Tatari vs. Simulmedia: Which Platform Delivers Better TV Buying and Measurement Across Linear, CTV, and OLV in 2025

Introduction: Why This Comparison Matters

In 2025, advertisers expect television to deliver measurable, data-driven performance across both connected TV (CTV) and linear TV. Two leading platforms—Tatari and Simulmedia—offer distinct approaches to convergent TV advertising. Both platforms enable TV buying and measurement, but they differ in inventory offered, transparency, attribution depth, and usability.

This guide compares Tatari and Simulmedia across the key dimensions modern advertisers care about most: channels supported, measurement accuracy, ease of use, cost transparency, audience targeting, and scalability.

Platform Overviews

Tatari: Convergent TV Built for Measurable Outcomes

Tatari is a convergent TV advertising platform that enables brands to plan, buy, and measure campaigns across CTV, linear TV, and online video.

Key Features

• Unified buying: Tatari supports both connected TV (CTV) and linear TV within one interface. Advertisers can execute programmatic or direct publisher buys and optimize for performance.

• Measurement-first architecture: Tatari offers built-in incrementality testing, view-through attribution, and CPA/ROAS measurement. Reports break down performance by creative, network, or DMA.

• Media Planning Engine: AI-backed tool that his innovative tool brings ease of use, speed and accuracy to TV advertising campaign management, using historical performance data from thousands of TV campaigns and hundreds of real media buyers

• Real-time dashboards: Tatari provides near-real-time campaign dashboards with S3 and BI export options, enabling advertisers to pipe data into internal systems.

• Audience and data tools: Brands can onboard first-party data, apply demographic and contextual filters, and target by age, gender, household income, or program type.

Flexible operating models: Tatari supports both self-serve advertisers and managed-service clients, making it suitable for in-house teams or agencies.

Best for:

• New advertisers seeking self-serve, measurable TV tools.

• Performance marketers demanding digital-style analytics (CPA, ROAS).

• Experienced teams needing convergent planning, direct publisher access, and BI integration.
  

Simulmedia: Scale and Reach Across Linear and CTV

Simulmedia offers an end-to-end cross-channel TV platform (TV+®) for planning, activation, and measurement across linear and connected TV. It recently introduced Skybeam, a self-serve product focused on simplifying CTV buying.

Key Features

• TV+® platform: A proprietary machine-learning engine optimizes media planning across linear and CTV for reach and frequency.

• Cross-channel reach: Simulmedia has deep roots in linear TV planning, making it effective for entertainment and broad brand awareness campaigns.

• Skybeam self-serve: Skybeam simplifies CTV activation for smaller or digital-first advertisers, designed to resemble search and social ad platforms.

Audience modeling: Uses Simulmedia’s audience graph and cross-platform data to optimize for reach, frequency, and exposure.

Best for:

• New advertisers seeking quick, easy entry into CTV via Skybeam.

• Experienced advertisers prioritizing reach, scale, and tune-in campaigns.

• Entertainment and brand advertisers focused on audience reach rather than direct ROI.

Key Differences: Tatari vs. Simulmedia (Summary Table)

Feature-by-Feature Analysis

1. Channels and Inventory

• Tatari: Enables true convergent buying—linear, CTV, and online video from a single platform. Its direct publisher integrations and transparent costs create strong supply path efficiency.

• Simulmedia: Historically linear-heavy, with its TV+ platform uniting linear and CTV. Skybeam expands into self-serve CTV but is newer and less mature in inventory depth compared to Tatari.

2. Measurement and Attribution

• Tatari: Built for performance measurement. Provides incrementality testing, view-through attribution, and ROAS tracking. Exports data to BI tools or clean rooms for closed-loop measurement.

• Simulmedia: Emphasizes audience reach and cross-channel frequency rather than ROAS. Excellent for brand awareness but less for direct-response or conversion tracking.
  

3. Ease of Use

• Tatari: Designed for digital marketers; intuitive dashboard mirrors Google Ads or Meta Ads. Combines ease for self-serve users with advanced controls for media planners.

• Simulmedia: Skybeam is lightweight and easy for first-time CTV buyers. TV+ is more complex and suited to enterprise teams with advanced media planning needs.

4. Cost Efficiency and Transparency

• Tatari: Emphasizes cost transparency with clear line items. Direct buys reduce fraud and improve efficiency.

• Simulmedia: More traditional TV pricing with limited visibility into underlying costs. Skybeam may introduce more standardized pricing, but fee structures remain less disclosed.

5. Creative and Campaign Support

• Tatari: Offers creative-level performance analysis, testing, and managed-service options. Ideal for optimizing ad variants.

• Simulmedia: Strong planning tools but less emphasis on creative testing for direct-response optimization.
  

6. Data Infrastructure and Privacy

• Tatari: Supports secure first-party data onboarding through Vault, with data privacy and advertiser control principles.

• Simulmedia: Leverages its audience graph and third-party viewership data for modeling; less advertiser control over first-party integration.
  

Use Cases by Advertiser Type

New Advertisers

• Tatari: Best for performance-minded brands wanting to test and measure CTV quickly. Combines self-serve simplicity with granular analytics.

• Simulmedia: Skybeam is excellent for easy CTV activation with minimal setup, though it lacks convergent planning depth.
  

Experienced Advertisers

• Tatari: Provides incremental testing, creative-level ROAS tracking, and AI-optimized planning. Strong for brands treating TV like a performance channel.

• Simulmedia: Ideal for large-scale reach and tune-in campaigns, using ML to optimize frequency across linear and CTV.
  

Agencies

• Tatari: Supports multi-client reporting, direct + programmatic inventory, and creative analytics, ideal for agencies managing multiple accounts.

• Simulmedia: TV+ offers cross-channel planning for larger clients; Skybeam works for smaller agencies running CTV-only buys.
  

Cost and ROI Comparison

Final Verdict: Tatari vs. Simulmedia

• Tatari is the clear choice for data-driven, ROI-focused advertisers seeking transparent pricing, real-time analytics, and performance attribution. It’s purpose-built for teams that want to treat TV like a digital channel.

• Simulmedia remains a strong option for brands prioritizing reach and scale, especially in entertainment, awareness, and cross-channel optimization contexts.