By Iryna Kozirevych
CTV (Connected TV) advertising keeps gaining momentum. According to Statista, global CTV ad spending was expected to exceed $29 billion. By 2027, this figure is projected to reach over $38 billion.
However, just like in the case of any other channel or ad format, the efficiency of the campaign heavily relies on continuous analysis. So, how to measure TV advertising? What are the key CTV metrics to pay attention to?
This guide is here to provide you with actionable insights on CTV analytics, so keep reading to discover how to make the most of your campaigns.
Key Takeaways:
Transparency remains among the key challenges related to CTV measurement, as many platforms do not provide enough data on campaign performance.
The key metrics include, but are not limited to, impressions, viewability, completion rate, and conversion rate. However, you should prioritize those metrics that directly reflect your goals.
Launching your own ad exchange can help you increase transparency and gain greater control over your advertising processes.
Ad exchange solutions from Attekmi enable you to avoid a long and expensive process of custom development.
The evolution of CTV measurement
CTV advertising is considered to be challenging in terms of analysis; however, with the evolution of technology, things have gotten much simpler. Thus, in its early days, connected TV ad measurement offered pretty limited capabilities – advertisers could track metrics like impressions and completion rates, but other insights were inaccessible. The growth of the ecosystem solved this issue, so it became possible to connect viewership data with behavioral and demographic signals. As a result, TV advertising measurement started implying granular audience insights.
The key milestones are as follows:
The rise of cross-device tracking enabled a more complete view of the customer journey, as well as effective cross-platform campaign measurement.
The introduction of unified IDs that replaced cookies to maintain audience consistency across platforms.
The introduction of privacy regulations (like, for instance, GDPR and CCPA) reshaped the CTV advertising landscape, pushing AdTech providers to develop privacy-safe, consent-based measurement frameworks.
2025 challenges in measuring CTV campaigns
Even though TV campaign tracking has evolved significantly, certain challenges are still in place. Fortunately, there are ways to solve them. Let’s review the key pain points, limitations, and solutions related to connected TV measurement.
Advertiser Pain Points | Measurement Limitations | Solutions |
The inventory landscape is highly fragmented | It is complicated to understand customers’ interactions across different environments | Data collaboration and unified IDs |
Fragmented view of campaign performance | Due to the lack of standardized metrics, it is challenging to compare performance across different channels | Cross-media measurement to enable connectivity across different sources of data |
Wasted impressions and missed optimization opportunities | Audience duplication | Cross-screen measurement and identity graph technology |
Brand safety risks | The CTV ecosystem is growing continuously, and so is the risk of fraud – wasted impressions lead to inaccurate analysis data | Programmatic direct deals and identity resolution capabilities |
The lack of transparency | Many platforms do not provide sufficient insights into performance, placements, etc. | Strategic collaboration and clean room data analysis |
In general, transparency remains the top challenge. Fragmented ecosystems, inconsistent data standards, and limited visibility into supply chains make it difficult for advertisers to assess real CTV performance. These issues, along with the continuous risk of ad fraud, result in the need for greater transparency and media supply-chain visibility.
Why transparency matters more than ever
In March 2024, Pixalate found that open programmatic CTV traffic carried an average 17% invalid traffic (IVT) rate, with specific apps exceeding that percentage – for instance, Food Network GO (46%) on Amazon Fire TV and Xumo Play (23%) on Roku.
The results of the research prove the growing need for transparency in the programmatic infrastructure. However, transparency is essential not only to minimize invalid traffic and secure ad spend.
First and foremost, transparency directly affects ROI measurement. In the specific case outlined above, around one-fifth of CTV impressions might be invalid, which means that advertisers can’t calculate ROI accurately. Transparent measurement, including shared log-level reporting data and impression reports, becomes crucial for brands to distinguish genuine inventory from fraudulent activity.
Secondly, transparency plays a vital role in ensuring brand safety and building trust. A clear understanding of the supply path and verification mechanisms helps businesses make sure that ads are displayed in brand-safe contexts.
Last but not least, transparency is essential in terms of scalability. Without consistent, clear metrics across different platforms, expanding CTV campaigns becomes risky. In turn, standardized transparency frameworks allow you to scale with confidence.
Key metrics to track in 2025
How to measure TV advertising effectiveness? Tracking impressions and frequency is not enough, although monitoring these CTV KPIs is still a must. To get a deep understanding of your campaign performance and optimize your strategy accordingly, you need to keep an eye on multiple TV advertising metrics. Here are the most essential ones.
