Traditional linear TV remains a vital channel for broad audience engagement and impactful creatives. However, in the data-driven marketing era, measuring the true impact of these campaigns on crucial metrics is challenging. Marketers struggle to understand how TV ads influence actions like website visits amid a complex marketing landscape with multiple competing channels. The rise of CTV adds further complexity. While Simulmedia offers "

," this blog focuses on challenges unique to traditional linear TV attribution. Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV provide clarity by disentangling the web of advertising influences. This feature empowers marketers to accurately assess the impact of their traditional linear TV campaigns, offering a methodology that separates signal from noise. By making data-driven decisions, Simulmedia's 

 optimize the effectiveness of traditional linear TV campaigns.

What is Incremental Lift Measurement and why it matters

Lift measurement quantifies a marketing campaign's additional impact on desired outcomes. 

 aim to precisely measure added conversions and conversion rates from TV advertising. These studies compare exposed group (TV ad viewers) and a control group (non-viewers) using deterministic attribution for accurate measurement.

Traditional attribution and media mix modeling face challenges assessing TV campaign impact, particularly for linear TV, due to shared limitations:

Inability to Account for External Factors: 

Difficulty distinguishing TV ad impact from concurrent events leads to imprecise measurements.

Over-reliance on Short-term Data Spikes: 

Focusing on short-term spikes neglects long-term impacts, missing valuable insights for effective decisions.

Media mix modeling demands substantial resources, limiting accessibility, especially for smaller businesses.

Built for specific timeframes, media mix models lack adaptability for emerging trends or market shifts.

Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies provide a refreshing alternative to overcoming these challenges. By bypassing traditional attribution methods and resource-intensive media mix modeling, these studies offer a cost-effective, flexible, and precise approach for assessing TV campaign impact in today's complex marketing landscape.

 are synthetic control groups, transforming how marketers gauge their TV campaign impact. This method lets advertisers craft a control group mirroring the test group via advanced statistical techniques and user data—without physically splitting these groups per campaign. This offers an accurate, statistically identical comparison, eliminating costs tied to running PSAs for control group creation, making A/B testing cost-effective.

Choosing a synthetic over a hold-out group stems from linear TV's unique nature, where budget decisions aren't at the individual level. Creating a pre-campaign hold-out plan with similar granularity and control proves challenging. In a landscape valuing accurate measurement, synthetic control groups give marketers a potent tool to confidently attribute observed lift to TV campaigns, minimizing control group expenses. This precise method empowers advertisers, unlocking traditional linear TV campaign potential, and facilitating data-driven decisions with unmatched confidence, optimizing marketing efforts for superior results.

Benefits of Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV

 enhance the effectiveness of TV advertising campaigns in several ways:

Comparing statistically identical test and control groups enables the pinpointing of the true impact of a TV campaign, eliminating external influences for a clear cause-and-effect relationship.

Purpose-built Synthetic Control Group for TV: 

Our methodology ensures the synthetic control group mirrors the test group, considering demographics and viewership behavior, providing precise measurement while minimizing confounding factors.

Merging Linear TV Reach with Digital Attribution: 

Seamlessly combining the expansive reach of linear TV with precise, deterministic digital attribution offers a comprehensive picture of campaign performance, leveraging our viewership panel.

Confident Measurement of Incrementality Across Web Outcomes: 

Incremental Lift Studies facilitate the measurement of a TV campaign's incremental impact on various web outcomes, offering insights into actions such as website visits and app installs.

Identification of Incrementality Parameters: 

Dissecting campaign performance by network, daypart, and creative empowers advertisers to optimize targeting, maximizing the effectiveness of advertising efforts.

Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies provide advertisers with a comprehensive, flexible, and precise approach to measuring the true impact of linear TV campaigns and making data-driven decisions for superior results.

Unlocking the power of Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV

 effectively, grasp the essentials of initiation and result interpretation. Follow this guide for a seamless experience:

Activate the SM Pixel on your website or employ Kochava integration for in-app events.

Share target metrics with your client success manager.

Define your target audience and intended budget; consult your client success manager.

Notify your client success manager about your interest in an Incremental Lift Study.

We create a synthetic control group by simulating a plan on unexposed households, matching them to your network allocation and exclusion list.

Interim results will be accessible in a Tableau dashboard after two days.

Your dedicated Customer Success Manager will share the final report shortly after the attribution window ends.

Results are finalized at the attribution period's end; expect no further dashboard updates.

The dashboard details the linear TV campaign summary, including incremental lift %, incremental conversions, and the cost per incremental conversion. Remember that "conversions" represent the action you chose to track – which could be website visits, app installs, or actual purchases and transactions.

