The Video Advertising Bureau sent a newsletter to marketers on July 9, 2026, built around a single statistic: authenticated television viewers generate 42 percent more revenue than viewers who have not been authenticated. The figure is not new. It first appeared in the trade group's June addressable TV guide, sourced from Experian research published in October 2024. What changed on July 9, 2026, is the packaging. Rather than sitting inside a twelve-page report, the number now anchors a standalone email titled "How Authenticated Users Impact Brand Revenue," framed as a multiple-choice quiz that asks recipients to guess the correct figure before revealing the answer.

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A single number, extracted and repackaged

The VAB Insights email, distributed by the trade organization's insights team at 14:30 on July 9, presents four possible answers to the question of how much more revenue authenticated users generate compared to non-authenticated users: 42 percent, 68 percent, 31 percent, and 55 percent. Only one is correct. The format, which VAB calls "the stat," strips a data point out of its original research context and turns it into a standalone engagement device, directing readers back to the fuller guide for anyone who wants the underlying methodology.

That fuller guide, titled "Addressable TV: Embracing Innovation Through the Exploration of Modern Ad Solutions," carries a June 2026 publication date and was distributed on June 9, according to prior PPC Land coverage. It compiles figures from nine separate sources, spanning Go Addressable surveys conducted by Advertiser Perceptions, an EMARKETER forecast, a Kochava attribution analysis, and the Experian research that produced the 42 percent figure now being recirculated. Within that guide, the statistic sits on page six, inside a section titled "The Role of Identity in Addressable TV," alongside a note specifying that the figure is inclusive of cookieless environments such as Apple's Safari browser.

What "authenticated" means in this context

According to the VAB guide, audience authentication describes the process by which video platforms confirm, or "authenticate," the identity of a consumer on behalf of marketers. The guide lists five attributes associated with an authenticated audience: confirmed human identity, confirmed identity matching, confirmed opt-in, low fraud risk, and very high measurement accuracy. Authenticated household data, once anonymously matched with addressable TV ad exposures, is described as enabling four downstream outcomes: robust measurement and attribution, reduced ad fraud and waste, privacy compliance, and increased return on investment.

This definition matters because it distinguishes authenticated, deterministic identity from the probabilistic alternatives that have dominated much of connected television targeting. Deterministic data, per the guide's glossary, is data obtained from a direct input and not modeled - a user's name, address, email, or phone number collected through registration, subscription, or purchase records. Probabilistic data, by contrast, is compiled from partial signals and modeled into likely conclusions about who a user might be.

Why the distinction has commercial weight right now

The gap between deterministic and probabilistic targeting has become a live issue across the connected television advertising sector, not merely a definitional footnote. A study commissioned by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and Go Addressable, conducted by data validation firm Truthset, found that IP-to-postal address linkages were accurate just 13 percent of the time, while IP-to-email linkages reached only 16 percent accuracy across an analysis of nearly one billion records. FreeWheel, drawing on that same research, warned in a blog post that IP-based targeting can miss 87 percent of households when campaigns rely on probabilistic inference rather than verified household data.

Set against that backdrop, VAB's recirculated 42 percent figure functions as a companion argument. If IP-based, probabilistic matching frequently fails to reach the correct household, then authenticated, deterministic identity becomes the more defensible foundation for revenue attribution claims. The guide does not draw this comparison explicitly within the newsletter itself, but the timing places the authentication statistic squarely within an industry conversation already shaped by documented accuracy problems in adjacent targeting methods.

The wider addressable TV picture

The authentication figure sits inside a broader set of statistics that VAB has been circulating throughout 2026. According to the June guide, 86 percent of advertisers report being satisfied or very satisfied with addressable TV, a figure drawn from a Go Addressable survey conducted by Advertiser Perceptions in September 2025. Among advertisers not yet using addressable TV, 63 percent plan to begin within the next year, according to that same survey. A separate Go Addressable survey from October 2024 found that 53 percent of advertisers consider addressable TV a "must-buy."

Infrastructure figures reinforce the sentiment data. The guide cites an EMARKETER forecast from April 2025 showing that 92 percent of pay TV households are now addressable-enabled. Nearly half of current addressable TV advertisers were expected to invest more in the channel during 2026, representing 16 percent year-over-year growth, according to the September 2025 Advertiser Perceptions survey. A separate Go Addressable Omnibus Report, dated April 2026, found that almost four in five advertisers - specifically 78 percent, according to related May 2026 research presented at the Go Addressable Upfronts Brunch - anticipate addressable TV playing a role in their 2026-2027 Upfront negotiations.

