How to assess CTV’s impact on other ad channels

Measuring the value of connected TV (CTV) isn’t always straightforward — especially without complex analytics. While it can sometimes drive a clear boost in conversions and revenue, that’s rarely where its biggest impact shows up in marketing campaigns.

CTV’s real influence lies in how it enhances other channels within your marketing mix. This article will discuss how to track CTV’s impact effectively. It will tackle:

• Best practices for accurate measurement.
• KPIs and tests to assess CTV’s effect on paid search, SEO and paid social.
• Methods for measuring CTV’s impact on offline/brick-and-mortar conversions.
• Common mistakes to avoid when analyzing and reporting CTV’s impact.

While martech platforms like Rockerbox and Northbeam can provide robust insights into CTV’s incrementality and support future budgeting decisions, there are still effective ways to measure its impact independently.

Best practices for accurate CTV measurement

My basis for measuring CTV’s impact on other channels is a good old geo holdout test, with similar geos selected for test and control audiences. Make sure you’re using a reliable source for your tests — within GA4, you can specify cities or regions (in the U.S., “region” = state).

For the holdout, double-check that your segments are good and you’ve selected similar enough geos that aren’t affected by things like seasonal events or other external factors. For instance, if you’re a running shoe company, you wouldn’t use Cincinnati in an early May holdout test that coincided with the Flying Pig Marathon.

Beyond that, make sure you’re allotting enough time and budget to get directional findings at worst and statistically significant findings at best. With that framework in place, it’s time to measure impact.

Dig deeper: Why we care about connected TV and OTT advertising

Assessing CTV’s impact on other digital channels

Whether it’s paid search, SEO or paid social, CTV translates well into the KPIs of the channels it impacts. 

• For paid search and SEO, use your holdout test to get deltas in CTV, CVR, direct traffic, unique user acquisition and brand/product search. 
• For Meta, TikTok and other social channels, similar metrics (minus the search) apply. Still, it’s ideal to add brand lift as a KPI in focus and run “How did you hear about us” surveys in test markets for an extra layer of data.

How to measure CTV’s impact on offline/brick-and-mortar business

This is a big and often overlooked measurement initiative for local CTV ads and CTV ads for brands with national franchises: how does CTV impact offline growth? Often, this boils down to key metrics, such as in-store traffic, service phone calls and sales. 

For tracking purposes, use special CTV-specific codes, URLs and phone numbers and/or include QR codes in your CTV ads. But don’t rely just on those. Make sure you know your baseline for in-store traffic, phone call volume and sales. Measure the pre- and post-CTV ad numbers. 

This is a good segue into the next section: give your CTV ads enough time and money to bear fruit. If you’re only spending $200 over the course of a weekend, you won’t see much data, but if your measurement systems are set up to capture, say, the impact of a $15,000 CTV buy in Cleveland over a few weeks, you’ll have more to work with.

Dig deeper: 7 barriers advertisers need to overcome to grow CTV

Mistakes to avoid in measuring CTV’s overall impact

Time and again, no matter how often or loudly I and other CTV marketers emphasize the point, I hear from brand marketers who say they’ve “tested CTV” but weren’t convinced of its value.

More often than not, those “tests” turn out to be brief, two-week trials with minimal budget and unrealistic expectations that couldn’t be met. (In other words, marketers got excited about seeing their brand on TV and just expected a spike in direct traffic and sales.)

Beyond those misalignments (which I hope this column has helped address), I’ve seen inconsistencies with messaging from CTV to websites — and from local CTV ads to brick-and-mortar locations. Imagine seeing a CTV ad for a flashy, fancy gym with all the space in the world and walking in to find dirt, grime, poor lighting and every elliptical machine out of order — all you’ve done is spend to create a frustrating customer experience. 

Similar to any ad-to-landing page experience, make sure the experience lines up in real life where needed. Without that, even the best CTV ad will fall short in the value column.

Concluding thoughts

Over a third of advertisers are shifting budgets toward performance-based campaigns due to concerns about the Trump administration’s pending tariffs. According to a recent IAB report, 12% specifically plan to cut budgets from CTV.

Although CTV budgets in that report look relatively unscathed (far more advertisers plan to cut channels like linear TV, traditional media, paid social and programmatic), any planned cuts to the channel in favor of a performance-focused budget would be a mistake.

Yes, this is coming from the CEO of a CTV-oriented business. Still, in my experience, brands running strategic and thoughtfully measured CTV campaigns see differentiated, incremental returns from its lift on other channels. Maintaining CTV budgets can have a huge and positive effect on performance advertising — assuming you know how to measure it.

Dig deeper: How to set up and measure CTV ad campaigns