The dashboard provides a side-by-side comparison of the control group attributes versus the test group attributes.

Drill-downs to the network level provide insights on publishers delivering more incremental lift, facilitating plan optimization. Breakdowns are also available per daypart and creative.

With these insights, embark confidently on your journey into Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV, unlocking valuable information for better results.

Unveiling the mechanics: How Incremental Lift Studies work

Curious about the inner workings of Simulmedia's 

? Let's delve into the process that empowers marketers to confidently uncover the true impact of their TV campaigns.

We kick off by setting up the SM Pixel on the client's website or integrating with Kochava for mobile app attribution. After the campaign, we analyze impressions on our viewership panel to assemble the 'exposed' group.

Step 2: Creating the Synthetic Control Group.

With the exposed group in sight, we simulate media plans adhering to the campaign's criteria to craft a synthetic control group—no need to physically split groups per campaign, saving costs.

Step 3: Ensuring Statistical Representativeness.

Demographic data overlays both groups, ensuring shared characteristics. Our post-stratification algorithm guarantees statistical representativeness in geographic location, demographics, and viewership patterns.

Step 4: Running Deterministic Attribution.

We finalize by running deterministic attribution at the Household IP level, using the Simulmedia Pixel or MMP integrations for conversions, precisely measuring the TV campaign's impact.

We compare conversion rates between the test (exposed) group and the synthetic control group, providing a clear view of the incremental lift generated by the TV campaign.

To guarantee the representativeness of both groups, we employ advanced methods:

We create multiple simulated plans to ensure the control group mirrors the viewing habits of the test group. This rigorous process eliminates individuals unlikely to have seen your ad, such as cord cutters or households on your suppression list.

Simulmedia applies sophisticated techniques, including Weighted Attribute Matching, ensuring the control group shares the same demographic and geographic attributes as the test group, leaving no room for discrepancies.

With these meticulous methods, Simulmedia ensures Incremental Lift Studies provide unparalleled precision and statistical representativeness. This rigorous approach empowers advertisers to confidently attribute observed lift to their TV campaigns, setting us apart in the industry. Marketers can optimize their traditional linear TV campaigns with unwavering confidence, leading to superior results

Unlock the future of TV measurement with Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies

 equip you with the tools to unlock your TV campaigns' true impact. Bid farewell to uncertainty and embrace the future of measurement. By leveraging this innovative feature, you can make informed decisions for better results, elevating your marketing efforts. Don't let uncertainty hinder you from harnessing the incredible power of TV advertising. The future of measurement is here, and it's time to embrace it.

Ready to elevate your TV advertising? Reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager or email us at 

 to learn more and get started. Your success in the world of TV advertising awaits.

Traditional linear TV remains a vital channel for broad audience engagement and impactful creatives. However, in the data-driven marketing era, measuring the true impact of these campaigns on crucial metrics is challenging. Marketers struggle to understand how TV ads influence actions like website visits amid a complex marketing landscape with multiple competing channels. The rise of CTV adds further complexity. While Simulmedia offers "Incremental Lift Studies for CTV," this blog focuses on challenges unique to traditional linear TV advertising. Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV provide clarity by disentangling the web of advertising influences.

Measure the true impact of TV with incremental lift measurement

 is paramount for digital advertising success. This comprehensive guide delves into the intricacies of crafting a winning strategy for Connected TV (CTV) and Over-The-Top (OTT), shedding light on the importance of precision and adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape.

Grasping the Core of Strategy: Defining Strategy and Its Significance

Essentially, a strategy functions as the guiding framework for your actions, ensuring that each step is in harmony with your business goals. In the context of streaming advertising, precision is crucial. This segment will delve into the fundamental aspects of a streaming strategy, underscoring the importance of a meticulously designed plan that connects seamlessly with the audience, guaranteeing optimal influence and return on investment (ROI).

Marketers face a pivotal decision in choosing between CTV and OTT campaigns, as each comes with distinct characteristics. The primary consideration revolves around screen size and user experience. CTV campaigns are designed for the big screen, offering an immersive, lean-back experience. In contrast, OTT campaigns extend across various devices, accommodating on-the-go and interactive viewing experiences on smaller screens.

Marketers need to decide which platform aligns better with their campaign goals and audience preferences. Opting for CTV ensures a focus on the premium, larger screen experience, while OTT caters to the flexibility demanded by smaller screens and diverse devices.

Adding to the complexity, vendors often use the terms CTV and OTT interchangeably, leading to potential confusion for marketers. Understanding the distinction is crucial, especially since CTV advertising tends to be more expensive due to its exclusive focus on larger screens. Marketers must be clear about what they are paying for and choose the platform that best suits their campaign objectives and target audience.

