The news: Connected TV (CTV) ad budgets are climbing, with 50% of senior brand and agency marketers reporting YoY increases, yet accountability trails behind investment, per a Jamloop survey. 

• 62% of marketers express skepticism toward reported performance and worry about fraud or misrepresented inventory. Just one-third fully trust CTV performance claims from platforms. 
• Less than half (39%) feel confident defending their CTV spend to senior leadership based on current measurement and attribution.

Why it’s worth watching: 70% of marketers say they would increase CTV investment if measurement, attribution, and proof of business outcomes improved. 

“The industry has already proven that advertisers want CTV,” said Jeff Fagel, CMO at Jamloop, per Advanced Television. “What buyers are asking now is a tougher question: What business outcomes does CTV actually drive?”

Thirty-five percent of marketers define CTV performance as qualified leads, 30% point to online sales and revenues, 30% emphasize revenues or sales lift, and 24% focus on store visits, appointments, or calls. 

Implications for brands: With 63% of respondents seeing diminishing returns from lower-funnel channels including paid search and paid social, there’s an opportunity for CTV to claim a larger performance role. However, without a unified success metric, comparing campaigns and building internal confidence could remain challenging.

Brands can treat CTV as a performance channel, but seek outcome-level proof, not just media metrics. Insist on attribution that ties to online sales, offline revenues, or leads. Pilot CTV against social and search benchmarks using identical conversion windows. 

Use third-party verification for fraud and viewability, and require platform partners to supply case studies with audited business results.

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