At A Glance
As CTV viewership grows, marketers face challenges in targeting and measurement across fragmented platforms. Identity resolution and audience strategies, supported by Experian’s syndicated audiences and privacy-safe solutions, help DSPs and advertisers reach high-value audiences, improve campaign accuracy, and drive measurable outcomes.In our Ask the Expert Series, we interview leaders from our partner organizations who are helping lead their brands to new heights in AdTech. Today’s interview is with George Castrissiades, General Manager of Connected TV at AdRoll.
Premium reach and fragmentation
As viewer attention fragments across platforms, how should marketers redefine “premium reach” in CTV to prioritize engagement and audience quality over scale alone?
A few years ago, ad supported streaming over-indexed on younger adults, those without much financial history and much more budget conscious. It would have been fair for B2B brands to assume that maybe they weren’t going to find their C-Suite audiences on those channels, and so connected TV(CTV) was positioned as a top of funnel tactic aimed at retail. But that’s all changed – ad-free prices are going up, and ad supported tiers are the norm across the majority of channels. 66% of adults have at least one ad supported streaming channel, and adults today spend nearly as much time streaming movies and TV as they spend on their mobile phones. Now that ad viewing audiences on CTV really span the full spectrum of demo, techno, and firmographic segments, savvy marketers should partner with platforms that offer breadth and depth of targeting and measurement to find the highest value audiences wherever they’re watching CTV and serve them highly relevant ads that draw their attention towards the screen. I know I’m jumping out of my seat whenever I see an AdTech or MarTech ad.
Identity and relevance
What does a strong identity framework unlock for delivering household- and person-level relevance across screens, and how does it reshape audience planning?
In privacy-safe ecosystems, people want to share less data and log in to websites and browsers less frequently. If you can’t resolve a household ID to a CTV device through Safari and other sources of obfuscated identity, you’re going to end up losing a lot of signal along the way. On top of that, targeting smaller, higher-value audiences means this attrition can have a profound impact on your ability to build meaningful reach and use audience forecasts to predict scale. A strong identity framework is the key to maintaining as much of your planned audience as possible and staying true to initial forecasts.
AI and outcome planning
How is AI evolving CTV from tactical bidding to strategic outcome planning, and what mechanisms are in place to validate true performance lift?
Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, especially not in advertising. Audiences change where and when they consume media, and so shifting budget to a placement that did well yesterday is like buying a stock when it’s outperforming – the gains might be gone by then! Predictive AI is bridging the gap to find the highest value and most engaged audiences in real time, versus being purely reactive. This helps drive outcomes which we see in the form of pipeline influence, ROAS, and site traffic lift – without exponentially increasing costs. The same is true for account-based marketing(ABM) outcomes – there’s a blend of signals, account “fit” and intent data that needs to be evaluated in a deeper, more intelligent way. AI is helping to find those highest value accounts, even before they’re in market, which means smart marketers aren’t showing up late to the party.
Measurement and incrementality
What privacy-safe, closed-loop measurement frameworks should become standard to prove incremental visits and sales from CTV campaigns?
Working with a dedicated multichannel, full-funnel ad and marketing platform like AdRoll can easily let you know when a user arrives at your site and makes a purchase, but understanding how that customer arrived there and which tactics deserve the credit requires a deeper, more sophisticated workflow. Our partnership with Experian allows all devices in a household to ladder back up to a household ID, so we can ensure accuracy without pivoting on anything personally identifiable. This works perfectly in CTV, an environment that follows an app workflow of user resettable device IDs rather than IP address or email but always connects seamlessly to web tokens including cookies. Accuracy, scale, and privacy are maintained in a proven way – you see this tech underpinning the infrastructure of streaming across all the biggest players, so marketers can rest easy.
Creative and commerce
How can creative sequencing and shoppable TV experiences convert living-room attention into commerce without compromising user experience or feeling intrusive?
