Nearly 70% of the US population uses Connected TV (CTV), and advertisers have already spent over $30 billion on it, according to the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM).
With widespread adoption and major advertising investment, CTV is here to stay. Advertising on CTV offers marketers like you the “holy grail” – TV’s reach and digital’s precision targeting. To unlock CTV’s full potential, you need marketing measurement strategies that prove ROI and drive optimization.
This guide will explore the key aspects of CTV ad measurement, from its definition and importance to ten metrics every marketer should track.
Key takeaways
- Effective CTV ad measurement requires understanding various metrics that provide insights into campaign performance and audience engagement.
- Marketers can leverage CTV measurement to optimize campaigns, improve ROI, and drive better business outcomes.
- The integration of CTV data with other marketing channels is vital for a comprehensive understanding of campaign performance.
- Clean rooms and cross-screen measurement can play a critical role in accurately measuring CTV campaign success.
What is CTV ad measurement?
Simply put, CTV ad measurement is the process of understanding how well your ads on CTV platforms are performing.
It involves analyzing the performance of those ads with actionable data – such as impressions, completion rates, and conversions. This data helps you optimize your strategies in real-time.
Why CTV ad measurement matters: CTV ad measurement provides you with the insights you need to assess campaign effectiveness, understand audience behavior, and make data-driven decisions.
How does CTV measurement work?
CTV measurement leverages advanced digital technologies to track and analyze how viewers are interacting with your CTV ads. From a high-level, it involves ad delivery, data collection, real-time analysis, audience segmentation, performance reporting, and ongoing refinement.
10 CTV metrics to measure your campaign’s success
Ask ten marketers how to measure a campaign’s success, and you’ll likely get ten different answers. In today’s data-rich environment, there’s no shortage of metrics, but which ones will help you move the needle on your campaign?
Here are ten metrics every marketer investing in CTV should keep an eye on.:
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Conversion rate
- Viewability
- Completion rate
- Reach
- Cross-screen measurement
- Frequency
- Cost per mille (CPM)
- Attribution
1. Cost per acquisition (CPA)
CPA measures the cost required to generate a specific action, such as a sale or sign-up, through a CTV campaign. It can be calculated by dividing the total campaign cost by the number of desired actions taken.
For example, if a CTV campaign cost a CPG brand $24,000 and resulted in 800 purchases, the CPA would be $30. Your CPA calculation will vary depending on industry, product, and audience, but in general, the lower the cost, the better your ad campaign is doing. Sometimes, it can be challenging to fully capture a campaign’s performance – especially if a consumer sees an ad online and later converts offline.
LiveRamp’s RampID attribution enables marketers to link CTV exposures to offline or online conversions. This lets you paint a more complete picture of campaign performance and develop deeper consumer insights.
2. Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Marketers want their investments to go as far as possible; CTV is no exception to this rule.
ROAS calculates the revenue generated for every dollar spent on CTV advertising. It is calculated by dividing revenue from advertising by the cost of advertising.
A recent MediaPost poll found that for every dollar spent, CTV’s average return on ad spend was nearly $6, almost three times higher than that of Linear TV – making it an incredible channel for marketers to get the most out of their ad spend.
3. Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of viewers who take a desired action after seeing your ad. It’s calculated by dividing the total number of CTV-certified conversions by the total number of CTV-certified visits and multiplying by 100 to arrive at the conversion percentage.
Arriving at a conversion rate can be complicated. LiveRamp helps marketers track these actions across devices and channels so that they can gain a comprehensive understanding of campaign effectiveness.
4. Viewability
Every marketer wants their target audience to see their ads. In a perfect world, this would happen every time. The reality is that a number of factors – from page position to publisher practices – can impact if the people you want to reach are actually seeing your ads.
Viewability helps you measure how effectively your ads are being watched. For video ads, the standard viewability threshold is met when at least 50% of the ad is visible for a minimum of two seconds.
LiveRamp enhances ad effectiveness by validating and filtering impressions, ensuring that only genuine, viewable ads are counted. This process helps advertisers like you optimize ad spend and improve campaign performance by focusing on what reaches their audience.
5. Completion rate
The completion rate is the percentage of viewers who watch your CTV ad in its entirety.
As with the other metrics, a good completion rate varies. However, CTV completion rates tend to skew higher – anywhere in the 90th percentile. Why? Many CTV ads are unskippable, and the engaged living room setting paired with the use of personalized ads keeps viewers watching.