This section takes a top-down approach, addressing the fundamental questions of why, what, when, where, and how of CTV strategy:

Why (Goals): Clarifying the ultimate goal of your streaming campaign.

Clarifying the ultimate goal of your streaming campaign is the foundational step. Defining the objectives of your streaming initiative, whether centered on brand awareness, increased traffic, enhanced sales, or app installations, establishes a clear roadmap for the entire campaign. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as site visits, revenue generation, and return on ad spend (ROAS) become pivotal benchmarks for gauging success.

Who (Target Audience): Understanding the target audience through detailed buyer personas.

Gaining insight into your target audience involves developing detailed buyer personas through a blend of qualitative and quantitative research. This process goes beyond demographic information, delving into psychographics to foster a deeper connection with viewers. Aligning content with buyer personas not only shapes campaign targeting strategy but also ensures a cohesive and resonant approach.

What (Message in Creative Strategy): Crafting a compelling message that adds value and resonates with your audience.

The heart of a streaming campaign lies in the creative strategy's message. Craft a compelling message by addressing the fundamental problems or tasks your audience seeks solutions for. Promotions that resonate personally with your audience add value to your message, creating urgency and excitement.

When (Timing, How Long, How Often): Determining your campaign's optimal timing, duration, and frequency.

Timing, duration, and frequency are critical elements. Consider the nature of your product and determine the most opportune moments to showcase it. Whether adopting a continuous or seasonal approach, finding the right balance ensures your message remains impactful without overwhelming your audience.

Where (Media Buying Avenues): Identifying strategic places to connect with your audience in the CTV landscape.

Pinpointing the ideal places to connect with your audience in the CTV landscape is pivotal. Understanding the CTV supply chain, differentiating between publishers and sellers, and navigating potential challenges ensure effective media buying strategies.

How Much (Investment, Cost-per-reach Targets): Strategically planning the investment and setting cost-per-reach targets.

Strategic investment planning involves understanding audience distribution between linear TV and CTV. Utilizing planning tools and media mix models ensures optimal budget allocation. Clear cost-per-reach goals refine the investment strategy for optimal outcomes.

Against Whom (Competitor Analysis): Analyzing competitors to disrupt and increase brand visibility.

Thorough competitor analysis is imperative for a disruptive CTV strategy. Understanding competitors' reach and success sets the stage for strategic maneuvers, including conquesting campaigns that target the same audience, disrupting competitors' share of voice, and amplifying your brand's visibility.

How (Campaign Strategy): Optimizing campaign strategy across the entire funnel.

A nuanced understanding of the target audience and product is crucial for a successful CTV campaign strategy. Tailoring strategies at each stage of the customer journey, including geographic priorities, demographic targeting, and contextual relevance through content genres, ensures a comprehensive and effective streaming strategy. Let’s next dive into the specifics of designing CTV campaigns to support the strategy.

Designing CTV Campaigns to Support the Strategy

Strategic Harmony: Crafting a Holistic CTV Approach for End-to-End Growth

To craft a holistic CTV strategy that sustains growth across the entire customer journey, marketers need to take a holistic approach to campaign planning by considering both upper and lower-funnel campaign strategies:

Upper-Funnel Campaigns: Strategies for building brand awareness and engagement.

Upper-funnel campaigns serve as the launchpad for building brand awareness and engagement. Marketers strategically cast a broad net, capturing attention and forging an extensive audience base. Crafting effective upper-funnel strategies involves answering key questions about geographic priorities, demographics, behavioral characteristics, content genres, and viewing behaviors.

Lower-Funnel Campaigns: Retargeting high-intent audiences for lower-funnel success.

In the lower funnel, precision targeting takes center stage, directing efforts toward high-intent audiences. CTV retargeting becomes a powerful tool, capitalizing on established familiarity with potential customers. Metrics in this phase focus on lower-funnel metrics such as successful purchases, transactions, or leads generated from form fills.

The key to CTV success lies in orchestrating a balanced approach across the entire customer journey. While optimizing for lower-funnel conversions is vital, neglecting the upper funnel can stifle long-term growth. Crafting a holistic strategy sustains growth by continually feeding the marketing funnel with new prospects and awareness.

Elevating CTV Advertising: Strategies for Creative Excellence

Crafting diverse and compelling creatives is instrumental in making a lasting impression on your audience. This facet of your upper-funnel campaign involves tailoring creatives for different audience segments, ensuring a resonance that goes beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. By diversifying your creatives, you create a tapestry of messaging that captures the attention of varied viewers, each with their unique preferences and interests.

