Marketers constantly seek new avenues to connect with their target audiences in the ever-evolving digital advertising landscape. Connected TV (CTV) has emerged as one of the most promising platforms in recent years. As more and more viewers shift from traditional television to streaming services, the need for effective CTV attribution has become crucial for advertisers.

Connected TV (CTV) is a rapidly growing advertising platform that allows marketers to reach viewers on their smart TVs, streaming devices like Roku or Amazon Fire TV, and gaming consoles.

CTV has become popular for viewers due to its convenience and wide range of content options. This shift in viewing behavior has created new opportunities for advertisers to reach their audience through CTV platforms that offer advertisers many advantages over linear TV, such as:

• More targeted reach: CTV advertising allows marketers to target their ads to specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and viewing behavior.
• More engagement: CTV viewers are more engaged with the ads they see than traditional TV viewers since CTV ads are usually more interactive and relevant to the viewer’s interests.
• Better measurement: CTV advertising is easier to measure than traditional TV advertising. This is because marketers can track how many viewers saw their ad, what they did after it, and how many converted.

CTV attribution is the process of measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on CTV platforms. It helps advertisers understand how their CTV ads contribute to user actions, such as app installs. By attributing these actions to specific ad impressions, advertisers can evaluate the impact of their CTV campaigns, understand which ones are driving more results, and optimize accordingly.

The view-through attribution model considers users who viewed an ad but didn’t interact with it directly. The view-through attribution model considers users who viewed an ad but didn’t click. It measures the impact of ad exposure on user actions, such as downloading the app directly in the App or Play Store and spike in sales within a certain period of time (windows).

CTV attribution tracks a consumer’s path from seeing a CTV ad to converting into a customer. The process can be complex, involving several steps. Let’s take a closer look at how it works, with a specific focus on Smadex:

• A CTV publisher sends a bid request to Smadex’s exchange/SSP.
• Smadex wins the bid and delivers an ad to the CTV.
• A viewer sees the ad on the CTV.
• Smadex sends the user information, including the IP, to the mobile measurement partner (MMP) so that they can use their cross-device technology to match the impression to a mobile app install (100% probabilistic, which requires the client always to set up a VTA window).
• The viewer may search for the app in the App or Play Store.
• The viewer may download the app to their mobile device.
• The app install triggers the MMP SDK, which records the install and collects device information, including WiFi IP address, for probabilistic matching. If the mobile phone and the TV use the same IP, the MMP matches the mobile device app install to the CTV view to award attribution to Smadex.

By aligning the installation on a mobile device with the CTV ad view, advertisers gain insights into the effectiveness of their CTV campaigns.

Smadex plays a vital role in the CTV attribution process by connecting advertisers with the CTV audience. By leveraging its real-time bidding technology and industry expertise, Smadex ensures that advertisers can deliver their messages to the right viewers. This, in turn, sets the stage for the attribution process to determine how effectively these campaigns drive user actions.

In conclusion, understanding CTV attribution is essential for advertisers looking to maximize their CTV advertising efforts. With the increasing popularity of CTV, harnessing its potential while using advanced attribution methods like those facilitated by Smadex can be a game-changer in the world of digital advertising. As technology advances, so will the tools available to track and optimize CTV campaigns, making it an exciting space to watch in the years to come.