iSpot.tv

Overview

iSpot.tv is a connected TV (CTV) advertising measurement and verification platform that enables advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their TV and streaming video ad campaigns. The company's technology correlates TV ad airings (across linear broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms) with digital behavior — specifically, whether people who were exposed to a TV commercial subsequently visited the advertiser's website or converted. This cross-channel measurement bridges the traditionally unmeasurable gap between TV advertising exposure and digital response.

iSpot.tv serves major advertisers across automotive, CPG, retail, financial services, and entertainment — industries with significant TV advertising budgets that historically could not measure the direct digital response to those campaigns.

What This Script Does

iSpot.tv's scripts deploy measurement pixels and attribution tracking on advertiser websites:

Post-exposure attribution pixel: iSpot.tv places a measurement pixel on advertiser websites — typically on high-value pages like product pages, contact pages, and conversion confirmation pages. The pixel fires when a visitor loads the page, transmitting device signals (IP address, user agent, browser characteristics) and a timestamp to iSpot.tv's measurement servers.

TV ad exposure matching: iSpot.tv maintains a real-time database of TV ad airings — every commercial broadcast, on every channel, at every minute of the day. Using household-level IP-to-address matching and probabilistic identity graph techniques, iSpot.tv attempts to determine whether a website visitor's household was in the audience for a specific TV ad airing before they visited the advertiser's site. The match between the TV audience data and the web visitor creates the attribution.

Cookie and identifier collection: The pixel sets cookies and collects device identifiers for visitor identification. These are used to link the web session to iSpot.tv's identity graph, which incorporates TV viewership data, IP address-based household identifiers, and digital device signals.

Household-level attribution modeling: iSpot.tv's attribution model operates at the household level — inferring that a browser on a specific IP address belongs to a household that also has a TV that aired a specific commercial. This probabilistic household modeling involves processing IP addresses as personal data under GDPR (IP addresses are personal data when they can be linked to individuals or households).

Conversion reporting: iSpot.tv aggregates attribution matches and reports them to advertisers as conversion metrics — e.g., "Your TV campaign drove X website visits and Y conversions among exposed households." These reports are provided in iSpot.tv's measurement dashboard.

Consent & Compliance

iSpot.tv is an analytics and marketing measurement tool with significant privacy implications from cross-channel tracking:

• GDPR / ePrivacy: The attribution pixel sets cookies for visitor identification and transmits IP addresses and device signals for household matching. Both the cookie placement and the IP-based processing constitute collection of personal data under GDPR. Prior opt-in consent is required under the ePrivacy Directive for cookie placement. IP address processing for advertising attribution requires a lawful basis — consent (Article 6(1)(a)) given the advertising measurement purpose.
• Household-level data: IP-to-household matching involves inferring physical addresses and household membership from IP addresses. European DPAs have consistently held that IP addresses are personal data. Household-level attribution modeling that links TV viewership to web behavior falls within GDPR's special scrutiny for profiling.
• CCPA/CPRA: Cross-channel data correlation using device identifiers, IP addresses, and behavioral data constitutes personal information. Sharing this data with iSpot.tv for advertising measurement constitutes "sharing" under CPRA for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes, requiring opt-out disclosure.
• EU-US transfers: iSpot.tv is a US-based company. EU personal data (IP addresses, behavioral signals from EU visitors) transferred to iSpot.tv requires an appropriate transfer mechanism. Check whether iSpot.tv is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. iSpot.tv scripts perform cross-channel advertising attribution using cookies, IP-based household matching, and device fingerprinting. This is marketing measurement technology that requires explicit consent under GDPR and ePrivacy before activation.