CTV & video
Household ID
A household ID is an identifier representing a home and the devices in it, rather than one person, used mainly in CTV and addressable TV for targeting, frequency capping and measurement.
TVs are shared: a family watches together, so targeting an individual rarely makes sense. Household IDs group the devices and people in a home, such as smart TVs, streaming boxes, phones and laptops, under one identifier.
They are usually built from the home's IP address, TV and streaming device IDs, login data from streaming services, postal addresses and identity graph links, often combining deterministic and probabilistic signals. Advertisers use them to target Addressable TV and CTV ads, cap frequency across all screens in a home, extend TV campaigns to mobile, and measure whether exposed households later bought or visited.
Accuracy varies: IP addresses change and can be shared, and people move. Household data is personal data under laws like GDPR and CCPA / CPRA. Household IDs also matter for fraud detection: an implausible number of TVs behind one "household" or a household appearing in several countries at once are warning signs of CTV fraud.
Think of it like this
A household ID is like addressing a letter to "The Garcia family" rather than to one person: it reaches everyone at the address.
An example
A CTV campaign in Canada caps frequency at three per household per week. The household ID links two TVs and three phones in one home, so a view on any screen counts towards the cap.
Related terms
Addressable TV
Addressable TV is the ability to show different ads to different households watching the same programme, based on data about each household, across set-top boxes, smart TVs or streaming.
CTV (connected TV)
CTV (connected TV) is any television connected to the internet, such as a smart TV, streaming stick, games console or set-top box, and the advertising shown in streaming apps on it.
Identity graph
An identity graph is a database that links the many identifiers belonging to the same person or household, such as emails, device IDs, cookies and IP addresses, into one profile.
IP address (in advertising)
In advertising, an IP address is the network address a device uses online, used for rough geolocation, household matching, frequency capping and fraud detection, and treated as personal data in many laws.
Reach and frequency
Reach and frequency are paired metrics: reach is how many different people saw an ad, and frequency is the average number of times each of those people saw it.
Sources: IAB Tech Lab CTV standards, GDPR Article 4: definitions