Performance connected TV investment to capture 54% of holiday marketers

The shift toward performance-based metrics signals that CTV is no longer viewed strictly as an upper-funnel awareness tool but as a measurable driver of site visits and conversions. As consumers move away from concentrated shopping weekends toward a multi-session journey, streaming platforms must provide more granular attribution to compete with search and social budgets. This transition forces a tighter integration between creative optimization and real-time audience signals to capture early-season consideration. Watch for whether the adoption of AI agents successfully automates complex holiday campaign optimizations across fragmented streaming environments.

tvScientific has been aggressively positioning itself as a performance-focused CTV platform that removes risk for advertisers. The company unveiled a cost-per-outcome model that charges advertisers only when campaigns achieve their intended goals, such as cost per acquisition, app installs, or site visits. CEO Jason Fairchild described the move as a way to make CTV feel less risky for digital marketers accustomed to lower-funnel channels. To scale that approach, tvScientific integrated directly into affiliate marketing platforms including Awin, Impact, Rakuten, and CJ Affiliate, giving it access to thousands of performance-based advertisers without requiring them to adopt a new system. Advertisers including Crocs, Groupon, LifeLock, and Experian have expressed interest in adding performance-based reporting to their CTV buys through the platform.

The competitive landscape for performance CTV is intensifying as multiple players vie for holiday budgets. Innovid launched a supply-path optimization product called Harmony Direct that gives media buyers a direct connection to publisher ad servers for programmatic guaranteed and PMP deals, bypassing DSP fees entirely. CEO Zvika Netter emphasized that most CTV ad buys still happen directly because buyers want transparency into where ads run and how they perform. Meanwhile, ad tech providers are working to reverse-engineer show-level reporting using publisher-provided anonymized content IDs, matching that data to conversion logs so advertisers can break down cost per acquisition by individual program. This level of granularity is what performance CTV platforms like tvScientific need to justify holiday budget shifts away from search and social.

Measurement credibility remains a critical differentiator for performance CTV platforms seeking to capture incremental advertiser spend. The 2023 TV measurement shakeout saw the JIC certification process distinguish future measurement and currency providers, with the body requiring certified currencies to at least pursue an MRC audit. tvScientific's approach of linking ad exposures to real-world actions through mobile measurement partners including AppsFlyer, Adjust, and Kochava reflects the industry's broader push toward closed-loop attribution. However, critics have raised concerns about the viability of email-based alternative IDs in CTV after The Trade Desk failed to detect improperly encrypted UID2 tokens from a publisher for three months, raising questions about how deep current validation checks go across the alt ID market. For tvScientific and Pinterest, demonstrating reliable attribution without depending on fragile identity infrastructure will be essential to converting the 54% of marketers planning holiday CTV investment into sustained budget commitments.