Advertisers used to the linear TV world need to recognize the opportunities presented in the CTV world by dynamic ad insertion technology. This technique enables advertisers to serve personalized ads to viewers in real-time, tailoring the content based on their interests and behavior. This seamless integration into live or on-demand video content, whether on CTV devices, streaming services, or OTT providers, empowers advertisers to create targeted and relevant ad campaigns. By utilizing data such as device type, geographic location, and viewer behavior, advertisers can deliver ads that speak directly to the unique characteristics of their audience. This approach not only enhances the relevance of the message but also provides the ability to measure and analyze the performance of each ad, optimizing for the best results. Dynamic ad insertion is a linchpin in CTV advertising, offering a more personalized and engaging experience for viewers and, consequently, improving the effectiveness of advertising efforts.

Mastering video advertising on CTV is the pinnacle of creating an impactful and memorable brand presence. Given that CTV advertising revolves around video content, it's crucial to ensure that your video ads are not only engaging but of high quality. Platforms like Roku and Amazon Fire TV provide a myriad of targeting options, allowing advertisers to tailor their video ads to specific demographics and interests. Video advertising's versatility, whether in pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll formats, enables advertisers to choose the level of engagement that aligns with the content and viewer behavior. With a higher retention rate than text or banner ads, video advertising on CTV becomes a powerful tool for enhancing brand awareness and recall. The storytelling capabilities of video content make it an effective medium for conveying messages, demonstrating products, and creating a lasting impact on the audience.

CTV Targeting Mastery: Precision Strategies for Impactful Campaigns

 strategies is integral to a successful advertising campaign. Each element, from geographic priorities to behavioral nuances, contributes to a finely-tuned outreach plan. Here's a focused exploration of key aspects empowering advertisers to unlock the full potential of CTV targeting:

Determining the geographic priorities of your campaign is foundational. 

 ensures precision by narrowing down the audience to DMAs, cities, regions, or zip codes. A local restaurant, for example, can maximize CTV impact by reaching potential customers within a specific radius.

Moving beyond age and gender, a nuanced demographic approach involves considering marital status, income, and more. Tailoring ads to reach distinct demographic groups, as seen with a skincare brand targeting both young adults and mature individuals, fosters a deeper connection.

Understanding personal preferences, lifestyle habits, and experiential stages is crucial for impactful CTV targeting. This involves delving into a rich mosaic of human subtleties, utilizing third-party data providers like Nielsen, TruAudience, or comScore to enhance insights into different demographic groups and their viewing habits. For example, a travel agency aligning with individuals researching European destinations can use this data to create a highly targeted and effective CTV campaign.

Behavioral insights from third-party data empower advertisers to optimize ad delivery for maximum impact, ensuring that CTV advertising budgets efficiently reach the right audience. This precision not only deepens the understanding of the audience but also increases the likelihood of conversions by reaching the right people at the right time.

 becomes paramount, allowing marketers to align their message with specific content genres. Genres serve as effective proxies for audience profiles, offering a workaround for precise targeting. A fitness brand sponsoring health and wellness content ensures contextual relevance and a genuine connection.

Profiling the TV viewership behavior of customers and identifying similar prospects is powerful. Lookalike modeling allows for precision expansion, as seen with an online fashion retailer targeting audiences mirroring the TV consumption patterns of their loyal customers.

Retargeting in CTV Advertising: Engaging the Interested Viewer

Retargeting in CTV advertising is a powerful strategy aimed at individuals who have previously interacted with your brand or website. This approach significantly enhances the likelihood of conversions by reaching an audience that has already shown interest in your products or services. Utilizing cookies, pixels, and tracking technology, 

 is executed on platforms like Roku or DV360, optionally combining various targeting options such as demographics, behavior, and frequency capping for maximum effectiveness.

 requires a well-prepared foundation. Ensuring that your website and other platforms are configured appropriately to collect and store data is crucial. Technological infrastructure must be in place to track and target users seamlessly. This strategy not only boosts brand reach by reconnecting with users but also serves as a versatile tool for promoting new products, offering special deals, and improving overall return on investment (ROI).

In mastering these CTV targeting strategies, advertisers can navigate the complexities of the advertising landscape with precision, ensuring that their campaigns resonate, engage, and drive impactful results.

CTV Strategy in Multi-Channel Integrated Marketing

Aligning campaigns on Connected TV (CTV) with broader marketing strategies is pivotal for shaping a unified customer journey, ensuring enduring impact and engagement. Employing an integrated marketing approach to CTV involves delivering a consistent brand experience across diverse channels, a critical element in captivating the multifaceted modern consumer. CTV takes center stage as a linchpin in this strategy, seamlessly blending traditional TV's influence with the digital realm's interactive dynamics.

