Connected TV (CTV) has become one of the fastest-growing channels in advertising, and for good reason. It combines the storytelling power of television with the targeting promise of digital. For marketers, it holds massive potential to reach audiences in a personalized and impactful way.
But for all the excitement (and investment), many brands are still waiting for CTV to prove itself as a performance channel.
Fragmented platforms. Inconsistent identity resolution. Metrics that don’t map to sales. The reality is that the CTV ecosystem wasn’t built for the level of targeting and attribution performance marketers need today.
The good news? That’s changing.
Some leading brands, like Blue Nile and Rebag, are already seeing what’s possible when precision data, real purchase signals, and closed-loop measurement come together. And we’ve seen firsthand how solving these issues can turn CTV into a reliable and measurable engine for revenue—not just reach.
Awareness vs. Performance: Two Different Games
CTV has proven its value in building brand awareness. Campaigns that prioritize reach, frequency, and ad recall can effectively drive top-of-funnel engagement. These efforts are typically measured using broad metrics like impressions and gross rating points (GRPs). And for many brand goals, that’s perfectly fine.
But the playbook needs to change when the focus shifts to performance metrics, like conversions, revenue, and iROAS.
Performance marketing requires more than impressions. It calls for precise, data-driven targeting, timely delivery, and the ability to connect ad impressions directly to business outcomes. That means measuring online and in-store sales, not just views.
Why CTV Targeting Falls Short
As it stands, most CTV platforms and strategies aren’t built for performance. Here’s what’s holding them back:
1. Fragmentation and Identity Breakdown
CTV spans a fractured landscape—different apps, devices, publishers, and platforms, each with its own data silos and identifiers. Many still rely on outdated methods like IP addresses or third-party cookies to resolve identity across devices.
The result? Reduced audience coverage, wasted impressions, and inconsistent targeting that makes it difficult to scale effectively or deliver relevant messages to the right households.
2. Weak Data = Weak Targeting
Most CTV targeting today is based on soft signals—like website visits, video views, or broad demo segments—that don’t necessarily reflect true purchase intent. What’s more, many of these signals come from third-party sources and are outdated or not privacy-compliant in today’s ecosystem.
Ads are consequently served to consumers who are unlikely to convert, leading to poor campaign performance, wasted spend, and frustration for marketers trying to make the channel accountable. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
3. Vanity Metrics Over True Performance
Most CTV platforms target and optimize for surface-level signals like impressions, view-throughs, completion rates, or clicks, which don’t correlate with sales. These KPIs may help justify spending in the short term, but they don’t provide the insight needed to optimize for business outcomes.
Marketers are left with incomplete data, unable to clearly tie ad impressions to conversions, and stuck justifying ROI using incomplete or irrelevant metrics.
What Marketers Really Need from CTV
To unlock CTV’s full potential as a performance channel, marketers need:
- Deterministic targeting built on real-world purchase behavior, not assumptions or proxies
- Closed-loop measurement that directly ties ad exposure to revenue outcomes
- Dynamic optimization that continuously learns and refines who sees what and when
This is exactly why we built PebblePost’s Performance CTV: to help leading brands identify and engage high-value, decision-ready consumers, measure true incrementality, optimize for outcomes, and prove tangible business impact.
How PebblePost Fixes CTV Ad Targeting
With Performance CTV, we set out to solve the fundamental issues preventing CTV from becoming a high-performing, accountable marketing channel. Here’s how we’ve flipped the script on CTV audience targeting.
1. Real-Time, Purchase-Based Targeting
Our AI-driven models are trained by a proprietary data asset that connects billions of online and offline first-party identity, intent, and transaction signals across hundreds of leading brands. This unique data foundation ensures targeting is based on real buying behavior, not third-party signals or outdated demographics.
2. 80% Match Rate and Household-Level Identity
We tie CTV exposure to actual households using verified identity markers, like email, postal address, and IP—no cookies required. Our unparalleled data access and market-leading match rate enable precise targeting, measurement, and performance across nearly all U.S. streaming households.
3. Always-On Optimization Engine
With new purchase data flowing in daily, audiences are continuously re-scored to reflect real buyer behavior, unlocking more precise targeting over time. Campaigns dynamically adjust so you can find more households that look and act like your paying customers, not just casual site visitors.
4. Closed-Loop, Deterministic Measurement
Every Performance CTV campaign is tied to online and offline transaction data, giving marketers a complete view of performance. We enable true incrementality analysis, so brands can optimize confidently and prove the impact of every dollar spent.
Performance CTV, Built for What Matters
CTV is no longer just a top-of-funnel play. It has the potential to be one of the most powerful performance channels in your mix—but only if the right data, targeting, and measurement are in place.
With PebblePost’s Performance CTV, you can stop relying on proxies and start optimizing for what actually matters: conversions, revenue, and real business impact.
If you’re ready to make CTV work harder for your brand, reach out to our team of CTV experts.