I like to say that CTV trades attention for action. Users lean back and focus on the messaging and visuals of the big screen rather than scrambling for the mouse or tapping to close some intrusive pop-up. This focus means that the messaging is absorbed more quickly, but creatives can wear out their welcome just as fast. Sequential messaging really helps to move the messaging along without subjecting the viewer to longer ads where attention wanes, but also increases brand recall and specific product information because the story evolves with each impression. This is a great tactic to use when you want a viewer to take a specific action later – but shoppable ads can help motivate a user to act now, and new formats can really simplify things. Shoppable can feel out of range for most – the top players in this space own major e-comm storefronts and then tie them back into their own demand-side platforms (DSPs), content, and streaming devices. For the rest of us, dipping our toes in slowly through simple and cheap solutions like QR codes can connect audiences right to a web experience from their TVs, or intermediate solutions like interactive video ads. Users love to play around with fun on-screen experiences, and there’s a whole spectrum of crawl/walk/run options available.
Trust and governance
Which shared guardrails—brand safety, fraud control, and frequency management- are essential to unlocking sustainable, scaled investment in CTV?
I’ve always thought of CTV inventory analogously to high-end watches – if you buy from the source or a well-known, reputable dealer, you’re probably buying the real thing. But that fancy timepiece the guy was selling outside the bar, that you swore looked real? Probably not. Untrusted resellers and too-good-to-be-true pricing might mean you’re running ads on a screen at a lonely gas station at 3 am to an audience of no one, and that’s not even the worst case scenario. Good relationships and deep pockets can solve brand safety and fraud issues, but not every advertiser is going to have those resources. Brand safety and fraud prevention can reduce workload and help distinguish the good stuff from the growing pool of gray area, arguably, CTV inventory that isn’t what was promised to a customer. Outsourcing this trust also goes a long way, with buyers knowing you’re not grading your own homework. Frequency management is equally as important. Once you have your audience and your good supply, it’s important not to abuse a single household just because they meet your targeting criteria. Reach is your best friend with CTV.
Data and audience strategy
How do Experian’s syndicated audiences provide a consistent, scalable foundation for planning, activation, and measurement across CTV and digital, and what outcomes are clients seeing?
We love to talk about how Experian’s data is such an integral part of so much of streaming’s architecture, and the fact that it’s built on deterministic datasets means you’re getting scaled audiences built on knowledge rather than best guesses. That means a lot when working across multiple channels, privacy-safe environments, and households with an ever-growing number of connected devices. Our customers are always delighted at how precise targeting can be, especially in the B2B/B2C space – and knowing the size of those audiences helps them to understand how budget transforms into reach in a more predictable way. It’s confidence-inspiring to point to a new audience and tell your client that these are their future customers. The best part is showing them the outcomes reporting – we consistently see a massive spike in site traffic and engagement on days when a new Experian syndicated audience is launched!
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FAQs
Identity resolution ensures marketers can connect devices and maintain audience accuracy. Experian’s identity solutions help reduce data loss and improve audience forecasts, making campaigns more effective.
With viewer attention spread across platforms, marketers need tools that offer both broad and detailed targeting. Experian’s syndicated audiences provide reliable, scalable data to help identify and reach high-value audiences across channels.
Techniques like sequential messaging and shoppable ads keep viewers engaged and encourage action. Simple tools like QR codes or interactive video ads can connect audiences to web experiences directly from their TVs.
Strong identity frameworks help DSPs maintain accurate targeting and audience reach, even in privacy-focused environments. By connecting devices to household IDs, solutions like Experian’s Digital Graph ensure DSPs can deliver relevant ads and measure performance effectively across channels.
About our expert
George Castrissiades, General Manager of Connected TV, AdRoll
George leads the CTV go-to-market strategy at NextRoll, driving rapid growth and adoption of the channel for both B2B and B2C customers. With a track record of building and scaling CTV solutions, he is focused on developing a strategic playbook that accelerates success in the evolving digital advertising landscape.
