As Connected TV (CTV) has evolved into a core performance channel, marketers have gained access to more measurement data than ever before. The challenge is that more data hasn’t necessarily created more certainty.
A single conversion can be credited to multiple platforms, campaigns, and touchpoints at the same time, making it difficult to determine what influenced a customer’s decision to purchase.
That’s why many marketers are shifting their focus from attribution to incrementality. Attribution identifies the touchpoints along the path to conversion. Incrementality measures whether a campaign generated outcomes that would not have occurred otherwise.
During PebblePost’s recent AdExchanger webinar, Proving CTV Performance Under Executive Scrutiny, Melissa Racklin, SVP of Growth, and Amit Nigam, SVP of Product, discussed why that distinction is becoming increasingly important as CTV investment grows and executive teams demand greater accountability from marketing.
Click to watch the full webinar on demand.
Here are four takeaways from the conversation.
More Investment Brings More Scrutiny
For years, CTV was viewed as an emerging channel. Success was often measured by metrics such as reach, impressions, completed views, and platform-reported performance.
Today, CTV is a significant line item in many media budgets, making it increasingly subject to the same level of financial scrutiny as search, social, and other established performance channels.
As Melissa noted during the webinar:
“The more money you spend, the more questions you’re going to get asked.”
Those questions are increasingly coming from executives, finance teams, and boards looking for a clear understanding of marketing’s contribution to revenue. As a result, marketers are being asked to move beyond reporting campaign activity and demonstrate business impact.
The CTV Attribution Challenge
One of the most discussed challenges during the webinar was the growing complexity of attribution in a fragmented media environment.
As Amit pointed out:
“If five platforms are all claiming credit for the same conversion, who actually drove the sale?”
It’s a scenario most marketers recognize. A consumer sees a CTV ad, later clicks a paid search ad, receives an email promotion, and eventually makes a purchase. Multiple platforms can legitimately point to that conversion and claim some level of influence.
Attribution is valuable because it helps marketers understand the customer journey and identify the touchpoints that preceded a conversion. What attribution cannot reliably answer is whether a particular touchpoint changed the outcome.
Many brands are now trying to close that gap.
Why Incrementality Is Gaining Momentum
Incrementality approaches measurement from a different angle.
Instead of asking which channel received credit for a conversion, incrementality asks whether the conversion would have happened without the campaign.
A customer converting after exposure to an ad does not necessarily mean the ad caused the conversion. Some customers may have purchased anyway. Others may have been persuaded to take action specifically because they saw the campaign.
Understanding the difference is critical when making budget decisions.
As Amit explained during the discussion:
“Attribution tells you what happened. Incrementality helps you understand what would have happened if the campaign never existed.”
That distinction is one reason incrementality testing has become a growing area of focus for performance marketers. The goal is to better understand which investments are creating new business outcomes and which are primarily capturing demand that already exists.
In under a minute, PebblePost CRO Will Harrington explains how marketers can move beyond vanity metrics in CTV and focus on what truly matters: incremental revenue impact.
Measurement Should Inform the Next Decision
One of the strongest themes throughout the webinar was that measurement should be useful for decision-making, not just reporting.
Knowing that a campaign generated conversions is helpful. Understanding whether those conversions were incremental enables marketers to make more informed decisions about future investment.
When marketers can measure incremental lift, they gain a clearer view of which audiences, channels, and strategies are contributing to business growth. That information can then be used to evaluate media partners, compare campaign approaches, and determine where additional budget is likely to have the greatest impact.
The conversation around CTV measurement is increasingly moving in this direction. Marketers aren’t looking for more dashboards. They’re looking for greater confidence in the decisions those dashboards inform.
Looking Ahead
Most marketers already have access to more CTV reporting than they can reasonably consume.
The challenge is determining which results represent genuine business impact.
As investment in CTV continues to grow, marketers will face increasing pressure to distinguish between conversions that occurred alongside advertising and those that occurred because of it.
That’s why the conversation around incrementality has become so important. It’s helping marketers answer a question that attribution alone was never designed to solve: what measurable impact did this campaign have on business outcomes?
Want to dive deeper into the discussion? Watch the on-demand webinar, Proving CTV Performance Under Executive Scrutiny, to hear Melissa and Amit explore the evolving relationship between attribution, incrementality, and CTV measurement.
