European CTV Drives Results Without Relying On Individual Viewer Identification

Connected TV was supposed to bring digital-style targeting to the living room screen. In the United States, a shared language, relatively uniform regulation, and a growing base of cord-cutters help make that case. FAST channels and ad-supported streaming scale quickly when the structural conditions are right. Europe lacks those conditions. Differing languages, varied economies, and strict privacy frameworks like GDPR shape how data flows and where it stops. Standard digital playbooks rarely translate, and advertisers who try quickly find themselves rethinking targeting, measurement, and creative from the ground up.

Sabela Ruy-Díaz Lema is the Founder and CEO of Wave Connect, a consultancy focused on CTV and ad-tech strategy in Europe. She has spent nearly 20 years in the sector, from early digital TV roles at Mediaset España to CTV leadership positions at Rakuten TV and ShowHeroes Group. That cross-format experience shapes a pragmatic view: true one-to-one targeting on CTV remains aspirational in Europe, and contextual tools, AI-driven optimization, and retail media partnerships offer more realistic paths to performance. "The promise with CTV was that it combines both worlds, digital and television. The potential is there, but we are not at the point of structuring it because the sources are not communicating with each other," she says. 

• The 3.5 person problem: "Connected TV is a shared experience. It's good because we can have a lot of data, but at the same time, an average of 3.5 people are in front of the television in Europe every time a program is on. It makes it very difficult to gather one-to-one data," Ruy-Díaz Lema says. Advertisers accustomed to individual-level targeting on mobile or desktop arrive at CTV expecting the same precision, but the device works differently. A household may share a single login, a single remote, and a single screen. The data that comes back reflects the couch, not the person sitting on it. Until viewers have a reason to authenticate individually, and most do not, the model remains more aspiration than infrastructure.

• Data-rich, connection-poor: Even the data that does exist sits with players who have little incentive to share it. "We have different sources of data. The operating systems and manufacturers have good data. Then the FAST channels have their own data, and the walled gardens. But the connection between all this data is not a standard in the market. They are not communicating with each other," she says. Device manufacturers hold one layer of behavioral data. Platform operators hold another. Content owners sit on a third. Each has a partial view of the viewer, but no single player has the full picture, and there is no shared protocol for stitching those views together. In the US, scale and consolidation have papered over some of these gaps. In Europe, where regulation is stricter, and the market spans dozens of languages and legal frameworks, the walls are higher and the cost of interoperability steeper.

Without reliable individual-level tracking, European advertisers are recalibrating around what CTV can actually prove. Attention is replacing impressions as the metric that matters most, with eye-tracking partnerships and pre-bid attention signals now giving buyers a way to distinguish between an ad that played and one that actually registered. At the same time, incremental reach has become the primary currency for justifying CTV spend, proving the medium finds audiences that linear television simply cannot. Rather than chasing perfect audience resolution, many buyers are leaning into CTV's built-in strengths: near-guaranteed viewability, high completion rates, and a lean-back environment where attention consistently outperforms mobile and desktop.

• Eyes on the prize: "Refined quote to preserve authentic voice and clarity. "There is a major trend around measuring incremental reach, reaching people that traditional media or linear television cannot. Viewability on CTV is mostly guaranteed. And attention is rising fast as a metric because the battle for attention is everywhere," Ruy-Díaz Lema says. These three metrics form a practical measurement stack for a medium that cannot yet deliver individual-level precision. Incremental reach justifies the spend by proving CTV finds audiences that linear misses. Viewability removes the fraud and waste concerns that plague other digital channels. And attention, now measurable through eye-tracking partnerships and pre-bid signals, gives buyers a way to distinguish between an ad that played and an ad that actually registered.

• Machine meets moment: Where attention and reach define what to measure, AI is reshaping how to act on it. Buyers are using machine learning to process structural data from EPGs, VAST tags, and contextual signals at a speed and scale that manual optimization never could. "The most important thing is that AI can process large amounts of data to determine the right moment to show an ad to the right person. There is now an open door for this new medium, and we can't expect it to be pure digital or pure television. It lives somewhere in between," Ruy-Díaz Lema says. The practical applications are already taking shape. AI-driven bidding suppresses waste by adapting to supply quality signals in real time, while dynamic creative optimization adjusts ad length, sequencing, and messaging based on context.

• The retail media bridge: Retail media is emerging as the most practical path to closing the attribution loop on CTV. In the US, retailers like Walmart already layer first-party shopper data onto CTV inventory, connecting media exposure directly to purchase behavior. European advertisers are beginning to follow that lead, treating retail media as a viable workaround for the identity gaps that traditional CTV targeting cannot bridge. The mechanics are getting more creative, too. "There is an opportunity because, in terms of ad creatives, we can include QR codes or even voice commands to activate devices like Alexa. The data to measure the whole cycle exists. What we need is real collaboration," Ruy-Díaz Lema says. The building blocks exist: robust CRMs, CTV-plus-retail combinations, and interactive ad formats that give viewers a reason to identify themselves mid-session. What is missing is the willingness of ecosystem players to open their data to each other. Until that collaboration materializes, the loop remains open at the one point where it matters most: between exposure and transaction.

That collaboration gap is accelerating two parallel forces that will define the next phase of European CTV. Consolidation is one. M&A will collapse some of the silos that make buying and planning so complex today, with platform integrations between major CTV and ad-tech players replacing the patchwork of isolated offerings that currently defines the landscape. AI is the other. Vendors are moving it from back-office optimization to front-line creative production, using it not just to place ads more efficiently but to generate and A/B test creative variations at scale, identifying which versions perform best across different contexts and markets.

As both forces reshape the ecosystem, viewing habits are splitting in ways that will determine where the money goes. On-demand consumption stays scattered across platforms, languages, and content libraries. But live sports are emerging as the great unifier. YouTube's push into major sports rights signals where the audience is consolidating, and future measurement models will have to account not just for the broadcast itself but for the cross-platform cultural conversation that surrounds it. "One match can bring millions of people together in front of the same screen at the same time. In the United States, you have the Super Bowl. That kind of unifying moment is the future. My predictions: M&A, AI, and live sports," Ruy-Díaz Lema says.