Blogs: Linear & Connected TV News

TV advertising blog with the latest information, news, analysis and trends about linear television, CTV, media buying, measurement, and more.

 we have used the "TV+" trademark (federally registered) for years with our innovative tech for premium CTV ad targeting and activation.


We don't like the confusion here. We especially don't like being confused with less-than-premium inventory and non-transparency. We will vigorously defend our brand and trademarks and, in the spirit and practice of full transparency, are sharing here publicly the letter that we sent to OpenX counsel requesting that the company Cease and Desist from infringing on our TV+ trademark.

An integrated omnichannel strategy serves as the foundation for success in the modern marketing world. This guide takes a deep dive into the complexities of crafting an effective 

, showcasing its pivotal role within the overarching omnichannel approach. Understanding the essential nature of an omnichannel strategy, tailored to ensure a consistent brand experience across diverse channels, is crucial for engaging today's multifaceted consumer.

 underscores, the proliferation of smart TVs has reached an impressive 61.9% in H1 2023, indicating a 5 percentage point YoY increase and a substantial surge from 43.1% in 2019. These numbers underscore the ubiquity of smart TVs, now a dominant force in households across income levels.

Furthermore, the data illuminates the significant surge in average US time spent consuming online TV and streaming, reaching 1:50 in H1 2023. This noteworthy statistic positions the US as the second-highest among tracked countries, trailing only Saudi Arabia. The upward trajectory in time spent with online TV and streaming, soaring by 34.1% since 2019, highlights the growing influence and appeal of CTV.

The eMarketer insights also reveal the pervasive nature of on-demand and streaming service viewership across demographics, transcending age, income, and household locations. Notably, Gen Zers lead the charge with an impressive penetration rate of 97.4% for ages 16 to 24. Even age cohorts traditionally considered below the tech adoption curve, such as ages 55 to 64, boast a robust 87% penetration. As we delve into how to integrate CTV strategy into your omnichannel strategy, these statistics underscore the profound reach and impact this channel brings to the forefront. Now, let's explore the practical steps to harness the potential of CTV in your comprehensive marketing strategy.

Let’s start with the basics – de-siloing the two major TV platforms. Understanding the synergies between Connected TV (CTV) and traditional linear TV is a smart onramp to crafting an integrated marketing campaign. Rather than being adversaries, these channels can be powerful partners, each bringing its unique strengths to the table. Linear TV, with its expansive reach, continues to be a juggernaut, capturing the attention of diverse audiences. In contrast, CTV offers a more personalized viewing experience, allowing advertisers to tailor content to specific audience segments.

Our TV+ advertising platform sheds light on the current landscape, revealing that the total time spent by P2+ on Linear TV and ad-supported Connected TV is 3 hours and 54 minutes. Notably, 79% of this time is dedicated to Linear TV, highlighting its enduring significance. However, the remaining 21% on ad-supported Connected TV signifies a substantial and growing share, underscoring the increasing relevance of CTV in the media landscape.

Further insights from our platform emphasize the nuanced viewing habits of households. Approximately 27% of households are exclusively reachable through ad-supported CTV, indicating a trend of cord-cutters or cord-nevers. On the flip side, 57% of households are reachable by both Linear and Connected TV, illustrating the hybrid nature of many households' TV setups. Notably, CTV proves to be a more efficient avenue for reaching a significant portion of this audience.


Crucially, consumers perceive it all as TV, and this perspective necessitates a holistic approach for marketers. Achieving a comprehensive view of their entire TV campaign becomes imperative, incorporating de-duplicated cross-channel reach and frequency metrics. This approach enables marketers to measure performance across the entire spectrum of TV, ensuring a nuanced understanding of their campaign's impact and efficiency. As we delve into the integration of CTV into the broader marketing strategy, these insights illuminate the evolving dynamics of the TV landscape.

Integration with Overall Marketing Strategy

To harness CTV's full potential, it's imperative to seamlessly integrate it into your broader marketing strategy. As your messaging unfolds across the immersive CTV landscape, aligning with your brand's storytelling ethos, it simultaneously harmonizes with strategies on other owned, earned, and paid channels. This cohesive messaging approach ensures a consistent brand narrative that resonates across channels.

