Connected television (CTV) will become the top channel to reach consumers this holiday season, according to a forecast from a recent report, which appears to be based on numbers that suggest the media continues steady growth.

More than two-thirds of the U.S. population now use CTV, with Emarketer estimating the average time spent among adults is expected to reach 2 hours and 15 minutes per day this year and 2 hours and 34 minutes per day by 2026.

Experian’s Holiday spending trends and insights report looks at this CTV trend, along with credit and debit card use across 800 top merchants.

The report combines information on purchase-based data from May 2022 through May 2024 to understand retail trends during the past two years, and defines the holiday shopping season between October and December.

Predictions for the 2024 holiday season are based on consumers’ desire to save money, their concerns around inflation, and the likelihood they will shop at discount and mass retail stores.

Consumers seem to be going back to the days when more of the research was done online before making purchases in stores. But now they are using chatbots and asking for options on what to purchase for a specific person based on their likes and dislikes through keyword prompts.

The report indicates that online spending will begin to normalize, and in-store spending will continue to dominate.

As CTV viewing continues to dominate, the importance of matching available signals increases.

Experian later this year plans to add support for IPv6 in its Digital Graph as well as phone-based unique identifiers for individuals (UID2s). The changes aim to improve customer data tracking and targeting for marketers.

The IP signals and UID2s will link Experian’s existing household and individual profiles to centralize and connect numerous sources.

Combining them will allow Experian to have a more comprehensive understanding of individual customers, including their online behavior across different devices to improve targeting.

The company said these changes are in addition to its current coverage of IPv4 and email-based UID2s.

Collecting and consolidating these types of details could raise customer data privacy concerns, and companies will need to ensure and obtain clear consent from individuals for their data to be used in this way and to be transparent about their data practices.

Experian plans to add support for IPv6 in its Digital Graph and phone-based unique identifiers for individuals (UID2s) to improve customer data tracking and targeting for marketers.