Connected TV is the fastest-growing line item in most performance budgets, and it’s also the one most marketers trust the least — not because it doesn’t work, but because it’s measured with tools built for a different channel.
Why CTV attribution is a different problem Search and social attribution is click-based: a user taps an ad, an MMP logs a click ID, and when that same device converts, the click gets the credit. CTV doesn’t have a click. A living-room ad plays on a shared household screen, and the signal your MMP has to work with is household IP and user agent proximity — probabilistic, not deterministic.
Setting up attribution correctly, before you launch Confirm your MMP passes both IP and user agent on every impression. Set an attribution window that reflects real household behaviour — 24 to 72 hours is a reasonable starting point, validated against your own conversion curve. Check IPv4/IPv6 support before you scale spend, and use a dedicated CTV link rather than your mobile click URL.
Incrementality is your ground truth Attribution tells you what a platform credited. Incrementality tells you what actually happened. Running a structured test — holdout groups, geo splits, or PSA-based controls — alongside your attribution data is the only way to know whether CTV is truly driving conversions.