Outcome data attached to addressable spending shows measurable, though modest, effects. Citing a Kochava attribution trends analysis covering the period from the second quarter of 2024 through the second quarter of 2025, the guide reports that conversions attributed to addressable and connected TV increased by 10 percent among users exposed to media mixes that included those formats. The same analysis found a 9 percent increase in videos watched across streaming when media mixes incorporated addressable inventory.

Industry voices attached to the guide

Three named individuals are quoted directly within the June guide, each attributed to a specific title and organization. Kelly Metz, Chief Investment Officer at Spark Foundry, is quoted stating that addressable advertising allows buyers to understand both content and context while still reaching a precisely defined audience, calling the combination "really powerful." Joshua Abneri, Director of Addressable Strategy at Kinesso, argues that addressable approaches have become necessary given how fragmented audiences have become, adding that advertisers need to strategize between a focused addressable approach and a targeted mass reach approach.

Tim Myers, Executive Director of Go Addressable, is quoted describing addressable advertising execution as having "steadily increased in simplicity and adoption for brands and agencies for the past few years." He attributes the trend's continuation to three spend drivers identified in the group's survey work with Advertiser Perceptions: measurement, programmatic execution, and identity accuracy. According to Myers, continued education, innovation, and advancement in those three areas will determine whether advertisers still undecided about the channel eventually convert.

Definitions the guide establishes for the category

Beyond the headline figures, the guide devotes substantial space to an extended glossary covering delivery mechanics and measurement terminology - useful reference material given how quickly the category's vocabulary has proliferated. Dynamic Ad Insertion refers to technology that allows advertisers to seamlessly insert or swap out ads within live or on-demand content. Multi-Advertiser Spot Optimization, also called Audience Addressable, describes the delivery of multiple ads from multiple advertisers during a single pre-scheduled linear spot, with different households receiving different advertisers' messages within the same commercial slot. Single Advertiser Spot Optimization, alternately known as Creative Versioning, delivers multiple versions of an ad from a single advertiser, with different households receiving different creative executions from that same brand.

An Ad Pod is defined as a group of ads expected to play back-to-back within one commercial break, comparable to how audiences experience breaks in traditional broadcast television. Aggregation describes the ability to deliver multiple ads from multiple advertisers, in near real time, to one or more pre-allocated Ad Pods - distinguished from pre-scheduled delivery by its reliance on real-time decisioning at the moment a specific audience is watching.

An Identity Graph, per the guide's definition, is a database housing all known identifiers correlating with individual customers or households - spanning usernames, addresses, email, phone numbers, cookies, device identifiers, IP addresses, and offline identifiers. Identity Resolution is the associated process of matching common identifiers across devices and interactions into a single unified profile. These two mechanisms together form the technical foundation that allows a media partner to match an advertiser's first-party customer records against its own addressable subscriber base.

Go Addressable's role in the underlying research

Much of the survey data cited throughout the VAB guide originates with Go Addressable, described within the document as an industry trade group led by television distribution companies and cross-industry supporting members dedicated to advancing addressable TV advertising and the use of deterministic identity. Its founding members include AMC Global Media, Comcast Advertising, DirecTV Advertising, DISH Media, and Spectrum Reach. Supporting members listed in the guide include Ampersand, Basis, DoubleVerify, Epsilon, Fox, Hearst Television, INVIDI, iSpot, Mastercard, OpenAP, Philo, TransUnion, and Veeva Crossix.

The guide's source list attributes the 42 percent figure specifically to Experian research titled "The essential role of authenticated audiences in CTV advertising," published in October 2024. A separate source cited for related identity context is a Digiday briefing from April 2024 examining publishers' audience authentication strategies. Neither Experian nor Digiday is quoted directly within the VAB materials; both function as cited research sources rather than as parties making direct statements to VAB.

A gap the guide does not close

What the guide does not specify, and what the July 9 newsletter does not add, is the sample composition behind the Experian figure - how many authenticated versus non-authenticated users were compared, over what time period, or across which specific inventory types. The 42 percent figure is presented as a standalone comparative statistic rather than as a finding accompanied by a published methodology section. That absence does not make the figure incorrect, but it does mean marketers evaluating whether the comparison applies to their own campaigns have limited ability to assess how directly transferable the number is to a specific media plan.

