This post was created in partnership with Viant
Key takeaways
- Connected TV has matured, but measuring ads on these platforms still comes with challenges.
- Measurement transparency on CTV is a huge concern for marketers.
- While bidding, optimization, and measurement are all part of the CTV ad process, marketers can’t lose sight of the creative.
CTV is an incredibly powerful platform for marketers, but the ecosystem is maturing, leading to new challenges and opportunities. While measurement tools are evolving, marketers must contend with distracted audiences and opaque supply.
During an ADWEEK House Possible group chat co-hosted with Viant, industry leaders sat down to discuss the big questions surrounding the future of CTV advertising.
Challenges in CTV measurement
Chris Vanderhook, co-founder, COO, and board member at Viant, opened the conversation by laying out the current TV landscape and its challenges, particularly in measurement.
“Everybody’s kind of measuring themselves. Walled gardens are measuring themselves. Linear TV—Nielsen measures it. And in CTV, you get somewhere in between with open internet CTV platforms,” Vanderhook said. “I think marketers want a unified, independent measurement system.”
Vanderhook shared that to help create that system, Viant recently acquired TVision, a company that gathers CTV data via cameras. TVision can track the number of people in a room and whether viewers are engaged using eye tracking.
Yan Liu, co-founder and CEO of TVision, agreed with Vanderhook, explaining that measurement and transparency have room for improvement. Oftentimes, marketers who buy CTV programmatically don’t know what they’re buying.
Liu shared a concerning stat: “40% of the time, you don’t even know which app an ad is running in, right? That’s scary.” For the other 60% of the time, advertisers don’t know what show they’re advertising on.
