Best Practices for Buying CTV - FouAnalytics "see Fou yourself" | Dr. Augustine Fou

Editor's Note

FouAnalytics is a syndicated column by Dr. Augustine Fou — one of the leading independent voices in ad fraud detection and digital marketing measurement — applying methodological rigor to the programmatic advertising supply chain. This piece shows CTV advertisers what a well-run campaign looks like in the data, what a broken one looks like, and how to fix both before your next budget cycle.

What are some best practices buying CTV. Show me, don't tell me. OK, here's some data to show some great campaigns, and others that can be improved, and how.

Did your CTV ads deliver in the right geo?

In the following example, 99.9% in the header of the data grid means we have data in 99.9% of the impressions. That's good measurability. Of the data that was collected, 97.5% of the impressions went to the U.S. which is great, because this campaign was meant to run in the U.S.

What do you think of the following 2 campaigns? The one on the left was meant to run in France and the one on the right was meant to run in Germany. If there are other countries in the data and it is greater than a few percent, you can negative target the unwanted geolocations to tighten up the campaign.

If you need more detail -- for example for political campaigns, the right country is not enough, it has to be in the right city and state too. See the following example. The GEO_IP gives you a sense of frequency (the number of ads per IP address - household). The GEO_AS tells you the ISP or cable modem service the user has, like Charter, AT&T Enterprise, T-Mobile, etc. The GEO_REGION tells you the state. This campaign was meant to run in Ohio. GEO_POSTAL is the zip code, and LAT LNG are the approximate geolocations (derived from IP addresses, so not as accurate as GPS, but that is what is available).

Did your CTV ads deliver on ConnectedTV?

For gods' sakes check your campaign settings for device type. This was a major whiff, where only a third of the CTV impressions ran on connected TVs. The other impressions were wasted on PCs, Mobile, Tablet, etc. The simply fix is to have your agency check the campaign settings to target only ConnectedTV device type, or actively block other device types that are not CTV. Again, this is why you need independent measurement to check the work, what you are getting. This could well have just been a mistake or oversight on the part of overworked agency trafficking.

Did your CTV ads deliver in CTV apps?

In the following example, you can see a pretty good CTV campaign, where source is measurable in 51% of the impressions (obviously higher measurability is better). The country is U.S. which is where it was meant to run. And the IP addresses give you a sense of frequency per household. For more examples see this article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/checking-frequency-caps-ctv-yes-fouanalytics-dr-augustine-fou-ylb6e/

Here's one more good example, with data from FouAnalytics. Note the DeviceType is ConnectedTV, great, right? As opposed to phone, tablet, laptop, etc. CTV ads should run on connected TVs. Note the CTV app names in the Domain and DSP_URL macros (passed by the DSP). And the ONE supply source.

For contrasting examples of CTV campaigns where large portions of the impressions did NOT go to CTV apps, see the following article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ctv-thats-see-fou-yourself-fouanalytics-dr-augustine-fou-lxsae/ The CTV ads went to crappy websites and mobile apps, even when the advertiser bought direct from a legit seller. (That mainstream TV manufacturer selling CTV ads was doing audience extension without disclosing it) By measuring with FouAnalytics, the advertiser could confirm whether they were getting what they paid for, and reduced their reliance on reports provided by the platform they were buying from.

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Because your CTV campaign might be running on phones, tablets, and fake smart refrigerators — and the platform selling it to you has no incentive to tell you. Every week, FouAnalytics shows advertisers what they actually bought versus what they paid for, with real campaign data, not vendor reports. If you buy media, this is where the independent measurement case gets made before your agency catches the error. If you allocate marketing budgets, this is where CTV fraud, supply path waste, and attribution manipulation get named and priced before your next upfront.