Recently, the Alliant team joined the brightest minds across advanced TV, data, media, and measurement in San Juan for Beet Retreat 2026. The conversations were candid, the sessions were strategic, and a few themes surfaced throughout.

Here’s our top five take aways from #BRSJ2026:

1. Fragmentation Is the New Normal

Fragmentation is no longer a trend in advanced TV. It is the environment brands are operating in every day.

TV viewership continues to splinter across AVOD, SVOD, FAST, linear and connected TV platforms. Content rights shift and viewers move fluidly between devices and platforms. The result is a constantly shifting media ecosystem where advertisers can no longer rely on any single platform or channel.

This means advanced TV strategy must evolve from channel-based planning to audience-first design. Instead of asking, “Where should we buy?” the better question is, “How do we build audiences that reach the right consumers across platforms?”

2. Predictive Audience Design Is the New Standard

As viewing behavior becomes more fragmented and identity signals more complex, reactive targeting is no longer sufficient. Brands need audiences built to perform not just today, but wherever consumers move next.

Predictive audience design brings together behavioral data, predictive insight, and forward-looking modeling to identify consumers with the highest likelihood to engage or convert. Rather than relying solely on observable first-party activity, this approach expands the picture using privacy-forward data enrichment and analytics to uncover new, high-value prospects.

3. Next-Gen Custom Audiences

The next generation of custom audiences no longer rely on simple data sources or Boolean logic. A layered approach that combines first-party data with external insights like purchase behavior and psychographic insights moves brands from simply targeting known customers to identifying new consumers who look, think, and buy like their best ones.

Just as important, custom audiences must be designed to activate seamlessly across advanced TV and digital channels, and to support consistent measurement in a fragmented identity landscape. Custom audiences are quickly becoming the currency of advanced advertising and the brands that win will be those that build them to scale, adapt, and perform from the start.

4. Measurement Must Match the Moment

Advanced TV measurement must evolve as quickly as the channels themselves. As media investment shifts toward streaming, CTV, and retail media networks, brands are under increasing pressure to prove performance across fragmented environments.

Traditional reach and frequency metrics are no longer enough. Advertisers want outcome-based measurement tied to real business results such as incremental sales, return on ad spend, and lifetime value.

This is where predictive data insights come in. By combining deterministic behavioral data with predictive modeling, marketers can move beyond exposure metrics and connect audience design directly to performance.

5. Identity and Interoperability

If fragmentation defines the viewing experience, interoperability defines the opportunity.

Across panels and side conversations, identity resolution emerged as a foundational theme. As third-party cookies fade and privacy regulations expand, brands must rely on durable, privacy-forward identity strategies that connect audiences across platforms without sacrificing compliance or scale.

Advanced TV does not operate in isolation. It intersects with retail media, social platforms, programmatic, and direct channels. To activate their messaging effectively, marketers need audiences that are channel-agnostic and identity-ready, capable of moving from CTV to digital to offline environments while maintaining consistency in targeting and reporting.

Looking Ahead

Beet Retreat San Juan made one thing clear: the future of advanced TV will belong to marketers who design audiences with intention and measure outcomes with confidence.

At Alliant, we believe the key to making that future possible is people-based intelligence. By combining real purchase behavior with predictive insight, brands can better understand not only what consumers do, but why they do it and what they are likely to do next.

Want to continue the conversation? Connect with the Alliant team to learn more about how smarter audience design can drive better marketing performance. Don’t forget to check out our Events Calendar to see where else you can find our team throughout the year.