This gap is not unusual for statistics circulated in trade association guides, many of which compile third-party research rather than commission new primary studies with full public methodology disclosure. It does mean that a reader encountering the 42 percent figure through the July 9 newsletter, without access to the original Experian report, receives less context than someone who has read the full June guide, which at least identifies the source, publication date, and the cookieless-environment caveat attached to the figure.

What this signals for marketers evaluating addressable TV

The recirculation of a single statistic through a dedicated newsletter format, rather than as one data point among many in a comprehensive guide, indicates how VAB is choosing to sustain attention on addressable TV and identity topics between major report releases. The quiz format itself - presenting four plausible answers before revealing the correct one - is designed to increase engagement with a number that might otherwise be skimmed past inside a longer document.

For marketers and agencies weighing whether to expand addressable TV budgets, the 42 percent figure functions as one input among the many percentages VAB has published throughout 2026: the 92 percent addressable-enabled household figure, the 86 percent satisfaction rate, the 78 percent Upfront-relevance figure, and the 63 percent adoption-intent figure among current non-users. None of these numbers, taken individually, constitutes independent third-party verification of addressable TV's return on investment relative to other video advertising formats. Collectively, they represent the trade association's ongoing effort to make the case for a channel it was founded to promote - a fact worth keeping in view when evaluating any single figure drawn from the guide, including the one at the center of the July 9 email.

Timeline

  • October 2024 - Experian publishes research titled "The essential role of authenticated audiences in CTV advertising," containing the finding that authenticated users generate 42 percent more revenue than non-authenticated users, inclusive of cookieless environments such as Apple's Safari browser.
  • October 2024 - A separate Go Addressable survey conducted by Advertiser Perceptions finds that 53 percent of advertisers consider addressable TV a "must-buy."
  • April 2024 - Digiday publishes a media briefing examining publishers' audience authentication strategies, later cited as a reference source in VAB's guide.
  • April 2025 - EMARKETER publishes a forecast finding that 92 percent of pay TV households are addressable-enabled.
  • September 2025 - Go Addressable commissions a survey from Advertiser Perceptions finding that nearly half of current addressable TV advertisers plan to increase investment in 2026, representing 16 percent year-over-year growth, alongside an 86 percent total satisfaction rate among current users.
  • November 2025 - Go Addressable publishes a report titled "Addressable TV Continues its Momentum Among Advertisers for the Fourth Year in a Row."
  • March 2026 - Go Addressable compiles internal data later cited within the VAB guide.
  • April 2026 - Go Addressable releases an Omnibus Report finding that almost four in five advertisers anticipate addressable TV playing a role in their 2026-2027 Upfront negotiations.
  • June 2026 - The Video Advertising Bureau publishes "Addressable TV: Embracing Innovation Through the Exploration of Modern Ad Solutions," compiling the above research into a single guide.
  • June 9, 2026 - VAB distributes the guide to members and qualified marketers.
  • July 9, 2026 - VAB Insights sends a standalone email newsletter titled "How Authenticated Users Impact Brand Revenue," isolating the 42 percent authenticated-revenue figure as a multiple-choice quiz question directing recipients back to the full guide.

Summary

Who: The Video Advertising Bureau, through its VAB Insights team, sent the newsletter; the underlying 42 percent statistic originates with Experian.

What: VAB distributed a standalone email newsletter isolating a single data point - that authenticated TV viewers generate 42 percent more revenue than non-authenticated viewers - as a multiple-choice quiz, directing recipients to its fuller June 2026 addressable TV guide for additional context.

When: The newsletter was sent on July 9, 2026, at 14:30. The Experian research behind the statistic dates to October 2024, and the figure previously appeared in VAB's guide distributed on June 9, 2026.

Where: The newsletter was distributed by VAB Insights, based at 220 East 42nd Street in New York, to its subscriber list of marketers, agencies, and VAB members.

Why: The recirculation reflects VAB's continued effort to sustain marketer attention on addressable TV and identity-based targeting ahead of the 2026-2027 Upfront negotiation cycle, at a time when separate industry research has raised documented accuracy concerns about probabilistic, IP-based targeting alternatives.