CTV Sellers Face a Trust Gap Despite Growing Measurement Options
Connected TV sellers are pitching measurable business outcomes, but advertisers remain wary of whether the results can be trusted. That tension surfaced at LUMA’s Digital Media Summit, where executives discussed the gap between CTV’s performance promise and marketers’ willingness to buy against it.
Serge Matta, president of global ad sales at LG Ad Solutions, described a conversation from about four months earlier with a large quick-service restaurant advertiser. Matta said he offered a guarantee: the advertiser would pay only for incremental store visits, as defined and measured by its independent third-party measurement provider. The advertiser questioned whether that provider could be trusted because it was working with the seller. Matta recalled that the objection ended the discussion.
The exchange underscored a problem for CTV businesses that have spent years positioning the medium as a driver of outcomes, not merely reach and frequency. Matta said the promise is there, but advertisers still need to come on board. Having measurement in place, in other words, does not automatically resolve concerns about independence or credibility.
Measurement is available, but confidence lags
Lou Paskalis, an advertising industry veteran who described himself as a “recovering marketer,” suggested that perceptions of television are part of the challenge. Even as marketers have increasingly focused on lower-funnel performance, he said, many continue to view TV as “hero media” associated with upper-funnel objectives. He also pointed to creative as a barrier: advertisers may not have suitable CTV assets, and producing them can be expensive. In his view, CTV is not yet seen as performing as well as programmatic media.
Measurement options have expanded. Philip Inghelbrecht, CEO and co-founder of CTV advertising platform Tatari, said that when he started the company about a decade ago, advertisers were unfamiliar with discussions of incrementality. Today, he said, multiple independent third-party measurement companies offer incrementality measurement using different models. The availability of those approaches is a change from the market he encountered at Tatari’s launch, but Matta’s example suggests that availability alone may not persuade a buyer.
There are also broader attribution concerns. Scott Young, co-founder and chief product officer of streaming ad insertion platform Transmit.Live, said channels including display and social often claim credit for the same conversion. CTV is not exempt from that problem, though Young argued that it offers a distinct benefit: viewers may give the ad more attention. That attention can matter to conversion, he said, even if CTV costs more.
Buying decisions must reflect business timing
For advertisers, debates about attribution models and ad-tech infrastructure can be secondary to practical questions such as when a campaign runs and whether it supports sales. Vinny Rinaldi, vice president of client strategy and growth at The Trade Desk, said brands do not generally spend their time thinking about the technical details that industry participants discuss. Before joining The Trade Desk over the summer, Rinaldi spent much of his career on the brand and agency side, including several extended periods at Hershey’s in media, marketing and strategy roles.
Rinaldi used Halloween candy sales to illustrate why timing matters. October was a critical period for Hershey’s, but he said most sales occurred during the final three or four days of the month. When he bought directly from publishers, he said, many impressions ran in the first week of October, with fewer available near Halloween. Publishers could consider the buy delivered in full, but Rinaldi said his priority was having 95% of the spend run in the final week, when it could better support the company’s sales objective.
That example points to a different dimension of advertiser trust: confidence that media will be delivered in a way that serves the brand’s business calendar, not just the seller’s inventory needs. Rinaldi argued that a demand-side platform should have the final say over when and where ads run across CTV and other channels. The issue is not simply whether a campaign can be measured after delivery, but whether buying decisions can be aligned with the advertiser’s goals before and during delivery.
The summit discussion offered no single fix for CTV’s credibility challenge. Independent measurement, incrementality methods and the medium’s potential to capture attention are all part of the case sellers make. Yet the advertiser’s response to Matta’s proposed guarantee, alongside Rinaldi’s account of mistimed impressions, illustrates why proof alone may not be enough. CTV sellers also have to address buyers’ skepticism about measurement relationships and demonstrate that campaigns can be planned around real business needs.
