What changed
Television used to be bought by the market and the daypart, in flights large enough to justify the overhead. Streaming and connected TV are bought like display: by audience, by geography, by impression, with no minimum that excludes a local advertiser.
A few hundred dollars a week buys real household reach inside a county.
Why it works for local
Two reasons. First, credibility — a business that appears between episodes of a show someone is watching reads as substantially more established than the same business in a feed. Second, no skipping: most connected TV inventory is non-skippable and full-screen, so your fifteen seconds actually happen.
Businesses that add it usually see search volume on their own brand name rise. That is the tell.
The creative question
You do not need a commercial production. You need fifteen or thirty seconds that state who you are, what you do, the area you serve, and one reason to call. Clean audio matters more than camera quality, and a static end card with your name and number does most of the work.
Reuse footage you already have before you shoot anything new.
How to measure it
Do not expect clicks; there is nothing to click. Measure it the way TV has always been measured, with better instruments: brand search volume, direct traffic, call volume, and total cost per booked job across all channels during the flight.
Run it for at least six weeks. Anything shorter measures noise.