The precision applied to audience targeting in social media campaigns can enhance your approach by refining audience segmentation for CTV. When you use precise targeting on social media to reach specific demographics or interests, you can apply these refined audience segments (when available from 3rd party audience providers) to your CTV targeting strategy. This alignment not only improves audience engagement but also streamlines the execution of marketing initiatives. It ensures that your CTV campaigns are more focused and resonant, reaching the right viewers with greater efficiency.

Moreover, overarching campaign objectives should be a shared beacon guiding each channel, whether it's fostering brand awareness, driving sales, or highlighting a specific product. This comprehensive alignment isn't just about uniformity—it's about crafting a holistic customer journey. Understanding CTV's role in the broader narrative allows strategically placed touchpoints to seamlessly integrate with other channels, crafting an interconnected experience that resonates throughout every customer interaction.

Creative Synergies and Cross-Channel Impact

Unlock the full potential of your creative assets by seamlessly integrating them across channels. Repurpose engaging CTV creatives in other platforms such as social media or display advertising to amplify your message. This not only ensures a consistent brand narrative but also maximizes brand visibility across diverse touchpoints.

Moreover, it's not just a one-way street. Consider leveraging user-generated videos from your influencer channels as valuable raw materials for your CTV creative. This bidirectional approach allows you to tap into the authenticity of user-generated content while maintaining a cohesive brand story.

Integrating CTV with your social media strategy means combining the strengths of both channels to create a more powerful and cohesive brand presence. By aligning your CTV campaigns with your social media efforts, you ensure that the messages and stories you tell on each platform work together harmoniously. This coordination fosters a stronger connection with your audience, making your brand more memorable and impactful. In essence, it's about using the unique advantages of CTV and social media in tandem to provide viewers with a complete and unified brand experience.

But it doesn't stop there. CTV creative isn't confined to the TV screen; it can be a catalyst for actions on other devices. Drive viewers to your website or a landing page specific to a TV promotion, building retargeting pools for other channels. Incorporating QR codes in CTV creatives further minimizes friction across devices, creating a seamless user journey and amplifying cross-channel impact.

Attribution and Media Mix Modeling Across Channels

Understanding the impact of Connected TV (CTV) within your broader marketing mix is crucial for effective attribution and media mix modeling. Attribution in CTV involves assessing how specific touchpoints contribute to the customer's journey and identifying the role CTV plays in driving actions. Media mix modeling, on the other hand, evaluates the overall effectiveness of different channels in influencing audience behavior. In an integrated marketing campaign, various channels work synergistically, contributing touchpoints that collectively persuade the audience to take desired actions.

In the context of CTV attribution, it's essential to embrace multi-touch attribution models. These models go beyond simplistic, single-channel measurements, recognizing that customer journeys are complex and involve interactions with multiple channels. By examining touchpoints across different channels, including CTV, marketers gain a more nuanced understanding of how each contributes to the conversion process. Multi-touch attribution provides insights into the interplay between CTV and other channels, helping marketers identify patterns and refine strategies.

Media mix modeling takes a holistic approach, considering the cumulative impact of touchpoints across diverse channels. Evaluating the combined influence of CTV, display advertising, paid search, and other channels provides a comprehensive view of the marketing ecosystem. Marketers can then make informed decisions about budget distribution and optimize campaigns based on the collective impact of these touchpoints. This integrated approach ensures that CTV attribution is part of a broader strategy, recognizing the interconnected nature of touchpoints in the customer journey and maximizing the impact of every channel in the marketing mix.

Embrace the Versatility of Connected TV in Modern Marketing

Connected TV is a versatile and indispensable tool in modern marketing, seamlessly integrating into your broader strategy. By understanding its complementarity with linear TV, cross-device engagement capabilities, and potential for creative synergies, you can unlock the full potential of CTV. As the marketing landscape evolves, CTV stands as a practical and indispensable asset for brands aiming to connect with their audience across multiple touchpoints.

Ready to make CTV play a shining role in your integrated marketing campaigns? 

Reach out to one of our experts to get started

An integrated omnichannel strategy serves as the foundation for success in the modern marketing world. This guide takes a deep dive into the complexities of crafting an effective Connected TV (CTV) strategy, showcasing its pivotal role within the overarching omnichannel approach. Understanding the essential nature of an omnichannel strategy, tailored to ensure a consistent brand experience across diverse channels, is crucial for engaging today's multifaceted consumer.

