AppsFlyer's Yip: CTV consolidation deals converge on screen, pipes and checkout

August 25, 2026 · VideoWeek

CTV ad spend is on track to grow 14 percent year-on-year, a figure AppsFlyer's Alex Yip cites in a VideoWeek analysis as proof that the channel's experimentation phase has ended. Yip maps the current wave of CTV consolidation onto four capabilities that used to sit in separate hands: the screen, the pipes, the checkout and measurement. Walmart's acquisitions of Vizio and Vibe.co pair a TV operating system and home-screen inventory with self-serve buying tools, adding both to the checkout data Walmart already holds through Walmart Connect. Fox's pursuit of Roku, Mediaocean's purchase of Innovid and Pinterest's purchase of tvScientific follow the same logic of combining capabilities that once required separate partners. Measurement moves differently: DoubleVerify's acquisition of Rockerbox and iSpot's acquisition of 605 add scale within the measurement layer itself, without folding into a screen, commerce or media platform.

Reporting produced inside one closed CTV platform cannot show how that platform performed against another, account for duplication across screens, or trace an ad exposure into a purchase that happens somewhere else. Keynes Digital's Dan Larkman told eMarketer, "This will be the year where proving value becomes just as important as driving it." As Walmart, Amazon and other players assemble screen, pipe and checkout ownership into closed systems, buyers gain more reason to insist on measurement that sits outside any one of them, which keeps independent providers like DoubleVerify, iSpot and Mediaocean in a position to compare performance across the platforms that now compete for the same budgets.