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Beware of CTV. it’s Retargeting 2.0 – Same players / Same playbook
Posted by on November 25, 2025 at 12:22 pmTL;DR: Vibe is connected to Criteo. MNTN rebranded from Steelhouse. Same players, same tricks.
About ten years ago Criteo and Steelhouse sued each other and alleged dirty tricks like fake clicks and fake traffic. They exposed the retargeting playbook. The same playbook is getting dusted off and applied to connected TV.
If you've been around a while, you've seen this pattern play out. Whenever margins are hidden in ad tech, it incentivizes bad behavior.
The Problem with Performance and Attribution in CTV:
- Self-Grading Homework: CTV is sold on performance, but they are the ones that tell you what the performance is. When a platform grades its own homework, it is incredibly easy to show a high ROAS even if the incrementality is near zero.
- Warm Audiences & Retargeting: They focus heavily on warm audiences. CTV retargeting can work from IP addresses, cookies, and email identifiers, just like back in the gory days of cookie bombing.
- View-Through Attribution: CTV platforms have resurrected view-through attribution with all the good/bad that comes with it. Mostly, this is the ability to take credit for sales that would have happened anyway.
I got brigaded by Vibe on LinkedIn because I suggested the margins in CTV matter. The Vibe CEO called me a crook.
CTV is incredibly effective but not if the load is too much. Margins definitely matter. Has anyone here done incrementality testing for their CTV? MMM results?
edit: This is a repost. I posted this first time around as a link with the "crook" screen shot. Reposting as text for discussion.
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1 Reply
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From your point of view, what’s retargeting 1.0?
I use retargeting on almost every channel and it’s paramount to success. I don’t think calling CTV “retargeting 2.0” is the red flag you think it is.
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