Metric | Purpose | Why It Matters in 2025 |
Impressions | The number of times a CTV ad was shown to viewers. | Impressions serve as the foundation for other metrics and enable you to identify patterns and adjust your strategy accordingly. |
Frequency | The average number of times an ad was shown to a unique viewer or household. | Tracking and adjusting frequency allows you to prevent ad fatigue and ensure privacy-first measurement. |
Viewability | A metric determining if an ad was actually visible to a viewer instead of just being served. | CTV ads tend to have high viewability rates since they are more visible than ads on other devices. Measuring the metric is essential for viewability verification – confirmation that an ad was actually visible. |
Attention | A metric measuring the actual engagement with an ad. | Measuring attention enables you to discover how actively viewers engage with the advertising content and understand the quality of your ads. |
Completion rate | The percentage of viewers who watch your ad from start to finish. | CTV ads are often unskippable; however, it is still essential to measure the completion rates to understand the effectiveness of diverse creatives. |
Conversion rate | The percentage of viewers who take a desired action after seeing your ad (for instance, purchasing a promoted product). | Conversion rate is a key indicator of the campaign's effectiveness. Measuring it allows you to prove ROI and improve your overall strategy. |
Incrementality | Incrementality proves performance lift across CTV and other digital channels. | Incremental lift analysis is essential for measuring real impact and optimizing ad spend. Besides, it allows for data-driven attribution modeling. |
Cost per completed view (CPVC) | The amount you pay when the ad is watched entirely. | Monitoring CPCV is a way to understand the price of real attention. |
Cost per mille (CPM) | The cost of serving 1,000 ad impressions. | Tracking CPM enables you to understand cost-effectiveness and optimize your ad spend. |
Cost per acquisition (CPA) | The cost required to generate an action (for instance, a purchase). | Measuring CPA is crucial for understanding campaign profitability. The lower the CPA, the more effective your campaign is. |
Return on ad spend (ROAS) | The revenue generated for every dollar that you invest in your campaign. | Tracking ROAS is a must since this metric allows you to understand the financial effectiveness of your campaigns. |
Now you know how to evaluate TV advertising; however, it is important to remember that you should prioritize those metrics that directly reflect your goals. Besides, remember that the metrics should be monitored continuously. If you check them only from time to time, it will be challenging for you to fine-tune your strategy properly.
How white-label ad exchanges enable transparent CTV ad measurement
The majority of modern demand-side platforms (DSPs) offer CTV advertising capabilities, and you, as a marketer, need to use one of them to launch your campaigns programmatically. However, this is not the only AdTech solution you can leverage – having your own ad exchange can help you connect with the most relevant supply-side platforms (SSPs) and get a better understanding of how your ads are performing. Learn more about real-time analytics in ad exchanges here.
Launching such a platform does not have to be an expensive and time-consuming process. At Attekmi, we offer a variety of ad exchange solutions, including a white-label one:
AdEx Basic: An entry-level platform with basic functionalities.
AdEx Plus: An enhanced version of AdEx Basic.
AdEx Enterprise: A platform with advanced functionality and an ultimately scalable nature.
White Label Ad Exchange: A fully customizable platform, from UI personalization to custom on-request feature development.
Besides, CTV is not the only environment supported by our platforms. Other options include desktop, mobile web, and in-app channels – this provides you with freedom of action.
Launching your own ad exchange solution is a way not only to gain greater control over your ad operations – this will also enable you to start driving media trading income.
Our White Label Ad Exchange gets fully tailored to your needs – it will look and feel like it was developed by your brand.
Before vs After White-Label Adoption | ||
Before (Custom Development) | After (White-Label) | |
Time to market | Months or even years | Approximately several weeks (depending on the required customization) |
Costs | High upfront and maintenance costs | Much lower and predictable expenses |
Scalability | Limited by your team capacity | Your solution grows together with your business |
Updates and maintenance | These are your responsibility | The solution is updated and maintained by the Attekmi team |
Focus | Solution development and maintenance | You can focus on your business operations and key processes |
Conclusion
So, how to track TV advertising effectively? With the metrics outlined in this guide, you will be able to measure the efficiency of your advertising campaigns and adjust your strategy to reach even better results. However, again, you should focus on those metrics that are relevant to your goals. Keeping an eye on all the metrics provided by your platform will help you gain a better understanding of what is going on; however, the metrics reflecting your objectives should be your priority.
Besides, keep in mind that getting your own ad exchange solution will provide you with enhanced control over your CTV ad operations. With Attekmi, your platform will be launched in the shortest time possible and with minimal investment.
Ready to launch your own ad exchange platform? Contact us!
FAQ
The lack of standardized metrics, a highly fragmented inventory landscape, the risk of audience duplication, and the risk of transparency are among the key challenges in terms of CTV ad measurement.
AI and machine learning may transform CTV audience measurement by unifying fragmented data sources, predicting viewer behavior with greater accuracy, and identifying households across devices without relying on personal identifiers. They will automate anomaly detection, improve deduplication, and enable real-time optimization, giving advertisers a clearer understanding of campaign performance.
To gain greater control and transparency without the cost and delay of custom development. White-label platforms offer faster deployment, built-in compliance, and effective optimization functionalities, allowing you to manage programmatic supply chains and build long-term value.
