How To Use CTV To Lower Cost-Per-Lead Across Paid Search

It’s possible to use connected TV advertising (CTV) to lower paid search cost-per-lead (CPL) by investing in it as a high-impact awareness tool. It can be used to improve branded search volume and to retarget viewers who have shown an interest in your brand in the past, whether they were past buyers or simply showed interest. 

The goal with CTV is to improve brand familiarity, which can help lower the cost-per-click (CPC) and improve conversion rates by making your brand a go-to for solutions that only you can offer the audience. And it does work — in a survey from Advertiser Perceptions, 41% of marketers stated that CTV helped them meet brand awareness and performance objectives. 

That said, fragmentation is a challenge, and almost 40% of marketers said that CTV measurement is difficult. But, instead of thinking of CTV as a top-funnel awareness tactic, today, it’s important that marketers see it as a performance amplifier. As audiences grow and deterministic household data improves, you’ll find that using CTV doesn’t just help build brand awareness and trust, but also helps you save money on your paid search campaigns. 

CTV: Not Just an Awareness Channel

CTV hasn’t always been a top choice for marketers, as it was hard to track individual click-through rates. However, with smart televisions and ads, it has become much simpler to identify interactions, and that data has made all the difference.

Now, you’re able to see not only how consumers interact with the ad itself, but also what they search for. They might scan a QR code or see the ad and pull out their phone to search for your brand name. They could click on a paid search ad at that point.

If you’re not tracking this well, you could falsely attribute all the credit to the final click, but the reality is that creating brand recognition with CTV often drives the demand that search later captures.

How Streaming Exposure Changes Response Rates

Streaming TV has made a huge impact on marketing. It reaches people in more ways than just in front of a television — it can be influential on smartphones, tablets, and computers as well. 

When your ad runs in this way, there is a psychological change among the audience. Users become more familiar with your brand, even if they’ve never used your products. And, with repeated exposure, they may develop trust or even a preference for your brand over another. 

That means that they’re more likely to convert when they do eventually go to your website, and they may even be less price-sensitive or likely to compare your products or services to others. 

That’s why search performance often improves with the introduction of CTV, even if you don’t change anything about your creatives, keywords, or bids. 

Where Marketers Go Wrong With CTV Measurement

Measuring CTV is the next challenge, and many marketers push back against it because they try to measure it like a paid search campaign. That’s the wrong approach — CTV attribution has to be assessed differently. 

Instead, remember that CTV is rarely going to produce the last click in a conversion. It shouldn’t be judged that way. Rather, it should be measured by what happens after the audience is exposed to the ad campaign. For example, you may see an uptick in branded search volume or that your retargeting pool has grown by a substantial number of users. As a support, this is CTV’s role. 

Signals That CTV Is Working To Improve Downstream Efficiency

Knowing whether CTV is working correctly requires you to look at indirect performance signals. You’ll want to identify if:

-There is an uptick in branded search queries after the CTV ad launch
-You’re seeing faster time-to-conversion rates for new users
-You’re seeing higher conversion rates from retargeted users
-There is an increase in click-through rates via paid search

If you already have a consistent and stable paid search performance and want to capture additional demand, or if you want to make your brand a more common household name, then CTV can be the right choice for you. Remember, though, that CTV shouldn’t be seen as a branding expense alone — it is there to boost performance, familiarity, and trust among your target audiences.

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