Recognizing the synergies between CTV and traditional linear TV is foundational. Rather than being in competition, these channels function as potent allies, each contributing unique strengths. While linear TV commands extensive reach, capturing varied audiences, CTV provides a more personalized viewing encounter. Insights from our TV+ advertising platform underscore that 21% of the total time spent on Linear TV and ad-supported CTV marks a substantial and growing share. A more in-depth analysis reveals that 27% of households are exclusively accessible through ad-supported TV, highlighting the trend of cord-cutting. CTV stands out as an efficient channel for engaging a significant portion of the audience.

Seamless Integration with Overall Marketing Strategy

Realizing the full potential of CTV demands its seamless integration into broader marketing strategies. Crafting a cohesive messaging approach across channels ensures a resonant and consistent brand narrative. Applying the precision honed in social media campaigns to CTV targeting refines audience segmentation. Aligning overarching campaign objectives facilitates a holistic customer journey, seamlessly intertwining touchpoints across channels.

Creative Synergies and Cross-Channel Impact

Maximizing creative assets involves seamless integration across channels. Repurposing CTV creatives on platforms like social media amplifies the message, ensuring a coherent brand narrative and maximizing visibility. Harnessing user-generated videos from influencer channels for CTV creatives taps into authenticity while upholding a cohesive brand story. Integrating CTV with a social media strategy forges a more potent and cohesive brand presence, nurturing a robust connection with the audience.

Attribution and Media Mix Modeling Across Channels

Understanding CTV's impact within the broader marketing mix is central to effective attribution and media mix modeling. Embracing multi-touch attribution models and considering the cumulative impact of touchpoints across diverse channels provides a comprehensive perspective on the marketing ecosystem. Media mix modeling evaluates the collective influence of touchpoints, empowering marketers to make informed decisions about budget distribution and campaign optimization. This integrated approach acknowledges the interconnected nature of touchpoints, maximizing the impact of every channel in the marketing mix.

In essence, CTV emerges as a versatile and indispensable tool in modern marketing, seamlessly integrating into broader strategies. Recognizing its complementarity with linear TV, leveraging cross-device engagement capabilities, and tapping into creative synergies enable brands to unlock the full potential of CTV, establishing meaningful connections with their audience across myriad touchpoints.

Conclusion: Navigating the Future of Streaming with Precision

In conclusion, this comprehensive guide has unraveled the secrets of crafting an effective CTV strategy. Precision, adaptability, and a holistic approach are key elements for success in the evolving streaming landscape. As you embark on your streaming journey, let these insights guide you to new heights of visibility, engagement, and success. Connect with your audience seamlessly, making every touchpoint resonate with your brand's narrative. The future of streaming awaits, and with a well-crafted strategy, your brand can lead the way into this exciting frontier.

 for TV and streaming advertising provides unified access to premium linear and CTV inventory across all networks and publishers. 

Developing a robust strategy for CTV advertising is paramount for digital advertising success.. This comprehensive guide delves into the intricacies of crafting a winning strategy for Connected TV (CTV), shedding light on the importance of precision and adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape.

Crafting a Winning CTV Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide

In today's fast-paced advertising landscape, we've transitioned from traditional analog and broadcast media to the dynamic world of digital advertising through connected television. This shift to CTV marketing offers great benefits, such as precise targeting, increased interaction, and personalized messaging. Yet, when it comes to CTV Measurement, one critical aspect remains unclear: transparency. The core idea of digital advertising was always to give advertisers a clear view of who saw their ads and how effective they were. Sadly, the reality in connected television hasn't met our expectations.

CTV advertising has had its share of challenges, from dealing with bots to inconsistent measurement methods and a lack of industry standards. This has made it tough to accurately measure how many people watch our ads and how to measure the return on our investment. In the early days of digital advertising, the focus was mainly on driving incremental reach, especially as people cut the cord. We didn't worry much about fraudulent activity because all that mattered was scaling their CTV programs amid scarce inventory and keeping costs in check. But things have changed. Today, with the rise of streaming consumption, connected TV has become a significant part of TV budgets. We're now witnessing a major merging of budgets between traditional TV and digital.

This convergence highlights a significant problem – the transparency that was a given in the broadcast and cable industry is now notably absent in the digital realm. In the world of connected TV, transparency challenges extend beyond different channels; they also encompass major platforms like Google, Amazon, and Disney, where a substantial portion of viewing occurs behind their walls.

