Stop measuring TV like search.
Television builds memory over weeks; judging it on attribution windows designed for intent capture makes a working channel look broken.
26 pieces · 6 authored · related work since 2020
The argument
Somewhere along the way we started talking about TV in the language of paid search and social: outcomes, ROAS, performance. But someone watching a drama on a Tuesday night is not typing a query into a search box. One is watching content. The other is expressing intent. TV works over weeks and months, and when you judge it on attribution windows built for search, it looks like it failed when it’s doing exactly what it was built to do.
We made the same mistake with targeting. CTV is not a personal screen; it’s a household screen. A logged-in profile doesn’t tell you who is on the couch. Pile on third-party segments and supply shrinks, CPMs climb, and delivery collapses into the same five markets every time. I start somewhere else: the customer file, the ZIP codes where customers over-index, census data and lookalike markets. Then I buy direct from the roughly 20 publishers that hold most of the viewing.
I’m not arguing for less measurement. I’m arguing for measurement that fits the channel, with each tool doing the job it’s good at. Show-level CPA is an in-flight signal: it tells me which programs to lean into and which to cut while the campaign is still running. Incrementality tests and mix models answer the bigger question of whether TV is building the business over time. Read them together, and treat identity as a standard you measure, not an assumption you make. Plan CTV like linear: context first, geography informed, built for households, not IDs.
The full trail, oldest first
26 pieces- May 2020Quick Wins for the Savvy Marketer in You
Co-authored with Dr. Augustine Fou: practical moves for marketers who paused or cut digital spend at the start of the pandemic.
- Dec 2020LinkedIn has an ad measurement problem
Josh Sternberg’s newsletter opens with David’s own LinkedIn campaign for Valor Digital as the case study for a measurement class action.
- Feb 2021Trust Web Times Interview Series: David Nyurenberg
An in-depth interview exploring Nyurenberg's early career at Gameloft, his time at programmatic managed service vendors, and the founding of his self-funded consultancy Valor.
- Feb 2024Roku ads deliver 3.4x return-on-ad-spend for retail DTC brand
Case study quote on CTV’s potential to match conversion-focused channels like social and search.
- Apr 2024Marketers Find New Ways to Buy Programmatic Ads Without Relying on User Data
“We’re not optimizing against an addressable human audience.” Quoted on optimizing CTV against metadata and premium inventory rather than audience segments.
- May 2024Case Study: Leveraging Metadata Optimization in Connected TV Advertising
Case study on privacy-forward CTV targeting: optimizing against content metadata instead of audience data as regulation tightens and audience targeting weakens.
- Jun 2024Streamers keep leaning in on shoppable ads. Who will get it right?
Quoted that shoppable CTV ads are “rarely—if ever—worth the upcharge.”
- Jul 2024The Golden Calf Of Addressability: Reevaluating The Foundations Of Digital Advertising
Data-Driven Thinking column calling for the industry to move past its addiction to addressable targeting and deterministic attribution.
- Aug 2024Rain the Growth Agency Partners with Chalice AI to Optimize Audience Targeting
Quoted on adopting Chalice’s AI Audiences after testing showed it met clients’ direct-response goals.
- Oct 2024Buyers Can Now Target High-Attention Inventory In The Trade Desk
Quoted on Rain’s beta test of Adelaide attention scoring in The Trade Desk, and how attention metrics help avoid MFA sites and outstream video.
- Mar 2025Driving New Customer Growth for a Brand
Session with Sara Moorthy at CTV Connect 2025 on whether brands can approach CTV like linear TV to drive incremental growth, and media mix modeling best practices.
- Apr 2025How Shutterfly Used A Search-Powered Custom Algorithm To Zoom In On New Customers
Quoted as Rain the Growth Agency’s director of video product development and innovation on using search interest to find markets with category demand but low brand awareness.
- Jun 2025Amazon Doubles Ad Load on Prime Video
Quoted on the upside: a biddable environment plus more supply should let buyers find premium impressions at more efficient rates and reach niche categories at scale.
- Jul 2025CTV Is Not A One-To-One Channel, So Stop Buying It Like One
Data-Driven Thinking column on why one-to-one programmatic logic carried over from display and online video does not fit how CTV behaves.
- Nov 2025CTV’s Future Lies in Its Past: Why Advertisers Must Embrace Traditional TV Tactics
Interview making the case that digital-style one-to-one metrics are the wrong frame for CTV, and that a hybrid approach rooted in traditional TV planning works better.
- Mar 2026Why Marketers Who Rely on Pixels To Measure CTV Outcomes Are F&^ed
Session moderated by AdExchanger’s Victoria McNally: why pixel attribution undercounts CTV, using Laundry Sauce results, and how IP matching, CAPIs and MMM validate outcomes.
- Apr 2026Linear Thinking Meets CTV Reality / What Actually Makes CTV Work
Two-part conversation (15 and 22 April) on the relationship between linear and CTV, planning and transparency challenges, and what advertisers need to understand to make the channel work in practice.
- Apr 2026Why Streaming Ads Underperform On Paper As Measurement Misconceptions Persist
Explains why CTV looks underwhelming when measured exactly like search, and how to appropriately rethink performance in a multi-device world.
- May 2026Performance vs. Reality: What Actually Drives Digital Growth Today
Live interview at POSSIBLE Miami where David brings a pragmatic operator's lens to breaking down how performance is really measured and where measurement breaks in digital growth.
- May 2026TV Was Never Built to Behave Like Meta
Authored essay arguing that forcing Connected TV into performance marketing frameworks designed for search and social ignores television's unique value.
- May 2026Why Amazon and YouTube pitched operating systems, not just TV inventory at this year's upfront
David gives his take on the 2026 Upfronts, specifically analyzing Amazon's 90% U.S. household coverage claim and their authenticated audience graph.
- Jul 2026CTV Buyers Are Getting The Show-Level Performance Optimization They’ve Always Wanted
Featured on the InterMedia Advertising, Peer39 and Pontiac Intelligence collaboration that delivered show-level cost-per-acquisition data for 94% of CTV impressions.
- Jul 2026IP-Based CTV Targeting Fails 3 In Every 4 Times, New Research Finds
Quoted on identity: the industry should be more honest about its confidence in the signals it uses, and treat identity quality as a measurable standard rather than an assumption.
- Jul 2026Three Advertising Industry Myths The Market Has Already Debunked
Data-Driven Thinking column co-authored with Irina Dzyubinsky on three industry storylines the market has already disproven.
- Sep 2026We Measured Everything, Except Whether We Got What We Wanted: A Practical Playbook for Media Accountability
Session with Bayer’s Gary Guarnaccia on the gap between what the supply chain declares, what platforms report and what is delivered, and why verification, fraud detection, supply path reporting and inclusion lists are necessary but not enough.
- Oct 2026Beyond the Stream: Reimagining the CTV Advertising Experience
Advertising Week session with Anoki, Amagi, Spectrum Reach and others on the roles of context and audience in CTV, and how new ad experiences change the answer.