Strategic Integration: CTV Marketing Strategy in the Omnichannel Landscape

Traditional linear TV remains a vital channel for broad audience engagement and impactful creatives. However, in the data-driven marketing era, measuring the true impact of these campaigns on crucial metrics is challenging. Marketers struggle to understand how TV ads influence actions like website visits amid a complex marketing landscape with multiple competing channels. The rise of CTV adds further complexity. While Simulmedia offers "

," this blog focuses on challenges unique to traditional linear TV attribution. Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV provide clarity by disentangling the web of advertising influences. This feature empowers marketers to accurately assess the impact of their traditional linear TV campaigns, offering a methodology that separates signal from noise. By making data-driven decisions, Simulmedia's 

 optimize the effectiveness of traditional linear TV campaigns.

What is Incremental Lift Measurement and why it matters

Lift measurement quantifies a marketing campaign's additional impact on desired outcomes. 

 aim to precisely measure added conversions and conversion rates from TV advertising. These studies compare exposed group (TV ad viewers) and a control group (non-viewers) using deterministic attribution for accurate measurement.

Traditional attribution and media mix modeling face challenges assessing TV campaign impact, particularly for linear TV, due to shared limitations:

Inability to Account for External Factors: 

Difficulty distinguishing TV ad impact from concurrent events leads to imprecise measurements.

Over-reliance on Short-term Data Spikes: 

Focusing on short-term spikes neglects long-term impacts, missing valuable insights for effective decisions.

Media mix modeling demands substantial resources, limiting accessibility, especially for smaller businesses.

Built for specific timeframes, media mix models lack adaptability for emerging trends or market shifts.

Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies provide a refreshing alternative to overcoming these challenges. By bypassing traditional attribution methods and resource-intensive media mix modeling, these studies offer a cost-effective, flexible, and precise approach for assessing TV campaign impact in today's complex marketing landscape.

 are synthetic control groups, transforming how marketers gauge their TV campaign impact. This method lets advertisers craft a control group mirroring the test group via advanced statistical techniques and user data—without physically splitting these groups per campaign. This offers an accurate, statistically identical comparison, eliminating costs tied to running PSAs for control group creation, making A/B testing cost-effective.

Choosing a synthetic over a hold-out group stems from linear TV's unique nature, where budget decisions aren't at the individual level. Creating a pre-campaign hold-out plan with similar granularity and control proves challenging. In a landscape valuing accurate measurement, synthetic control groups give marketers a potent tool to confidently attribute observed lift to TV campaigns, minimizing control group expenses. This precise method empowers advertisers, unlocking traditional linear TV campaign potential, and facilitating data-driven decisions with unmatched confidence, optimizing marketing efforts for superior results.

Benefits of Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV

 enhance the effectiveness of TV advertising campaigns in several ways:

Comparing statistically identical test and control groups enables the pinpointing of the true impact of a TV campaign, eliminating external influences for a clear cause-and-effect relationship.

Purpose-built Synthetic Control Group for TV: 

Our methodology ensures the synthetic control group mirrors the test group, considering demographics and viewership behavior, providing precise measurement while minimizing confounding factors.

Merging Linear TV Reach with Digital Attribution: 

Seamlessly combining the expansive reach of linear TV with precise, deterministic digital attribution offers a comprehensive picture of campaign performance, leveraging our viewership panel.

Confident Measurement of Incrementality Across Web Outcomes: 

Incremental Lift Studies facilitate the measurement of a TV campaign's incremental impact on various web outcomes, offering insights into actions such as website visits and app installs.

Identification of Incrementality Parameters: 

Dissecting campaign performance by network, daypart, and creative empowers advertisers to optimize targeting, maximizing the effectiveness of advertising efforts.

Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies provide advertisers with a comprehensive, flexible, and precise approach to measuring the true impact of linear TV campaigns and making data-driven decisions for superior results.

Unlocking the power of Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV

 effectively, grasp the essentials of initiation and result interpretation. Follow this guide for a seamless experience:

Activate the SM Pixel on your website or employ Kochava integration for in-app events.

Share target metrics with your client success manager.

Define your target audience and intended budget; consult your client success manager.

Notify your client success manager about your interest in an Incremental Lift Study.

We create a synthetic control group by simulating a plan on unexposed households, matching them to your network allocation and exclusion list.