To address this, Simulmedia and other industry leaders have been discussing what should be the standard for transparency as traditional TV and connected TV converge. Simulmedia is proud to introduce the "

Advertisers' Bill of Rights for Transparency in Streaming and Linear TV

." At its core, this bill of rights is founded on the belief that a lack of transparency across the streaming and linear TV advertising ecosystem erodes trust, accountability, and the efficiency of the medium.

 empowers advertisers with the information they need to thrive in today's complex media landscape. We firmly support advertisers' fundamental rights to transparency, giving them the information needed to foster trust and ensure a thriving advertising environment. We are convinced that full transparency benefits everyone involved, especially in the long run, from publishers and advertisers to consumers. It promotes clear communication, accountability, and, most importantly, enhances the effectiveness and trustworthiness of advertising partnerships.

To foster greater transparency, trust, and accountability in the advertising industry, the 

Advertiser's Bill of Rights for Transparency

 establishes baseline principles advertisers should expect and demand from media partners. This bill of rights is meant as a starting point to drive an industry-wide conversation and evolve best practices, not as an exhaustive or fully complete list.

The right to know where ads appear - the specific programs, networks, services, and apps.

The right to know what devices ads are viewed on - TVs, phones, etc.

The right to understand how ad targeting and measurement works, including data sources and methodologies.

The right to accredited third-party measurement for ad campaigns.

The right to verify ads are viewed by real humans, not bots.

We’ll explore each of these rights in detail, analyzing why transparency around each principle is so critical. We'll also examine the downstream impacts that opaque practices can have on the entire advertising industry.

By codifying and embracing these rights, advertisers and media partners can build greater trust. This will lead to more efficient and effective ad investments that better reward content creators and platforms for quality programming that engages real audiences. Transparency is a journey, not a destination — but establishing core rights is the first step.


1. Placement Transparency. Advertisers have the right to know the programs, networks, services and apps where their ads appear.

Advertisers should have the right to know exactly where their ads are being displayed. This includes knowing the specific programs, networks, services, and apps where their ads appear.

Why is content obfuscated? Publishers sell their ad spaces either:

Through a large number of partners, who resell the spot to advertisers.

Prices can vary across each situation, and publishers sometimes deliberately hide content and episode information to maintain high prices. They worry that advertisers can buy a spot on the same show from one of their partners at a lower price and use this as a bargaining chip to demand that the publisher lower their own prices.

Resellers, on the flip side, may be motivated to strategically misrepresent their inventory to artificially enhance its appeal to potential buyers, thus justifying a higher asking price. While not all resellers have bad intentions, there are bad actors — or those participating in app spoofing. Here, resellers and intermediaries misrepresent or “spoof” an app to inflate the price of a piece of inventory and make it more attractive.

Brand safety controls may also be another casualty of non-transparent inventory. According to 

a study conducted by contextual ad-tech company GumGum

, in an analysis of over 100 children's shows, which represent just a fraction of the vast CTV landscape, approximately 20% of all ad breaks featured at least one advertisement that was deemed unsuitable for children, as per the guidelines, regulations, and suggestions outlined by the Federal Trade Commission. While not every instance explicitly breached an FTC regulation, they all pertained to subjects on which the FTC has either issued recommendations or conducted hearings.

Understanding the context in which ads are displayed is essential for advertisers to ensure their messaging aligns with the content and target audience. By knowing the programs, networks, services, and apps where their ads appear, advertisers can make informed decisions about their ad placements and optimize their campaigns accordingly.

By exercising their right to know where their ads appear, advertisers can build trust and accountability in the advertising industry. With the knowledge of the programs, networks, services, and apps where their ads appear, advertisers can make informed decisions and ensure that their advertising efforts are aligned with their brand values and objectives.

Tech providers like Simulmedia’s TV+ already provide a level of placement transparency advertisers deserve. Simulmedia collects data regarding applications, publishers, and programs where CTV ads are shown and normalizes that data into logical mappings for our end users, removing ambiguity and redundancy so buyers have more information about what their media spend bought them.


2. Device Transparency. Advertisers have the right to know the devices on which their ads are viewed.

The device on which an ad is viewed can significantly impact its effectiveness. Viewing an ad on a large television screen often leads to higher engagement compared to viewing on a small mobile device. This is because larger screens offer a more immersive experience, captivating viewers' attention and filling their field of vision. The superior audio-visual quality on a large TV enhances the overall impact of the ad, making it more memorable and persuasive. On top of that, the larger screen makes it easier to notice and appreciate the details in the ad, such as product features and messages. Moreover, watching on a larger screen often becomes a shared social experience, encouraging discussions and word-of-mouth recommendations about the products or services advertised, ultimately increasing the ad's reach and effectiveness. As such, advertisers should have transparency into where their ads are being shown to ensure they leverage the benefits of larger screens for optimal engagement.

