Roku Launches Ad Tools to Help Streaming Apps Get Sign-Ups

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Streaming services with apps on Roku have a new way to advertise to its viewers and encourage installations and account sign-ups. The tools add to Roku's growing role in helping people discover and purchase streaming subscriptions.

Roku has built a streaming platform where viewers can access apps from services such as Peacock and Paramount+. It also operates a subscription marketplace where customers can purchase participating services through their Roku accounts. For streaming companies, Roku offers access to viewers who are already looking for something to watch.

Now Roku is introducing advertising tools designed to help streaming services turn more of those viewers into customers. Announced November 4, Roku Outcomes uses information about what people do after seeing an ad to help advertisers encourage app installations and account sign-ups.

A streaming company can choose the result it wants and set a target for how much it's willing to spend to get it. Roku then adjusts its advertising campaigns toward that goal.

How Roku Outcomes Works

Roku Outcomes includes two advertising tools. The one most relevant to streaming subscription businesses is Roku Outcomes Actions, which helps advertisers encourage viewers to install an app, watch for the first time or sign up for an account.

For now, Actions is available to media and entertainment advertisers through prominent Home Screen advertisements that Roku calls Marquee ads. Other advertising placements, including video ads, are planned.

Here's how it works. Someone might see an advertisement for a streaming service on Roku, install its app and begin watching. Because those activities happen within Roku's system, the company can connect them and use the information to adjust where and how ads appear while a campaign is running.

Advertisers set a target cost for each customer action they want to encourage. Roku works toward that target, although it doesn't guarantee the advertiser will achieve it.

Streaming companies interested in using Outcomes Actions need to contact Roku about availability, even if they already have an app on the platform. Roku also plans to support additional customer actions, including purchases and website visits.

The second tool, Roku Outcomes Amplify, helps enterprise advertisers reach more households while controlling how frequently viewers see their ads.

Early Tests Met Advertisers' Cost Targets

Roku tested Outcomes Actions with outside advertisers beginning in September. Each advertiser set a target for how much it wanted to spend to generate a customer action, and Roku measured campaign performance against that goal.

As of October 30, all nine paid advertiser campaigns were meeting or beating their targets. The median reported cost per acquisition was 38% below target. Seven campaigns had finished, while two were still running.

Roku counted actions occurring within 14 days of ad exposure and excluded its own advertising campaigns from the results. The company hasn't disclosed what individual advertisers spent, the targets they set or which customer actions were counted across the nine campaigns.

The figures are encouraging, but they have limits. They don't show that Roku reduced acquisition costs by 38% compared with other advertising channels, or reveal how many paying subscribers the campaigns produced.

Philo, a streaming television service, is among the companies discussing the new offering publicly. Its marketing chief says Roku Outcomes helps the company focus on customer actions without constantly adjusting campaigns manually. Philo hasn't released specific results from its use of the tools.

Roku Is Building a Bigger Streaming Subscription Business

Roku has been expanding its role in helping viewers find and buy streaming subscriptions.

On November 2, Roku reported that its World Cup viewing experience generated more than one million subscription sign-ups across services including Peacock, Paramount+, FOX One and ViX. Fans looking for particular matches could find the services carrying them and subscribe through Roku.

The company has also been expanding Premium Subscriptions, its marketplace where viewers can purchase participating streaming services through their Roku accounts. In September, Roku introduced more than 35 subscription-bundle combinations, giving customers additional ways to buy and manage their subscriptions.

Amazon Prime Video Channels and YouTube Primetime Channels are competing for the same subscription-purchase business. These marketplaces have become important sources of customers, particularly for smaller streaming services.

Antenna reported that Amazon Channels accounted for 67% of specialty streaming subscriber additions in the second quarter of 2026. During that period, subscriber additions through The Roku Channel, Roku's own streaming destination and subscription storefront, grew 59% from a year earlier. YouTube Primetime Channels recorded 47% growth.

A streaming company doesn't have to sell its subscriptions through Roku to make its programming available there. Some services maintain their own subscription and billing relationships while giving customers access through Roku apps. Others participate in Roku's subscription marketplace, where Roku can handle purchases and billing.

These arrangements give streaming companies different ways to reach Roku viewers, whether through advertising, subscription sales or making their programming available.

INSIDER TAKE

Roku is competing to become a central gateway to streaming subscriptions, alongside Amazon and YouTube. It already helps viewers discover programming and, for participating services, purchase subscriptions without leaving the television experience. Outcomes gives streaming companies another way to reach those viewers and encourage them to become customers.

For streaming operators, the opportunities come with different business arrangements. Advertising an app on Roku, selling subscriptions through its marketplace and making programming available to existing subscribers can all help a service reach customers. But the costs, billing responsibilities and control over customer information aren't necessarily the same.

Roku Outcomes could make advertising on the platform more attractive if it brings in subscribers at a cost streaming businesses can justify. Its early results are promising, although individual operators will need to see how their own campaigns perform. As Roku expands its role in subscriber acquisition, streaming companies have more reasons to work with the platform and more reason to consider how much of the customer relationship they want Roku to manage.

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