Before joining NextRoll, George spearheaded CTV product innovation at iSpot.tv and held leadership roles in product and operations at YouTube, VICE Media, Crackle, Roku, and Innovid. His expertise spans product development, monetization, and market expansion.
About AdRoll
AdRoll is a connected advertising platform built for growth-minded marketers. With powerful AI, flexible campaign tools, and seamless integrations, AdRoll helps mid-sized businesses turn complexity into clarity and clicks into customers. The AdRoll platform delivers full-funnel performance through multi-channel advertising, audience insights, and cross-channel attribution, supporting marketers across industries including ecommerce, technology, financial services, education, and more. For B2B teams, AdRoll ABM extends these capabilities with account-based precision, multi-touch campaigns, and real-time buyer intelligence. Backed by nearly 20 years of data and award-winning support, AdRoll enables marketing teams to advertise smarter, move faster, and achieve more, all from one place.
Latest posts
Email hashing was originally intended to be used as an email security feature that has ended up being a very powerful marketing tool. A hashed email is a cryptographic function that changes an email address to a random code which can be used as an anonymous customer identifier. This code is privacy-safe and cannot be traced back to the customer’s email address. However, this hashed email can function like a digital passport that traces every behavior and action a customer takes when logged into an account that is authenticated with an email, making hashed emails a goldmine for customer data. Today emails are used across traditional publishers and within the CTV ecosystem; tying them to more consumer touch points than ever before. Why the emphasis now? Cookies are on their way out the door and have been the primary way that many marketers have tracked their existing and potential customers. In order to replace this granular level of data, marketers are likely going to need multiple solutions. With so many cookieless solutions and IDs appearing in the marketplace, the mapping of the customer journey is bound to be fragmented. Relying on first-party data, such as hashed email, is just one way to reduce that fragmentation; as it can serve as an authenticated starting point for cross-device identity resolution that can be leveraged for targeting, personalization and measurement. How can Tapad + Experian help? Tapad + Experian's Hashed Email Onboarding is a privacy-safe way to connect consumer email addresses to their related digital devices and other digital identifiers through high precision probabilistic identity. By onboarding hashed emails and incorporating them within your Tapad Graph file you can: Build a more holistic view of individuals and households and their relationship to email addresses in your first-party data set Leverage these relationships for increased cross-device scale for targeting Employ personalization tactics at the household or individual level across devices Create new audience segments and look-alike models for cross-channel activation Design more inclusive measurement and attribution for customer journey mapping Tapad, a part of Experian has built a hashed email onboarding product feature that works with the existing flexibility of The Tapad Graph to deliver the most holistic consumer view, combined with the attributes you need, in the structure that works best for your business objectives. Get in touch
The result of epic shifts from traditional cable to streaming television, the CTV ecosystem is experiencing compounded fragmentation, making it challenging for marketers to leverage in the most effective way for both activation and measurement. Heralded as the hot new household level device for highly engaged viewers, CTV brings massive opportunities for brands to move users down the funnel and incorporate CTV into their attribution modeling post-campaign. Leveraging CTV IDs within a cross-device identity resolution strategy can yield big benefits if you know how to do it right. Check out our breakdown of today’s CTV landscape to help you better understand how and what you can leverage for activation and measurement in the streaming-verse today. CTV Ecosystems as identifiers (for illustrative purposes only) This is just a small peak at the players and complexities of CTV IDs available for marketers today, but it illustrates the need to understand what IDs can benefit your strategies and where you can use them. Addressability and attribution Not all CTV devices and IDs are addressable; or have ad slots for biddable inventory for advertisers. For example, Apple TV devices and Apple TV + are not ad supported, but could still appear within an identity graph for measurement purposes; helping understand customer behavior and habits, which can inform marketing strategies. Having a household to individual view that's as inclusive as possible can provide valuable insights. CTV identity strategy Whether or not CTV devices or apps are addressable for advertisers, they can bring immense value when leveraged as part of a holistic identity resolution strategy. As a household level device with user authentication it can provide marketers a top-down view; unlocking household:individual targeting opportunities and unification of IDs at both levels for frequency management and customer journey mapping Get started with us Tapad, part of Experian, offers CTV ID onboarding and extension to our CTV ID Universe as a part of The Tapad Graph suite of products.
