen-based environments, it belongs in the same conversation because it places ads inside gaming worlds instead of standard web or social feeds.
Anzu says advertisers can reach players through clickable and non-clickable in-game ads that complement gameplay.
Best fit: gaming, entertainment, tech, youth culture, sports, consumer products, and brands that want presence inside digital environments rather than traditional placements.
How to Measure It
DOOH measurement usually combines media delivery with modeled or indirect business signals:
- Impressions
- Screen locations
- Reach and frequency
- Foot traffic lift
- QR or vanity URL engagement
- Search lift
- Sales lift in exposed areas
- Brand lift
- Mobile-location-based attribution where appropriate
The measurement will not feel like paid search. That does not make it unmeasurable. It means the test needs a realistic KPI design.
Where It Breaks Down
DOOH fails when the creative is too detailed. People see screens while moving. The message has to be simple, visual, and fast.
It also fails when the geography is too broad for the budget. A focused city, venue type, event, or retail radius is usually a better first test than a scattered national buy.
Operator Take
Test DOOH when geography, physical context, or real-world visibility matters. Use StackAdapt when you want DOOH inside a broader programmatic workflow, Vistar when you want dedicated OOH depth, and Anzu when gaming environments are a better fit than physical screens.
How to Choose
If you want a new video channel without traditional TV friction, start with CTV. Adwave is a practical option when you need fast creative creation and an accessible way to test streaming TV.
If you sell through retailers, test retail media networks. Start where your products already have distribution, reviews, inventory, and margin.
If your buyers research in communities, test Reddit, newsletters, or Discord. Keep the messaging specific and respect the context.
If your sales process benefits from conversation, test WhatsApp, Meta click-to-message ads, or TikTok DM campaigns. Make sure response time and qualification are operationally ready before spending.
If physical context matters, test DOOH. Keep the geography focused and the creative simple.
The safest way to explore new channels is not to spread budget thinly across all of them. Pick one channel with a clear job, define the test metric before launch, run it long enough to learn something, and decide whether the channel deserves a second test.