LiveRamp integrates completion data into its cross-screen analytics, enabling marketers to optimize creative performance and improve campaign outcomes.
6. Reach
Reach is the total unique audience exposed to your CTV ad over a period of time. Television has long provided advertisers with large reach. CTV offers advertisers that same benefit.
RampID-powers cross-device deduplication reports that help marketers like you understand their campaign’s audience scope and adjust their strategies accordingly.
7. Incremental reach
Incremental reach takes audience measurement a step further by identifying the unique audience captured by your OTT video campaign, including those who also viewed your content through traditional linear TV. This gives you a clearer picture of your campaign’s overall impact across different viewing platforms. Cross-screen measurement from LiveRamp can help you track incremental reach.
8. Frequency
Frequency measures the average number of exposures per viewer or household. Advertising on CTV is similar to other digital platforms in that you want your audience to see your ad, but not get tired of it. It is a delicate art, and having the ability to cap and measure household-level frequency across screens helps you strike the right balance between awareness and ad fatigue.
9. Cost per mille (CPM)
CPM is the cost of serving 1,000 ad impressions on a CTV platform. Marketers like you should monitor CPM to optimize ad spending, compare the cost of different ad placements, and achieve maximum reach while controlling costs. It is another metric you can rely on to gauge the cost effectiveness of your campaign.
10. Attribution
Connected TV attribution is the process of connecting the dots between conversions and the ad that inspired the action. There are a few different ways to measure it.
View-through attribution tracks conversions that happen after someone sees your CTV ad – even if they don’t click immediately. For example, a viewer sees your ad on Tuesday, then visits your website Friday to make a purchase. This metric helps capture CTV’s influence on the full customer journey. This process is valuable, but often tedious and tricky to get right.
Multi-touch attribution accurately attributes credit to each marketing touchpoint in the customer journey that contributes to the final conversion, quantifying the value of each marketing interaction.
In the LiveRamp Clean Room, you can combine CTV with digital and offline touchpoints to get a comprehensive view of attribution.
How LiveRamp enables media publishers and retailers to accurately measure CTV campaign performance
NBCUniversal uses clean rooms for improved audience discovery
Consumers engage with brands across many different platforms; NBCU wanted to better understand their journey so that they could connect more deeply with their audience and drive more effective campaign planning.
NBCU uses LiveRamp clean rooms to match first-party data from advertisers to NBC Unified audiences, helping advertisers discover viewership patterns across their ecosystem.
Retail Media and CTV team up to for better audience targeting
By partnering in a clean room, Roku and Kroger created a data collaboration environment that seamlessly connects CTV ad impressions to retail outcomes.
This strategic partnership enabled the merging of OTT viewership data with retail loyalty card information, allowing for highly targeted CTV advertising and comprehensive measurement of in-store purchases. The result was enhanced visibility and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) visibility, enabling more informed campaign refinement and optimization.
Get started with LiveRamp’s CTV measurement solutions
In the streaming era, every marketer needs effective CTV ad measurement. By understanding these key CTV metrics and learning from the innovators leading in this space, marketers like you can optimize their campaigns, improve ROI, and better meet their audience where they are.
LiveRamp’s solutions, including clean rooms and cross-screen measurement, provide the insights needed to accurately measure CTV campaign performance.
FAQs about CTV ad measurement
How is CTV measured?
While there are many metrics you can use to track CTV ad performance, the top 10 metrics are:
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Conversion rate
- Viewability
- Completion rate
- Reach
- Cross-screen measurement
- Frequency
- Cost per mile (CPM)
- Attribution
How do I know if my CTV ads are actually being seen?
Metrics such as viewability and completion rates can help you understand how viewers are engaging with your ads. LiveRamp can also help validate and filter impressions to make sure that only genuine, viewable ads are being measured.
Why is ROAS so important for CTV campaigns?
ROAS is crucial because it provides a direct assessment of the financial effectiveness of CTV advertising efforts. By optimizing for higher ROAS, marketers make sure they are getting the most value from their ad investments.
Can I track CTV ad performance across different platforms and devices?
Yes, cross-media measurement analytics enables you to understand CTV ad performance across various platforms and devices. LiveRamp brings together data from all screens through responsible identity resolution.
What’s a good CPM for a CTV campaign?
A “good CPM” varies based on factors like ad placement, targeting, and inventory quality. They typically range between $20-40. While this may seem high compared to social channels, the premium cost reflects the value of full-screen, non-skippable ads delivered alongside content that viewers are highly invested in.