Without accurate device information, advertisers are operating somewhat blindly. They may be paying premium rates for ads viewed on television when, in reality, a large portion are being shown on mobile phones. This lack of transparency is akin to buying a gourmet meal and ending up with fast food – it's not what you expected.

 from the advertising world. A leading connected TV buying platform frequently preaches about the power of high-quality CTV inventory and why advertisers should settle for nothing less. However, every buy executed within this platform offers a mix of additional inventory types, including digital display and mobile, 'in order to maximize performance.' Essentially, this platform combines various types of inventory to reach as many viewers as possible. They do not permit buyers to choose only CTV inventory or even to dictate the percentage of the overall buy that must be CTV. Instead, they ask brands to sign off, hoping that a decent amount of the inventory purchased will be in the format they desire and near decent content. It's a bit like ordering a gourmet pizza but ending up with a mishmash of toppings you didn't choose. Unfortunately, this platform is not unique in this regard.

Knowing the breakdown of devices provides important context. Advertisers can ensure campaigns are being delivered as intended. They can optimize based on performance differences across devices. And they can verify ads are being shown in appropriate environments.

Now, let's talk about a dark side of the digital advertising world – device spoofing. Some resellers, who can be considered as bad actors in this industry, may misrepresent the device on which ads are shown to fetch higher CPMs. In the digital advertising context, it means a mobile device may pretend to be a high-value smart TV, which typically commands higher ad rates. This unethical practice artificially inflates the value of ad impressions.

We at Simulmedia take a different approach. We filter and only make bid requests for the big screen (CTV). This ensures we're focused on delivering ads in the format advertisers desire rather than mixing in various inventory types. Bad actors can spoof device IDs as well, which is another reason we buy direct and don’t use third-party resellers.

As streaming plays a larger role in media plans, device transparency becomes increasingly vital. Advertisers, purchasing these impressions, rightfully demand accurate, third-party verified reporting on device breakdown. It's imperative for device transparency to be the norm, not the exception, ensuring advertisers understand the context in which their ads appear.

3. Audience Transparency. Advertisers have the right to know the sources, composition, and methodologies of the data and models used to target and measure their ads.

Data and algorithms are used extensively to target ads and measure campaign performance. However, there is often a lack of audience transparency into the inner workings of these systems. Advertisers have the right to understand how the audience segments advertisers use to target and measure their campaigns are collected and vetted.

Advertisers look to target specific audiences on CTV so they can deliver their ads to the most relevant people. They turn to data provided by Data Management Platforms (DMPs), which are often integrated into major Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs). DMPs offer thousands of audience categories, such as age, gender, income, interests, hobbies, and ownership, allowing advertisers to find the perfect audience for their ad.

However, the quality and accuracy of these audience pools remain uncertain. Questions arise regarding the accuracy of demographic categories like “Women 18-45” and the methodology used to classify CTV viewers within these categories. Additionally, the effectiveness of these audience pools on CTV is a concern, as a low match rate can lead to unmet campaign goals.

Marketers share responsibility in the data quality issue. The pursuit of hyper-specific audience targeting often neglects whether data providers can define such audiences accurately or whether these audiences exist at a scale that fits campaign budgets. The entire supply chain, from brand managers to agencies and data providers, may overlook these critical questions in the quest for scale and efficiency.

Many data segments available in marketplaces, DMPs, and DSPs are modeled from a seed of real data collected from various sources such as web activity, surveys, or publicly available but complex datasets. The methods and quality of data science models used to create audience segments can vary widely, and understanding the source and size of the seed audience is essential as it impacts the quality of the resulting audience pool.

In practice, audiences are often created by applying AND/OR/NOT logic to multiple data sources, resulting in a complex combination of modeled data. This approach can lead to a haphazard assortment of identifiers that only partially match the intended target audience.

Without audience transparency, advertisers face significant challenges, as highlighted in 

 on the accuracy of programmatic ad targeting. Academic research revealed that when using a single targeting parameter like gender, the accuracy was only 42%. To put it in perspective, this accuracy falls below the natural population's gender distribution of 50%. In practical terms, a campaign using this targeting parameter is 15% less effective than a "spray and pray" approach without any specific parameters. Even showing ads to every possible user would achieve a 50% on-target rate, surpassing the accuracy of paid gender targeting parameters from data brokers.

Moreover, the study found that when two targeting parameters are applied for ad targeting, such as gender and a selected age range, the average accuracy drops to 24%. Different data vendors exhibited varying levels of accuracy, ranging from as low as 12.9% to as high as 32.3%.

The consequences of such inaccuracies in targeting are significant, particularly in light of stricter privacy policies. As Mike Woosley, COO of Lotame, explained 

, consider the case of a men's brand that used to acquire one customer for every $5.00 spent targeting 1,000 men. Now, to reach 1,000 men, the brand has to show ads to 2,000 people because of the uncertainty in distinguishing between men and women, resulting in doubled acquisition costs and a 50% loss in yield.

