Advanced Television

IAB unveils guide urging industry-wide adoption of standardised CAPI for CTV

October 31, 2025

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released The Role of CAPI in Closing the Outcome Gap for CTV, an industry guide that defines how Conversion APIs (CAPI) can unlock the full performance potential of Connected TV (CTV). Designed for brands, agencies, publishers, and ad tech partners, the report explores how CAPIs can standardise measurement, enable privacy-safe data collaboration, and help the CTV ecosystem deliver performance outcomes like channels such as search and social.

“The industry has been very consistent with advertisers signaling loud and clear that outcomes matter,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “This report is a call to action. Without standardisation and implementation of CAPI, CTV platforms will struggle to reach their full potential, and will lose performance budgets to more measurable channels.”

The IAB guide, based on industry research and insights, outlines a clear path for standardized CAPI adoption to help CTV deliver the same accountability and performance measurement advertisers expect from other channels.

Establishing CTV as a Performance-Driven Channel Through CAPI

While CTV is one of the fastest-growing advertising channels, it remains one of the hardest to measure. CAPI implementation in CTV has been inconsistent due to fragmentation, limited identifiers, and technical barriers. Yet when implemented correctly, CAPI enables secure, server-to-server data sharing that connects ad exposure to outcomes—unlocking smarter campaign optimization. Standardizing this approach across CTV can:

  • Create parity between CTV and established performance channels
  • Restore advertiser confidence through accurate, privacy-safe measurement
  • Unlock cross-channel optimization and faster feedback loops
  • Support industry-wide collaboration around data interoperability

“Advertisers want streaming, and they need accountability,” said Jamie Finstein, Vice President, Media Center, IAB. “A standardized CAPI is how CTV can deliver both.”

IAB Survey Insights Reveal the Industry’s Technical and Measurement Hurdles

IAB conducted a proprietary industry survey to gain insights from brands, agencies, publishers, and technology leaders of all sizes about what the industry must do next to unlock the full performance promise of CTV.

The findings reveal that while 75 per cent of advertisers using a CAPI are willing to reallocate budgets based on conversion performance, 72 per cent of publishers cite technical complexity as a barrier to adoption. Respondents revealed issues with the CTV ecosystem’s fragmentation, limited identifiers, and lack of engagement signals compared to social and search.

From Insights to Action: How the Guide Charts the Path Forward

The results reinforced the urgency for collaboration and standardization across the CTV ecosystem. The guide, a strategic imperative, is a call to action for advertisers and platforms to unite around a common framework for data collaboration and outcome measurement, and provides practical guidance for implementing a CAPI across diverse platforms and partners.

The real opportunity lies in establishing a shared framework where platforms align on event taxonomies, consent metadata, and data flows. This alignment will reduce operational complexity for advertisers and make solutions like IAB Tech Lab’s CAPI Standardisation Project scalable across the ecosystem. Designed to go beyond simple conversion tracking, IAB Tech Lab’s specification aims to support a wide range of events that advertisers rely on to optimise performance and measure ROI.

Finstein concluded, “With this guide, we invite the industry to move forward together. By offering a practical roadmap grounded in data and cross-industry input, IAB aims to accelerate scalable CAPI adoption — ensuring that CTV can meet rising demand for performance, accountability, and trust.”

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