SAN JUAN, PR – Connected TV advertising is providing a sweet spot for brands in the early stages of building awareness, offering them the benefits of television with the precision of digital.
The medium gives marketers the opportunity to know exactly who they’re reaching, while also placing messages in a more premium environment than standard digital channels.
“You’re elevating your brand, which helps with awareness and establishing yourself in the hearts and minds of consumers,” said Meghan Reynolds, senior director of paid media and growth at ŌURA, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
Measurability matters for growth
OURA is a technology company known for its smart ring, which tracks various health metrics such as sleep quality, heart rate, and activity levels. The ring syncs with a smartphone app, providing users with data and insights into their wellness. The company’s storytelling centers on health and lifestyle improvement.
For brands allocating budget across various channels, Reynolds emphasizes that measurability should be a primary consideration – especially for companies still establishing themselves in the marketplace.
“I’m always going to come back to measurability because if you’re an early-stage brand, you want to be able to prove out that this media, these channels, are working for you so that you can continuously get more budget,” Reynolds said.
Upper-funnel effectiveness
CTV ad spending in the U.S. is projected to reach $33.35 billion in 2025, marking a 15.8% increase from the previous year, according to eMarketer’s December 2024 report.
When it comes to measuring CTV’s impact on brand awareness objectives, Reynolds recommends specific methodologies that align with business goals.
“I love using CTV for upper funnel. The methodologies that I would recommend brands use are brand lift studies,” Reynolds said. “Even an incrementality test can still help you because it should be showing you the incremental people that purchased and you converted through CTV media.”
She advises ensuring that brand lift study questions match a company’s OKRs or goals, “whether it’s aided, unaided, potentially consideration, or intent to purchase.”
The incrementality advantage
One significant advantage CTV offers over traditional linear television is the ability to run incrementality testing more efficiently and cost-effectively.
“It’s really tough to run it literally on linear TV because you have to buy local. And going in and buying very local TV spots is pretty laborious for your agency or your internal team,” Reynolds said.
The ability to measure incremental lift provides tangible metrics that can help justify marketing investments to financial stakeholders – a crucial consideration for growing companies like ŌURA, which recently announced surpassing 2.5 million rings sold.
“When you’re running incrementality tests with CTV, you’re basically saying, because I’m running this media, these are how many more people bought my product,” she explained. “And then you could directionally apply that to TV to show, so then it’s a little bit more of a non-fluffy metric for your finance team.”
You’re watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2025, presented by Cognitiv, Index Exchange & TransUnion. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
