Match Rate That’s Fooling CTV Buyers

Welcome to a space where every edition delivers insights, strategies, and inspiration to fuel your advertising brilliance. 🤯

👀 Match Rate That’s Fooling CTV Buyers

Identity vendors love talking about match rates.

The number sounds reassuring. A higher percentage suggests broader reach, stronger targeting and better identity resolution. It’s also the number that’s easiest to optimize for, even when it says very little about whether those matches remain accurate once a campaign is actually running.

Recent research highlights the gap. Adstra and InterMedia found that only 23% of residential IP addresses reached their intended geographic target in CTV campaigns. 

Device-level CTV IDs performed much better, remaining consistently linked to the same person 71% of the time compared with 57% for IP-based matching. Separate research from Truthset estimated that nearly 40% of open auction CTV spend is wasted because of inaccurate identity data.

The headline numbers matter. The incentive behind them matters even more.

The market rewards scale faster than accuracy

Adstra’s Chief Data Officer pointed to the underlying problem directly.

Identity vendors are often evaluated on match rate and scale, not on whether those matches remain accurate over time.

That creates an obvious incentive.

A larger headline number wins attention, even if the underlying identity graph is less reliable than a smaller, more transparent one.

The result is a market where buyers compare numbers that aren’t measuring the same thing.

Replace one question with five

Instead of asking only for match rate, ask vendors to explain how that number is built.

Those answers reveal far more about targeting quality than a single percentage ever will.

Then ask the question most buyers skip

A high match rate on day one isn’t the same as a high match rate thirty days later.

That’s where many identity graphs begin to drift.

Ask vendors to show consistency over time, not simply the initial match. The difference between those two numbers is often more revealing than the headline statistic itself.

That’s also why transparency matters throughout the measurement process. Tatari is built around showing exactly where every advertising dollar ran and what it produced, giving buyers visibility into campaign performance instead of asking them to trust a single headline metric. You can see the same measurement approach for your next campaign.

The strongest identity partner isn’t necessarily the one reporting the biggest match rate. It’s the one willing to explain what that number actually means.

Together with Omnisend

Run This Prompt Before Your Next Campaign

You already have the numbers. The hard part is knowing which problem deserves attention before another campaign goes out. That uncertainty sends marketers digging through dashboards while fixable revenue leaks stay live.

Connect Omnisend to ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to inspect your live account. In under 30 seconds, it can show you what is underperforming and help you act from the same chat.

• Get a 100-point account score with improvements ranked by impact.
• See which automations are losing revenue and where to start.
• Build a re-engagement campaign around buyers most likely to return.

Built from feedback across 150,000+ brands, Carmen Theron of V8 Media says it uncovered a behavior-based segment she had never considered. EcommerceBoost.io founder JP Charles believes the workflow can make every email strategist a “10x strategist.”

Know exactly what to fix before your next campaign goes live.

Connect your AI and run your first prompt today

⚡ Dashboard metrics can hide email performance problems

This framework argues that headline revenue attribution can create a false sense of confidence. A healthy-looking dashboard may mask issues like inflated attribution, weak automations, poor segmentation, and declining engagement that quietly reduce long-term email performance.

Why it works: Auditing attribution settings, flow performance, segmentation, and deliverability provides a more accurate picture of email's real contribution. Looking beyond top-line revenue helps uncover opportunities to improve customer experience and long-term profitability.

Where it needs balance: Attribution windows aren't inherently wrong—they're designed for different measurement goals. A shorter window may better reflect direct impact, while longer windows capture more assisted conversions. The most effective email programs evaluate attribution alongside engagement, incremental revenue, and customer lifecycle metrics rather than relying on a single dashboard number.

🎥 Reel of the Day

What Works:

The Product Becomes The Reward, Not The Reason - The reel never says, "Drink Swoon because it's healthy." Instead, it frames the drink as the emotional payoff after finishing a workout. The product is positioned as the celebration at the end of effort.

They're Selling A Community, Not A Beverage - Almost every shot includes groups of people, workout classes, waterfront views, shared coolers, sampling stations, and conversations. The drink becomes the social glue connecting strangers after exercising. 

Real Experiences Replace Traditional Advertising - Nothing feels scripted. People grab cans from coolers, sample flavors, laugh, chat, and immediately take a sip. Those unscripted micro-reactions work as social proof because viewers instinctively trust authentic behavior over polished testimonials.

Swoon isn't trying to convince people that its drink tastes good. It's trying to own the post-workout reward moment. If every time someone finishes exercising they subconsciously think, "I need something cold and refreshing," and Swoon is the first brand that comes to mind, they've won something far more valuable than a single sale.

Advertise with Us

Wanna put out your message in front of over 40,000 best marketers and decision makers?

Here's our Partner Kit here🤝

Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