June, 2026.- Selling for TikTok meant helping the market understand a major shift in consumer behavior. Attention had shifted. Culture had shifted. Once the platform became part of everyday life, advertiser demand accelerated quickly. Selling for Teads, Jit Shergill explains, is a completely different challenge. You are not just selling a platform. You are helping advertisers and agencies navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape across CTV, premium publisher environments, mobile, online video, and the wider open internet. That complexity is what makes it harder.
Shergill, now UK Head of Sales at Teads after his tenure at TikTok, describes this moment as pivotal—not just for the company, but for the entire advertising industry. For the last decade, digital advertising has been dominated by scale-driven, closed ecosystem platforms. But the market is evolving again. Advertisers are reassessing the balance between scale, quality, transparency, and control. Agencies are under pressure to deliver measurable business outcomes while protecting brand environments and simplifying fragmented media strategies.
What does Shergill see as the biggest mistake advertisers still make? Treating brand and performance as competing priorities rather than connected parts of the same journey. Consumers do not think in channels. They do not think in budget lines. Someone might discover a brand through CTV, engage with creator content on social, research through search, and convert through retail media. The journey is fluid, but many organizations still operate in silos.
In this interview, Shergill discusses what would unlock faster CTV investment in the UK (measurement consistency), what “outcome driven” actually means in premium media (measurable business impact, not just clicks), and how agency expectations have shifted over five years from access and responsiveness to strategic partnership. He argues that the companies leading the next era of advertising will not simply be those with the biggest scale, but those that can combine scale with quality, creativity, transparency, and measurable business impact.
1. From TikTok to Teads: How does selling an omnichannel outcomes platform compare to selling a social media giant? What’s harder?
Moving from TikTok to Teads has been a really interesting shift because, although both businesses operate at scale, the commercial conversation is completely different.
At TikTok, a lot of the early years were about helping the market understand a major change in consumer behaviour. Attention had shifted. Culture had shifted. Once the platform became part of everyday behaviour, advertiser demand accelerated very quickly.
Teads is a different challenge altogether.
You are not just selling a platform. You are helping advertisers and agencies navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape across CTV, premium publisher environments, mobile, online video and the wider open internet. That complexity is probably what makes it harder.
Clients today are trying to connect brand building, performance, measurement, attention and commerce into one coherent strategy, whilst consumers themselves move seamlessly between devices and screens throughout the day.
One of the things that stood out to me very quickly is the ability to reach consumers anywhere, on any device, at any moment across the consumer journey. Whether somebody is watching CTV at home, scrolling on mobile during the commute or consuming premium editorial content online, advertisers increasingly want consistency in both storytelling and measurement.
But reach on its own is not enough anymore. The real challenge is delivering the right creative, in the right environment, with measurable impact behind it. That is where the combination of premium media, omnichannel delivery and outcome-driven measurement becomes really powerful.
The market is clearly moving away from isolated channel planning and towards connected consumer experiences. I think businesses that can simplify that complexity for agencies and advertisers are going to be in a very strong position over the next few years.
2. Brand + Performance Integration: What’s the biggest mistake advertisers still make?
The biggest mistake advertisers still make is treating brand and performance as if they are competing priorities rather than connected parts of the same journey. Consumers do not think in channels, and they definitely do not think in budget lines.
Someone might first discover a brand through CTV, engage with creator content on social, research later through search and then convert through retail media. The journey is fluid, but many organisations still operate in silos internally. That often leads to short-term optimisation at the expense of long-term growth.
Performance marketing without brand investment eventually becomes less efficient because there is no new demand being created. Equally, brand campaigns without clear commercial outcomes become increasingly difficult to defend in the current climate.
The strongest advertisers now understand that attention, creativity and performance all influence each other. Better creative improves efficiency. Premium environments drive stronger attention. Strong brand storytelling improves conversion over time. The industry is moving towards much more connected planning, and I think that is a positive shift.
3. CTV Targets in Your Remit: What would unlock faster CTV investment from UK agencies?
Measurement consistency is probably the biggest unlock.
The appetite for CTV investment is already there. Agencies and clients absolutely see the value in combining the storytelling power of television with the targeting and flexibility of digital.
The challenge is fragmentation.
There are still too many different measurement approaches, currencies and definitions of success across the ecosystem, which naturally creates caution around larger-scale investment. Once the industry becomes more aligned around cross-screen measurement and clearer outcome attribution, I think spend will accelerate very quickly.
