We say, no. The CTV landscape is commanding attention and with good reason.

Integral Ad Science reports that 90% of consumers in the United States have access to CTV.

Nielsen data shows that CTV reaches nearly 142 million adults in the United States each week. And in Western Europe, eMarketer forecasts that OTT subscribers will reach nearly 187 million in 2022.

Media investment company GroupM forecasts that CTV ad revenue will grow to exceed $31 billion globally by 2026.

60% of U.S. advertisers say they plan to shift ad dollars from linear TV to either CTV or OTT this year.

But the CTV space is complicated. Which companies are most noteworthy within the CTV ecosystem?

First, there are the streamers. I already mentioned Netflix, and they remain the leader. But as you can see in the chart below, the publisher field has become more crowded, complicated, and competitive.

Source: https://nscreenmedia.com/streaming-update-svod-smp-cord-cutting-cure/

Netflix is publicly traded, independent, and not currently ad-supported (but the ad part could change in the near future); Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN are owned by the same parent company (you guessed it – Disney) and are ad supported.

Next we have CTV device makers. LG, Samsung, and Sharp are examples of manufacturers of connected tv devices.

Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon do both – they make devices and offer streaming services. And there are app products out there as well, such as IMDB TV and Amazon Prime, which are both offered by Amazon, which also offers devices.

The field has grown crowded and a bit complicated.

Advertisers and adtech sense the opportunity and are trying to capitalize on it.

I asked our VP of Sales, Alasdair Cross, “When our customers and prospects bring up the topic of CTV, the first thing they ask about is __________?”

“Do you have much coverage of CTV IDs in Europe and the US?” replied Alasdair.

“OK, then what is the main use case?” I replied.

“The main use case is connecting CTV IDs to MAIDs, but they also want to connect to cookies, hashed email addresses (HEMs), as well as universal IDs,” he said.

I asked our CEO/co-founder, Carsten Frien, about CTV.

Carsten replied, “It’s a challenge for marketers and advertisers to reach scale with CTVs because there are many services and devices, which creates a fragmented landscape. That’s why we’ve become an aggregator of CTV IDs.”

I asked our Partnerships Director, Dre Wong, “What are you hearing about CTVs? What are folks talking about at conferences?”

Dre said, “I think by far the largest topic was the real ID rotation into the CTV ID space – with nearly every one of our conversations having the prospect or client ask about our scale and source of them at the moment.”

The question becomes, why would you want to map/translate your CTV IDs?

The use case is pretty straightforward, even if the means for executing it remain complex.

When third-party cookies go away, Publisher ID and other first-party IDs will become more relevant. We could for example link Publisher IDs to Universal IDs that the advertiser could use to target the user based on that Universal ID.

With our identity graph, Connected TV IDs can be used to target CTV users and to extend segments if someone has MAIDs and they would like to link those MAIDs to CTV IDs.

If you already have access to CTV IDs, with the Roqad identity graph you can use them as an input ID to build out a graph of connected devices and users based on your existing CTV IDs.

• Targeting
• Deduplication
• Frequency capping and suppression
• Customer journey mapping and attribution

Our identity graph can help you map your CTV IDs to HEMs, MAIDs, third-party cookies, IP Addresses for US & Canada only, Universal IDs, and the so-called New IDs (App ID, IDFV, 1st Party Cookies).

Or vice versa!

Reach out if you would like to discuss CTV with one of our experts.

P.S. Like many adtech discussions and posts, this one launched quickly into acronyms. So here is a helpful glossary!

CTV

A Connected TV (CTV) is a device that connects to—or is embedded in—a television to support video content streaming. Different types of CTVs include Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and more.

OTT

Over-the-top (OTT) refers to streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV and Disney+ that can be streamed on any internet-connected device without a cable (AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Frontier, etc.) or satellite subscription. The rise of CTV and OTT has led to the phenomenon known as “cord-cutting,” which is the growing trend of customers canceling their traditional cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of only using these streaming or video-on-demand formats.

IP Address

An IP address is a unique address that identifies a device on the internet or a local network. IP stands for “Internet Protocol,” which is the set of rules governing the format of data sent via the internet or local network.

In essence, IP addresses are the identifier that allows information to be sent between devices on a network: they contain location information and make devices accessible for communication. The internet needs a way to differentiate between different computers, routers, and websites. IP addresses provide a way of doing so and form an essential part of how the internet works.

MAID

A mobile advertiser ID (MAID) is a sequence of alphanumeric characters assigned to a mobile phone or tablet by the device operating system (iOS or Android).

OTT

OTT is the delivery mechanism for TV/video content online, usually through streaming or video on demand (VOD) in addition to, or “over the top of,” traditional network providers. CTV is an internet-connected device a customer uses to watch TV/video content online. It could be a smart TV, gaming console, or some other sort of internet-connected device. The device may be used to stream OTT content, but the two terms are not interchangeable. Linear TV refers to a classic system when a viewer watches a scheduled TV program when it airs on its original channel. The viewer can watch content through an antenna or by paying for a cable or satellite subscription.

MVPD

Multichannel video programming distributors, or the traditional way of getting programming onto your actual TV. MVPDs deliver video content via satellite, cable or linear broadcast and include companies like Comcast, Dish, DirecTV and Cox.

Streaming

Streaming refers to the delivery of audio and video content to a device (phone, tablet, computer, TV) through an internet connection. Streaming content can be delivered wirelessly as well as through a wired connection.

Ad or Audience Suppression

Perhaps one of the most critical techniques for building a brand through advertising is audience suppression. Audience suppression involves removing specific people or groups from an advertising campaign based on whether they make conversions.

For example, if you are advertising a product and a customer purchases it, it would be great to know so you don’t spend money continuing to advertise that product to him. You’ll want to remove him from the product campaign and, perhaps, add him to a different campaign instead that advertises complementary products or value-added services for the item he’s already purchased.

So, there you have it. Clarity on an important topic – why does adtech care so much about CTV IDs?