By Alex Yip, Director of Product Strategy at AppsFlyer
For years, the connected TV (CTV) market has stayed fragmented enough that a company could succeed owning one part of the value chain and partnering for the rest. Now, however, as CTV viewing has eclipsed linear, and related ad spend is poised to grow by 14 percent year-on-year, it’s safe to say that the experimentation phase is over. CTV has arrived as an endemic channel, and the strategic landscape is starting to reflect it.
CTV’s four battlegrounds
Within CTV, there are four distinct capabilities that have historically sat in separate hands:
- The screen — the device footprint, the TV operating system, home-screen inventory, content distribution and the direct relationship with the viewer.
- The pipes — the DSPs, SSPs, ad servers, supply paths, identity infrastructure and workflow systems that connect advertiser demand to CTV inventory.
- The checkout — first-party transaction data, retail media signals and the commercial relationship that links an ad exposure to an observed purchase.
- Measurement — exposure verification, attribution, incrementality and the ability to connect media delivery to business outcomes across platforms and channels.
Recent deals and consolidations within the market can be seen as attempts to combine these capabilities in different configurations.
Walmart’s acquisitions of Vizio and Vibe bring together the screen, the pipes and the checkout. Vizio gives Walmart control of a TV operating system, home-screen inventory and viewing data. Whilst Vibe adds self-serve buying and campaign execution capabilities. Walmart already owns the checkout through its retail business and Walmart Connect.
Amazon got there first, of course. Fire TV and Prime Video give it the screen. Amazon DSP and the broader advertising stack give it the pipes. The retail business gives it the checkout. An advertiser can buy CTV inventory, target it against purchase behaviour, and observe the downstream transaction without ever leaving the same ecosystem.
This framework also helps explain where the next deals may come from without requiring predictions about specific buyers and sellers. Retailers without a screen may seek access to one. Device companies with control of the screen may look for stronger pipes. Independent performance platforms may become attractive to companies that want to add CTV buying capabilities without building them from the ground up.
Measurement is the final, and potentially most important, piece. Once a company controls the screen, the pipes and the checkout, it is important that it can also control how performance is evaluated. Otherwise, it is operating blind. But measurement doesn’t follow the same logic as the other three.
Why measurement stands apart
Screens, pipes and checkout data become more valuable through ownership. Measurement depends in part on neutrality and independence.
Measurement is consolidating too, but largely within its own layer. Recent deals are building broader measurement capabilities without folding them directly into a screen, commerce or media platform.
There is a structural reason for that. A platform may have an excellent view of activity inside its own environment. Yet, advertisers still need to understand performance across the wider market. They need to compare platforms, account for duplication and follow customer journeys that move between television, mobile and the web.
Measurement therefore must scale through horizontal interoperability rather than vertical consolidation. Integrations move signals between systems. Partnerships connect exposure and outcomes across platforms. Standards make those signals more consistent. Omnichannel measurement connects CTV to the other environments through which the customer journey passes.
The value of neutrality
A neutral measurement layer gains value from working across otherwise separate channels and platforms.
Advertisers will continue to demand an independent view across channels, particularly in a high-cost environment like CTV. Reporting from one platform cannot establish how it performed relative to another, account fully for duplication or explain the contribution of activity outside its own walls. As Keynes Digital’s Dan Larkman put it to eMarketer: “This will be the year where proving value becomes just as important as driving it.”
This tension makes measurement more valuable as the rest of the market consolidates. The more screens, pipes and checkout data are assembled into closed systems, the more advertisers need a credible view across them.
Measurement will continue to consolidate, but its path may look different. It will build scale through broader data, capabilities and interoperability even as larger platforms try to absorb it into their own stacks.
So keep an eye measurement. Everyone else is racing to pull more of the value chain inside the same walls. Measurement is being pulled the same way, even though its value lies in the view across them. Whether advertisers keep that view is the real question this consolidation cycle leaves open.
