Contextual Targeting in CTV: The Power of Metadata in Streaming Advertising

By the tvads team on 01 April 2025

In a previous post we discussed the importance of advanced targeting in CTV, and how it has attracted both traditional advertisers and new players in the advertising ecosystem (article). Today, we will delve deeper into a key aspect of this targeting: the power of metadata and its impact on the accuracy and effectiveness of CTV advertising.

Unlike traditional TV segmentation, CTV enables more effective advertising strategies. The main targeting methods include:

Sociodemographic and geographic: Allows targeting ads based on the viewer’s age, gender, geographic location, and socioeconomic level. This enables brands to tailor their messages to specific audience segments, ensuring that advertising is more relevant and effective across different regions and demographic profiles.

Behavioural: Analyzes viewing patterns, past interactions, and content preferences to determine which types of ads are most relevant for each user. This information helps predict which content is most likely to generate engagement, increasing campaign effectiveness.

IP Address and Device ID: Identifying user devices without relying on cookies allows advertisers to maintain personalization while safeguarding privacy. This is especially useful in an environment where data protection regulations are constantly evolving, limiting the use of traditional identifiers.

Contextual targeting: Links ads to the content being viewed, ensuring greater coherence between the advertising message and the environment in which it appears. This type of segmentation is made possible by the availability of content metadata.

What Exactly Is Metadata?

Metadata is structured information that describes the content being played. In video streaming, metadata is defined in different file formats, such as XML, JSON, or CSV:

XML (Extensible Markup Language): A markup language that transports data and allows information sharing between different machines and applications.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation):Similar to XML but based on JavaScript, one of the most widely used programming languages. It organizes information into key-value structures.

CSV (Comma-Separated Values): A plain text file format that structures information in tables separated by commas, enabling the transmission of large volumes of data.

Metadata is defined in the origin by the content producer, adding descriptive information such as title, genre, release year, and cast. It can also include technical information (bitrate, resolution) or platform-specific metadata (such as a unique ID for each video, facilitating identification without retrieving the entire metadata set).

Processing and Use of Metadata in CTV

All generated metadata must be validated, analyzed, and structured for storage. It can then be enriched with additional information and stored in databases for retrieval and use in advertising segmentation technologies. Access to this information occurs through internal APIs that transfer it to CTV apps. Thanks to metadata, a user can find a movie by searching for its title or discover all movies featuring a specific actor. This same logic enables advertisers to contextualize their ads based on the content the user is watching.

Benefits of efficient Metadata use in CTV

Effectively leveraging metadata for CTV segmentation provides multiple benefits:


Greater precision in ad delivery: Messages reach the most relevant audience, improving campaign efficiency.


Enhanced user experience: Viewers receive more relevant ads, making advertising feel less intrusive and contributing to a positive brand perception.


Optimized ad spend: Advertising investment is directed toward users with a higher likelihood of conversion, maximizing ROI and improving campaign profitability.

Challenges in Metadata-Based targeting in CTV

Despite its benefits, metadata-based targeting in CTV faces several challenges:


Metadata quality and standardization: The lack of industry-wide standards makes it difficult to use consistent and comparable data across platforms, potentially affecting targeting effectiveness. Without uniform and reliable metadata, advertisers may struggle to implement efficient large-scale strategies.


Privacy regulations: Compliance with laws such as GDPR and CCPA requires responsible data handling, meaning platforms and advertisers must balance privacy protection with the benefits of advanced segmentation.


Reluctance of some platforms to share data: Some streaming services hesitate to share their metadata with advertisers due to concerns about "cherry-picking," where advertisers buy only premium inventory, leaving less in-demand inventory unsold.


Accessing and processing large volumes of data: CTV generates massive amounts of data, creating challenges in terms of storage, processing, and analysis. To fully harness metadata, advertisers need advanced data analytics and AI technologies that allow them to interpret information and make real-time strategic decisions.


Cost of generating metadata: The required technology, along with the time invested in analysis and manual tagging, poses a significant barrier for many content creators, particularly those producing niche content with smaller budgets that may not justify this resource investment.

As the CTV ecosystem evolves, the industry must address key challenges—most notably metadata standardization and privacy regulation compliance. Overcoming these barriers will not only ensure more effective targeting but also enhance user experience and transparency in data usage.

Targeting and addressability capabilities in CTV represent one of the greatest opportunities for digital advertising in this new landscape, enabling advertisers to reach audiences with unprecedented precision. However, the true value of this capability lies in the quality and intelligent use of metadata. The ability to structure, interpret, and apply this data effectively will be the key differentiator between generic campaigns and highly optimized strategies that drive real impact.

High CPMs in CTV are not arbitrary; they stem from multiple factors: the privileged presence of television in households, premium content, a brand-safe environment, and, most importantly, the ability of TV and streaming service providers to structure and enrich their data, transforming it into "valuable and functional" assets for advertisers.

Streaming services that recognize their value within their ecosystem and take control over everything happening within it will be the ones offering a truly distinctive proposition in the streaming advertising landscape.

CTV Metadata TV Advertising Tech
tvads team

At tvads we has a professional team able to advise you on this field and and guide you in any area of your streaming advertising business, advising you or even operating it on your behalf if necessary

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