Interim results will be accessible in a Tableau dashboard after two days.

Your dedicated Customer Success Manager will share the final report shortly after the attribution window ends.

Results are finalized at the attribution period's end; expect no further dashboard updates.

The dashboard details the linear TV campaign summary, including incremental lift %, incremental conversions, and the cost per incremental conversion. Remember that "conversions" represent the action you chose to track – which could be website visits, app installs, or actual purchases and transactions.

The dashboard provides a side-by-side comparison of the control group attributes versus the test group attributes.

Drill-downs to the network level provide insights on publishers delivering more incremental lift, facilitating plan optimization. Breakdowns are also available per daypart and creative.

With these insights, embark confidently on your journey into Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV, unlocking valuable information for better results.

Unveiling the mechanics: How Incremental Lift Studies work

Curious about the inner workings of Simulmedia's 

? Let's delve into the process that empowers marketers to confidently uncover the true impact of their TV campaigns.

We kick off by setting up the SM Pixel on the client's website or integrating with Kochava for mobile app attribution. After the campaign, we analyze impressions on our viewership panel to assemble the 'exposed' group.

Step 2: Creating the Synthetic Control Group.

With the exposed group in sight, we simulate media plans adhering to the campaign's criteria to craft a synthetic control group—no need to physically split groups per campaign, saving costs.

Step 3: Ensuring Statistical Representativeness.

Demographic data overlays both groups, ensuring shared characteristics. Our post-stratification algorithm guarantees statistical representativeness in geographic location, demographics, and viewership patterns.

Step 4: Running Deterministic Attribution.

We finalize by running deterministic attribution at the Household IP level, using the Simulmedia Pixel or MMP integrations for conversions, precisely measuring the TV campaign's impact.

We compare conversion rates between the test (exposed) group and the synthetic control group, providing a clear view of the incremental lift generated by the TV campaign.

To guarantee the representativeness of both groups, we employ advanced methods:

We create multiple simulated plans to ensure the control group mirrors the viewing habits of the test group. This rigorous process eliminates individuals unlikely to have seen your ad, such as cord cutters or households on your suppression list.

Simulmedia applies sophisticated techniques, including Weighted Attribute Matching, ensuring the control group shares the same demographic and geographic attributes as the test group, leaving no room for discrepancies.

With these meticulous methods, Simulmedia ensures Incremental Lift Studies provide unparalleled precision and statistical representativeness. This rigorous approach empowers advertisers to confidently attribute observed lift to their TV campaigns, setting us apart in the industry. Marketers can optimize their traditional linear TV campaigns with unwavering confidence, leading to superior results

Unlock the future of TV measurement with Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies

 equip you with the tools to unlock your TV campaigns' true impact. Bid farewell to uncertainty and embrace the future of measurement. By leveraging this innovative feature, you can make informed decisions for better results, elevating your marketing efforts. Don't let uncertainty hinder you from harnessing the incredible power of TV advertising. The future of measurement is here, and it's time to embrace it.

Ready to elevate your TV advertising? Reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager or email us at 

 to learn more and get started. Your success in the world of TV advertising awaits.

Traditional linear TV remains a vital channel for broad audience engagement and impactful creatives. However, in the data-driven marketing era, measuring the true impact of these campaigns on crucial metrics is challenging. Marketers struggle to understand how TV ads influence actions like website visits amid a complex marketing landscape with multiple competing channels. The rise of CTV adds further complexity. While Simulmedia offers "Incremental Lift Studies for CTV," this blog focuses on challenges unique to traditional linear TV advertising. Simulmedia's Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV provide clarity by disentangling the web of advertising influences.

Measure the true impact of TV with incremental lift measurement

At Simulmedia we have used the "TV+" trademark (federally registered) for years with our innovative tech for premium CTV ad targeting and activation.

We don't like the confusion here. We especially don't like being confused with less-than-premium inventory and non-transparency. We will vigorously defend our brand and trademarks and, in the spirit and practice of full transparency, are sharing here publicly the letter that we sent to OpenX counsel requesting that the company Cease and Desist from infringing on our TV+ trademark.

Join the Waitlist for Skybeam: Be First to Access Our Self-Service CTV Tool!

Simulmedia's Stand Against Trademark Infringement in the TV Advertising Space