Addressable TV advertising 2025: From add-on to must-have

For several years now, advertisers have welcomed addressable TV advertising as an important, but secondary, component of their multiscreen TV campaigns. Typically regarded as a complement to base traditional TV campaigns, addressable advertising was a way for advertisers to extend audience reach once a TV or streaming campaign had maxed out. But as we kick off 2025, addressable advertising is growing—it is no longer an afterthought. A survey by Go Addressable recently found that nearly two-thirds of advertisers plan to start using addressable in 2025, and nearly nine out of 10 are satisfied with addressable offerings today. Today, addressable TV advertising is more than an add-on. Research shows that privacy-focused addressable advertising is the most efficient and cost-effective way to reach audiences on multiscreen TV at scale, and it has the ability to drive actionable and measurable results from awareness to action, firmly making TV a full-funnel, top-to-bottom performance engine. Here’s why an addressable-first approach should be a brand’s first choice: Addressable is a full-funnel, budget-efficient performance vehicle Some advertisers are hesitant to think addressable first because they fear it will be cost prohibitive, but addressable’s incredible efficiency makes its effective CPM (eCPM) its greatest selling point. While traditionally low-funnel performance vehicles have cheaper CPMs than addressable, when you look below the surface price tag, all that glitters isn't gold. Ongoing concerns about brand safety, lack of proper transparency and over-crediting of value delivered mean that the effective CPM is many times higher than addressable. While those vehicles still have a place in the overall marketing mix, especially for lower funnel goals, addressable provides an alternative that is reliable, high-quality, transparent and most importantly delivers marketing effectiveness. By leading with addressable, advertisers can ensure their ads are seen by their target audience, driving better outcomes throughout the entire marketing funnel, in the most efficient way. Starting with addressable means allocating campaign dollars first to the more accurate and intentional, all while driving incremental reach and avoiding wasted impressions. In fact, research from the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) showed that when traditional TV reach begins to plateau, addressable is 20-30% more efficient in adding incremental reach than traditional TV. Starting with addressable means using dollars and inventory to the best of their ability. IP addresses and hashed emails can be unreliable The bulk of non-addressable targeting on streaming (as well as digital) advertising relies on probabilistic methods such as hashed email and IP addresses for basic identity matching. Relying on these IDs often leads to wasted impressions and ad dollars. When an advertiser relies on an email address to link an ad exposure to an intended household, they typically end up with low accuracy rates. This is because emails are often incorrectly linked to households, or a person has multiple email addresses. A recent study by Truthset found that email-to-household match can be as low as 32%. Like hashed emails, IP addresses assigned to households by various vendors are error-prone and transient, moving from household to household. In fact, a recent study from Go Addressable revealed that, when relying on IP addresses, about 76% of CTV households were either unmatchable to targeting data or their IP addresses turned over, leaving only 24% of those initial households still accessible for campaign activation or measurement. These problems ultimately impact the effectiveness of the campaign and can lead to inaccurate measurement (like reach or frequency) of the delivery. Addressable is more accurate Addressable advertising doesn’t rely on probabilistic signals like IP addresses or hashed emails. Instead, it enables the buyer to verify that their first-party audience, grounded with a physical address, matches to an inventory owner's subscriber data, which is also inclusive of a physical address and/or email. The result is a near-perfect union of an on-target audience with authenticated premium inventory. This combination delivers minimal wasted impressions and an increase in performance as well as a solid understanding of who was reached and how they engaged. And the scale is there. Addressable is easily available to advertisers across 50 million unique households on both traditional and streaming TV within the Go Addressable membership footprint. This is one of the largest footprints of homes that can be targeted in TV advertising. Thinking “addressable-first” maximizes campaign effectiveness Addressable TV advertising is the only method that offers advertisers confidence they are precisely reaching their intended audience. Additionally, addressable advertising ensures consumer privacy choice is upheld and opt-outs are properly maintained. There are so many ways for brands to enhance their TV budgets to drive scale and performance among their most desired audiences, but only addressable TV advertising provides an opportunity for advertisers to combat the inefficiencies of traditional targeting in streaming and deliver the most efficient TV campaigns across both traditional and streaming. When companies go addressable first, their media dollars go further. Go Addressable is a trade organization led by TV distribution companies to help maximize the scale, impact and value of TV as a marketing platform. Our mission is to further accelerate the advancement of addressable TV advertising in a way that is trusted, scalable and more effective for advertisers to incorporate into their advertising campaigns and for programmers looking to make their inventory addressable. Go Addressable will achieve this through advocacy and education within the industry; problem-solving around industry challenges; and working to facilitate addressable advertising campaigns for buyers and sellers of TV inventory. Visit goaddressable.com.

Addressable TV advertising 2025: From add-on to must-have

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