Third-party data has become the cornerstone to improve marketing effectiveness across all types of online and offline media. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing faces a challenge when utilizing this data, as sales are often made through distributors such as grocery stores or mass merchandisers rather than directly to consumers. Without customer data files that can be enriched for insight, CPG companies often base marketing decisions on custom market positioning studies, surveys and generic consumer personas. These solutions can be quite expensive and prove difficult to develop a targeted marketing program. Optimize your CPG marketing strategy We have a team of experts that leverage the wealth of our database of thousands of attributes covering more than 300 million U.S. consumers and 130 million U.S. households—to identify the demographics and attitudes of a CPG target consumer using syndicated, mobile location, social media, and online behavioral data. We help connect various data points to provide CPG marketers with the ability to identify likely consumers, generate actionable marketing insight, and enable targeted advertising to these consumers that increases brand awareness and drives purchase behavior. Identifying likely consumers for consumer packaged goods To gain marketing insight about your customers, you need to identify consumers who are actively engaged with your brand, and compare them against non-engaged consumers, or consumers engaged with rival brands. Experian uses syndicated and digital actions data to identify these consumers and understand their characteristics. With digital actions data, we leverage search terms and landing pages relevant to your brand. We use our linking capabilities to identify the perfect target audience for your marketing initiatives. For example, we leveraged syndicated data that showed consumer preference for frozen meals based on household characteristics. This enabled our client to better understand the market size and attributes of its active consumers. Actionable CPG marketing insight Once marketers identify who their optimal target consumer is, they can begin to understand their ideal audience and compare it to consumers of competitive brands. This helps identify key demographics and psychographics that over-index to users of the brands compared to the population. As a result, you can gain a much better understanding of the demographics, life stage and lifestyle of your target consumer. We also help you to better inform your marketing communication and media and distribution strategies by identifying the channels your ideal audience is most likely to be found. Getting back to our example, consumers of frozen foods were found more likely to be females between the ages of 35-54 with busy families. They had multiple children in the home and participated in family activities, like zoos and fast-food dining. We were then able to identify the digital channels they were more actively engaged with and determine factors that influence their decision-making, such as product quality or consumer testimonials. By gaining insight into your target audience, you can create digital communication focused on specifics, like an active family looking for a quality meal. Turning insights into action by enabling targeted advertising With a better understanding of your target consumer, and the insight needed to catch their attention, you can unify your ideal target audience and serve advertising that builds brand awareness and increases conversion. Our Custom Analytics team uses advanced analytical techniques to create custom consumer personas. Our database of 130 million U.S. households is scored with a proprietary algorithm created specifically for your organization and creates audiences that are pushed to the preferred marketing channel of your target consumers. Leveraging our ConsumerView database, we can easily enable direct communication to your targeted consumers (such as our example that identified consumers of frozen food and their preferred channels) through direct mail, email, digital display, social media and mobile channels. We work directly with agencies to deploy an audience to a destination and can manage a campaign for our CPG clients. We can even help you determine campaign success by measuring campaign performance versus a relevant control, and profiles converters to help you see gains made in brand awareness to target consumers. These services give you the ability to test an advertisement directly to targeted consumers, measure the effectiveness of the advertisement, then plow back the learnings into future campaigns, enabling greater consumer brand awareness and conversion while managing marketing effectiveness. Experian is here to help We have worked extensively with a variety of CPG companies to improve marketing effectiveness and drive brand awareness. We can help your organization take your marketing campaigns to the next level. Our data assets and advanced analytics generate actionable insights that enable you to identify and communicate with consumers more effectively. For more information about how we can help your organization gain valuable insights to identify your ideal customers and the best channels to reach them, contact us. Get in touch