MiQ finds 91% of viewers engage in second screen usage

The prevalence of simultaneous device use means television often drives the initial interest while the second screen captures the final transaction, frequently resulting in the TV budget receiving no credit for the conversion. This asymmetry forces a shift toward ACR market growth and shoppable formats that attempt to link household IP addresses across devices. As platforms like YouTube and Amazon launch remote-controlled checkout to eliminate the 'hop' to a phone, the industry is moving toward a closed-loop ecosystem that prioritizes first-party platform data over traditional external attribution. Watch for the outcome of the Texas lawsuit against Hisense, which could restrict the ACR data collection necessary for these cross-device links.

MiQ's findings on simultaneous device use arrive as major platforms accelerate shoppable CTV formats designed to eliminate the attribution gap entirely. In August 2026, YouTube expanded its shoppable TV ads to allow viewers to complete purchases directly through their remote controls, removing the need to pick up a phone and breaking the second-screen conversion chain that 88% of young fans use. Amazon has taken a similar approach, integrating checkout flows into its Fire TV ad experience so that purchase intent captured on the primary screen converts without a device hop. These moves represent a structural response to the attribution problem: if the transaction happens on the same screen as the ad impression, the platform retains full closed-loop measurement.

The competitive landscape around ACR data and addressable CTV is intensifying as platforms seek to monetize the cross-device behavior MiQ documented. LG Ad Solutions acquired Alphonso in a deal that consolidated one of the largest independent ACR datasets under a single TV manufacturer, giving LG direct access to viewing data from millions of smart TVs for targeting and attribution purposes. Samsung Ads has similarly built its ACR operation into a full-funnel measurement offering, while Nexxen and Hisense have expanded their own data collaborations with advertisers seeking household-level exposure data. The Texas attorney general's lawsuit against Hisense, filed in 2025, alleges that the company's ACR data collection practices violated state consumer protection statutes, a case whose outcome could constrain the data pipelines that performance CTV holiday campaigns depends on for cross-device identity resolution.

On the technical side, the infrastructure supporting second-screen attribution is maturing rapidly. Databricks announced partnerships with multiple CTV platforms to unify fragmented viewer data into single analytics environments, enabling advertisers to join ACR exposure logs with mobile and e-commerce conversion data at scale. TripleLift and KERV.ai have both launched interactive overlay formats that capture engagement signals in real time, feeding them into causal multi-touch attribution models that credit the TV impression even when the final click occurs on a phone. targets cross-channel attribution by 2027, providing a standardized technical layer for triggering second-screen actions from broadcast signals, reducing the fragmentation that has historically made cross-device measurement unreliable. Together, these developments suggest the industry is building the plumbing to close the loop that MiQ's 91% figure exposes.