The other thing I would say is that CTV should no longer be viewed purely as “digital TV.” That undersells what it is becoming.
CTV is increasingly sitting at the centre of the connected consumer journey. It links storytelling, commerce, attention and performance together in a much more measurable way than traditional television ever could.
The businesses that simplify that ecosystem for advertisers will be the ones that win.
4. The Outcome Driven Shift: What does “outcome driven” actually mean in premium media?
“Outcome driven” is one of those phrases the industry uses constantly, but at its heart, it should simply mean that media investment drives measurable business impact. That does not just mean clicks or short-term conversions.
In premium media environments, outcomes can mean attention, brand uplift, consideration, sales impact, search behaviour or incremental reach. It is about understanding what genuinely moved the needle for a business.
I think the industry is also starting to place greater value on quality rather than pure scale.
For a long time, digital advertising became heavily focused on volume and efficiency. Now there is a much bigger conversation happening around attention quality, trusted environments and the role creative plays in driving outcomes.
That is one of the reasons I think Teads is well-positioned. The business combines premium environments, omnichannel delivery and outcome-based measurement in a way that reflects how consumers actually behave today.
TikTok is incredibly powerful because of the way it captures culture and engagement. Teads approaches the market differently by helping advertisers connect premium experiences across CTV, online video, mobile and the open internet with measurable outcomes attached.
Ultimately, I think the future belongs to businesses that can connect brand, performance and premium media into one joined-up ecosystem.
5. Agency Partnerships at Scale: What do agencies want today that they didn’t ask for five years ago?
Five years ago, agencies mainly wanted access, responsiveness and strong commercial relationships.
Today, they expect strategic partnership.
The pressures agencies are operating under now are far greater than they were even a few years ago. There is consolidation happening across the industry, increasing scrutiny from procurement teams, fragmented measurement systems and now the rapid acceleration of AI across workflows and planning.
As a result, agencies are looking for partners that genuinely understand their business challenges rather than simply selling products. They want clarity. They want simplification. They want partners that can help connect fragmented capabilities into solutions that actually drive growth for clients.
The strongest partnerships today are built around trust, strategic collaboration and operational integration. That is a very different dynamic from the traditional sales relationships the industry operated on in the past.
6. You described this as a “pivotal moment” for Teads. Why?
I genuinely believe this is a pivotal moment, not just for Teads, but for the wider advertising industry.
For the last decade, digital advertising has largely been dominated by scale-driven, closed ecosystem platforms. They reshaped consumer behaviour, accelerated performance marketing and fundamentally changed how brands think about reach and targeting.
But the market is evolving again.
Advertisers are starting to reassess the balance between scale, quality, transparency and control. Agencies are under increasing pressure to deliver measurable business outcomes whilst also protecting brand environments, improving effectiveness and simplifying fragmented media strategies.
At the same time, consumer behaviour has become more fluid than ever. People move constantly between CTV, mobile, desktop, premium editorial environments and social platforms throughout the day. The traditional channel-based approach to media planning is becoming increasingly outdated because consumers themselves no longer behave in channels.
That shift creates a major opportunity for Teads.
What makes the business particularly well-positioned is its ability to connect premium media, omnichannel reach, creative optimisation and outcome-based measurement into one ecosystem. The ability to reach consumers anywhere, on any device, at any moment across the consumer journey is incredibly powerful, particularly when it is backed by quality environments and measurable outcomes.
I also think the market is placing renewed value on premium experiences and trusted environments. As AI-generated content explodes and the internet becomes increasingly noisy, advertisers are thinking much harder about where their brands appear, the quality of attention they are receiving and the environments associated with their messaging.
That plays directly into Teads’ strengths.
The biggest growth opportunity in the UK market is helping agencies and advertisers simplify complexity. Right now, too many conversations still happen in silos around CTV, retail media, attention metrics, creative, identity and performance measurement.
The real opportunity is bringing those capabilities together into one connected narrative that reflects how consumers actually behave.
The companies that will lead the next era of advertising will not simply be the ones with the biggest scale. They will be the ones that can combine scale with quality, creativity, transparency and measurable business impact.
That is why I believe this moment is so important for Teads. The market is moving towards a more connected, outcome-driven and premium future, and Teads has the tools to help shape what that future looks like.
