Now that streaming has surpassed linear TV in total viewership and is poised to take the lead in ad spend by 2028, it’s time to look at it as more than just another channel in a video marketing strategy. It’s now, quite simply, the channel. Streaming audiences around the world continue to grow in both size and dedication, and the opportunity to reach them has never been more appealing. But as appeal rises, so do buyer expectations that an investment in streaming TV’s premium ad placements will be rewarded with high-quality performance backed by transparent and reliable data. While this is an area where streaming TV has struggled to meet the rest of the industry, one particular solution may help it get back on track: data clean rooms.
The transparency problem
Data transparency is hardly an unreasonable request these days. Most media buyers have come to rely on table stakes quality metrics like viewability, brand suitability, and fraud rate to verify performance and justify spend. While digital publishers and supply and demand-side platforms can offer visibility down to a line-item level, streaming TV providers are hard-pressed to deliver in a similar way.
Granularity in the streaming space comes in two main forms: app-level and program or content-level. App-level offers context on the app where an ad was served, while content-level refers to the specific content being consumed. This includes user-agnostic information like genre, episode, and maturity rating; all of which are highly relevant to driving an advertiser’s quality KPIs.
Media buyers often lack this information, leading to mixed results. DV’s own measurement data shows that out of every 100 CTV ads measured, only 66 were served in a streaming TV environment rather than a CTV, gaming, music, DOOH, or utility app. That level of discrepancy could cost billions in misplaced spend. While that’s a significant problem, finding a solution has proven difficult due to a number of constraints streaming providers face.
1. Reinterpreted legislation
One of the snags for streaming platforms is older laws like the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). Created in 1988, the VPPA was originally intended to prevent videotape providers from disclosing their customers’ viewership history without their informed written consent. But the law was reapplied in the 2010s in several lawsuits against streaming providers for sharing viewer data with third parties for measurement purposes. While those lawsuits have been inconsistent in establishing clear privacy lanes for the streaming TV industry, the VPPA as a whole remains an obstacle to providers when collaborating with their partners and independent vendors on data.
2. Lack of standardization
Another hurdle is the absence of uniform measurement and delivery standards across devices, apps, and media. Many platforms approach data processes independently, creating an ecosystem of islands that make it difficult for advertisers to define what constitutes a quality impression. However, this area has seen progress in recent years.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) created the Advanced TV Initiative, which aims to establish a common process, not only for how streaming TV approaches measurement and attribution, but also for linear TV outlets. Other organizations like the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and GoAddressable are also advancing this cause on a number of fronts, from developing new universal watermarking standards to producing reports and best practices that improve how buyers navigate the space.
3. Inventory terms & data restrictions
As a condition of distribution, smart TV operators typically require streaming apps to surrender a share of their inventory in exchange for platform placement. But while platforms receive that inventory, streaming apps — particularly those carrying premium content — routinely restrict what program-level information can flow downstream to buyers. The result is an inventory pool that is technically measurable but contextually blind because advertisers know an ad was served, but not what it ran against.
Where data clean rooms fit in
Data clean rooms are already widely deployed for audience and outcomes measurement, planning and activation. But they can also offer practical solutions to multiple problems in the streaming space. They allow streaming providers to give their partners the data they need to verify performance and establish transparency in a way that removes potentially sensitive audience information from the equation. This allows streaming providers to live up to their promises to their audiences and partners; all while strengthening relationships and maintaining compliance with state and national regulations.
Data clean rooms function as self-contained digital lockboxes. Platforms and advertisers feed their data into the system, which then independently analyzes and matches both datasets against each other. Then, the joined data is compiled into anonymized reports and distributed for measurement purposes. Both sides get what they need to continue doing business in a way that aligns with privacy considerations. But while they seem like an ideal solution in theory, the execution has taken some practice.
For many early adopters, clean room solutions were often built in-house. In addition to being expensive to build and maintain, they were tailored to the specifications of individual suppliers. This compounded the data island problem and made fragmentation worse. But since third-party alternatives have entered the marketplace, streaming TV providers have gained access to clean room solutions that can directly address their transparency problem, along with the means to ground their efforts in impartial and fully standardized measurement capabilities.
Despite its historic growth, it’s clear that streaming TV’s best days are still to come. But it’s also clear that more work is needed for providers and advertisers to fully capitalize on that growth and build longer, stronger partnerships together. Independent data clean rooms enable that while allowing both sides to collaborate and contribute data in an effective and privacy-friendly way. As streaming nears the pinnacle of the video industry, that’s certainly an outcome worth working towards.
About the author
Todd Randak is DoubleVerify’s GM of CTV. He leads DoubleVerify’s streaming TV initiatives, including DV’s Certified Transparent Streaming program and the company’s adoption of Open Measurement (OM SDK) for CTV. His insight has been featured in Forbes, and he is a regular speaker at industry events including CES and IAB NewFronts.