Advertisers have a legitimate right to inquire about the sources and the degree of customization of the audience pools they purchase, ensuring that these audiences are well-suited for CTV. When evaluating data sources at Simulmedia, we make sure to ask the right questions and get the important answers around privacy, sample sizes, and accuracy, such as:

If the data is modeled from a sample, what is the ratio of the final audience to the original seed?

What privacy and opt-in/opt-out considerations were used in the data collection?

What methods have you used to test the accuracy of your segments (surveys,deterministic samples)?

In the future, we will use AI to test audience data holistically, testing thousands of audience segments against known benchmarks and analyzing statistical relevance vs. random chance

Requiring audience transparency does not demand advertisers to become data scientists themselves but allows them to receive clear explanations from platforms about their operational methods. Third-party audits and inspections can also help advertisers ensure data quality.

Audience transparency enables advertisers to make informed decisions on whether to rely on a platform's proprietary measurement or require independent, accredited third-party measurement. Without audience transparency, advertisers cannot reasonably be expected to simply trust "black box" targeting and measurement systems.

Ensuring audience transparency in data and algorithms will lead to greater accuracy, accountability, and trust in the digital advertising ecosystem. This benefits not just advertisers but platforms as well by instilling confidence in their systems. Audience transparency should be a fundamental right, and advertisers must continue to demand it as connected TV advertising grows.

4. Independent verification. Advertisers have the right to independent, transparent, accredited, third-party measurement of their campaigns.

Measuring and verifying advertising campaigns is critical to the advertising ecosystem. Advertisers invest significant resources into campaigns with the goal of reaching target audiences and driving business results. Advertisers rely on campaign measurement and analytics to determine the effectiveness of those investments.

Historically, measurement of traditional media like TV, radio, and print has been conducted by independent third parties like Nielsen. However, with the rise of digital and streaming media, much of the measurement is now controlled by the media platforms themselves. This creates an inherent conflict of interest, as platforms are incentivized to report metrics that make their inventory look most attractive to advertisers.

Advertisers have a right to campaign measurement and analytics that are independent, transparent, and accredited. Independent third-party measurement mitigates the conflicts of interest that exist when inventory sellers control the measurement. Transparency through independent verification enables advertisers to evaluate methodologies and inspect data sources. Accreditation from oversight bodies like the Media Rating Council ensures measurement practices adhere to industry standards.

There are several benefits to independent, transparent, accredited measurement for advertisers:

It mitigates conflicts of interest and bias that exist in seller-controlled measurement

It provides a consistent and impartial source of truth for campaign performance

It enables optimization and planning decisions based on unbiased insights

It drives accountability and integrity across the advertising supply chain

It ensures measurement practices adhere to industry standards and oversight

It builds trust between advertisers, agencies, and media platforms

From a technical perspective, media platforms have the capability to support independent measurement via privacy-safe data sharing and matching through clean rooms. Advertisers should have the right to leverage accredited providers to independently verify campaign delivery and performance across walled gardens and closed ecosystems. This creates a fair and level playing field for advertisers regardless of which platforms their campaigns run on

. Advertisers invest big into YouTube — the media giant's total ad revenue for 2022 amounted to 

. Advertisers pay Google to serve their ads on YouTube, but these ads are sometimes run on third-party sites and apps — also known as Google Video Partners.

Google measures and verifies its own inventory — in other words, the platform grades its own homework. But while Google claims it vets partner sites to ensure they're of the utmost quality, 

 reveals the opposite. According to the report, "many media buyers were surprised to learn that the majority of their ad budgets against a so-called "walled garden" environment was spent on muted, auto-playing video ads on third-party websites."

Had advertisers been given an alternative option to measure and verify their campaigns — one that came from a neutral third-party — it’s likely advertisers would have caught wind of low-quality impressions and inventory sooner.

The Transparency Bill of Rights empowers advertisers with the information they need to thrive in today's complex media landscape. We firmly support advertisers' fundamental rights to transparency, giving them the information needed to foster trust and ensure a thriving advertising environment. We are convinced that full transparency benefits everyone involved, especially in the long run, from publishers and advertisers to consumers. It promotes clear communication, accountability, and, most importantly, enhances the effectiveness and trustworthiness of advertising partnerships. 


Driving Awareness and App Activity for Streaming Crime Series

The Challenge

Reaching Custom Target Audience for Original Docuseries Debut

The Solution

Targeting Likely Viewers With a TV Campaign Across 54 Networks

The Results

Simulmedia Overdelivered on Guaranteed Impressions and Drove Digital Outcomes