Sales Effect: Proving the Measurable Impact of Publisher Ad Products

By Peter Topol, VP, Advanced TV Partnerships

With the rise of ad-supported plans on connected and streaming TV, commercial spots are becoming a regular part of the advanced TV viewing experience – and a key ingredient in many consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertising campaigns.

It's important to remember the ad experience isn't quite the same as what viewers are used to with traditional linear TV. 

Why isn’t it the same? Well, for one thing, viewers can…

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We were talking about how the ad experience is different on streaming and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Publishers offer a variety of ad products designed to help brands break through the clutter. Those options include an ad that appears when viewers press pause (see what we did there?) or one that includes both video and an action-oriented prompt. Program integrations or branded sponsorships can include interactive features like QR codes, offering viewers a direct way to learn more about the brand's product or shop. 

The bottom line: It’s a richer, more dynamic experience. Publisher ad products offer an opportunity to put the brand front and center, and they’re designed to amplify the brand’s own creative. 

Of course, before signing onto this approach, advertisers will want to know: How effective are publisher ad products? What impact do they have on incremental sales, especially if brands air their own creative alongside it? Is there a measurable impact?

Just like CPG brands can use sales lift studies (or, as we call them at NCS: Sales Effect studies) to understand if their creative is working, publishers can also use sales lift studies to prove the value of the ad products they create for their platform. 

One component of these studies is particularly useful for answering our question above: ad decomposition. After getting a full read of the campaign, publishers can drill down into specific tactics of a campaign and see the relative impact of each on overall sales lift. Ad decomps can be used for evaluating and comparing different target audiences, different ad formats, different creative, different publisher platforms and more. The findings can isolate the impact an individual tactic has on driving incremental sales or show the potential synergistic impact with other tactics. 

Let’s see how this works in practice. We looked at 11 different CPG campaigns to understand the benefits of combining the advertiser's commercial schedule with publisher-created content. Analyzing the ad format enables us to isolate the sales impact based on viewers who only saw the brand’s regular video ad and compare it to the effect of the audience who saw both. 

Looking at the average of these 11 campaigns, we discovered a clear winning strategy is to pair a publisher ad product with the brand’s creative. For instance, on average, a strategy using both formats resulted in:

• 90% more incremental sales per household than the advertiser's commercial alone 
• 76% higher sales lift than the advertiser's commercial alone

For these campaigns, our study proved doubling down and investing in both types of ads on the publisher’s platform seriously amplified the brand's presence, compared to just running a regular commercial on its own. When viewers see the publisher’s ad in addition to the brand’s commercial, it makes the product more memorable. Brands gain a bigger sales lift than if they’d only aired their own advertising.  

Why This Matters for Publishers

A Sales Effect study not only helps advertisers understand if a campaign is successful. It also helps publishers prove their ad products contribute to incremental sales and advertisers see the true value of elevating their media buy with publisher ad products. With the ability to measure the individual elements of a campaign, publishers have the proof points they need to show why investing in their ad products is a smart addition to any CPG campaign. That’s why, for publishers and advertisers, Sales Effect studies are pure gold. 

Want to take a deeper dive into why sales lift studies matter? Check out our guide about how to measure your advertising effectiveness.