From ROAS to customer acquisition, see the 5 most important CTV metrics to track for retail success this Prime Day and holiday season.
TL;DR: Your Performance TV Success Cheat Sheet
Prime Day's coming in hot, and holiday madness isn't far behind! Time to ditch those vanity metrics and focus on what actually drives outcomes. Here are the 5 Performance TV metrics that'll make your CFO smile: ROAS (revenue per ad dollar), Incrementality (measuring real campaign impact), Cost Per Outcome (optimizing efficiency), Customer Acquisition Metrics (tracking growth and lifetime value), and Cross-Channel Attribution (capturing the complete customer journey).
Retailers, are you measuring the right CTV metrics this holiday season?
October is just a few weeks away, which means retailers are gearing up for one of the biggest shopping events of the year: Amazon Prime Day. And this is just the start of the holiday rush. According to our recent survey, 40.4% of marketers say Prime Day is a top motivator for increasing their holiday campaign budgets in 2025.
With spend ramping up, retail marketers face mounting pressure to prove that every ad dollar drives measurable outcomes. Performance TV has become a critical piece of this puzzle. Once viewed primarily as an awareness channel, CTV advertising is now firmly established in the performance marketing conversation, giving retailers the opportunity to link their ad spend directly to revenue, conversions, and customer acquisition.
But which metrics actually matter most for measuring Performance TV success in retail?
While views and impressions are important to consider, we recommend retail brands prioritize tracking the following 5 metrics to ensure your CTV campaigns deliver real business results.
1. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
When budgets are under scrutiny, ROAS is the most telling indicator of performance. It essentially shows how much revenue was generated for every dollar spent on CTV.
For retailers, ROAS carries even more weight because campaigns often span multiple channels. Measuring ROAS across both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar activity paints a more accurate picture of campaign effectiveness. For example, a CTV ad might drive online purchases directly, but it may also influence in-store traffic and sales. Without accounting for both, you risk undervaluing your efforts.
To figure out ROAS, divide campaign-attributed revenue by total ad spend. A positive ROAS means your campaign is profitable, while a negative ROAS signals the need for creative, targeting, or budget adjustments.
You can also use ROAS as a benchmark to compare CTV with other performance channels like paid social or search. This allows you to justify continued investment (or even budget shifts) based on efficiency.
2. Incrementality
Sales volume alone doesn’t tell the whole story. The key is understanding how much incremental impact your CTV campaign had in order to figure out how many purchases happened because of your ads that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Incrementality testing compares outcomes from audiences exposed to your ads with a control group that wasn’t exposed. This helps you separate genuine campaign-driven results from baseline sales that would have occurred naturally.
For retail, this distinction is especially important during high-demand periods like Prime Day or the holidays, when customers are already primed to buy. Incremental lift shows whether your CTV ads truly swayed purchase decisions, making it one of the clearest indicators of campaign influence.
Pro tip: Pair incrementality with ROAS to understand not just revenue volume, but revenue quality.
3. Cost Per Outcome (CPO)
While ROAS looks at the big picture, CPO drills into campaign efficiency. It measures how much you’re paying for each defined outcome, whether that’s a purchase, new customer acquisition, or an online/offline visit.
Retailers should tailor this metric to their unique goals. For a DTC brand, that might mean cost per first purchase. For a retailer with physical stores, it could mean cost per verified foot traffic visit. By aligning outcomes with business objectives, you can ensure your CTV spend is always tied to meaningful results.
CPO is also a scalable metric. As campaigns ramp up, tracking whether cost efficiency holds steady helps you identify the sweet spot between reach and return.
4. Customer Acquisition Metrics
Driving sales is critical, but so is understanding who you’re converting. For retail brands, measuring the balance between new versus returning customers provides crucial insight into long-term growth.
If your CTV ads are primarily driving repeat purchases, that’s valuable for retention but may not justify aggressive spend. On the other hand, if campaigns are consistently bringing in first-time buyers, they’re fueling customer base expansion — making your investment more strategic.
This is where customer acquisition metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) come into play. By tracking how efficiently CTV acquires new customers and weighing that against projected lifetime value, retailers can determine whether their campaigns are sustainable in the long run. Make sure to segment reporting by customer type (new vs. repeat) to reveal patterns in creative, targeting, or inventory performance.
5. Cross-Channel Attribution
CTV’s power lies in its ability to influence behavior across both digital and physical touchpoints. That’s why cross-channel attribution is a must-have metric for retailers.
For ecommerce-driven retailers, this means tracking whether an ad exposure leads to purchases across devices, whether it’s on desktop, mobile, or in-app. For retailers with physical stores, the focus shifts to measuring online-to-offline conversions, such as whether a customer visited a location or completed a purchase after seeing a CTV ad.
This blended view helps retailers understand the total impact of CTV rather than siloing performance into online or offline buckets. To streamline this process, look for measurement partners that offer both digital attribution and foot traffic reporting. Together, these metrics deliver the clearest picture of full-funnel impact.
Bonus: Shoppable & Interactive Engagement
CTV is evolving beyond passive viewing. Increasingly, retailers are experimenting with interactive ad formats that allow viewers to act instantly, such as scanning a QR code, downloading an app, or exploring a product via a second screen.
Tracking engagement with these formats is a forward-looking way to measure performance. While these interactions may not always result in an immediate purchase, they create a direct bridge between awareness and action. For retail brands looking to capture attention in a crowded holiday landscape, this can be a powerful differentiator.
Make tvScientific Your Measurement Partner
As Prime Day approaches and the holiday shopping season heats up, retail brands can no longer afford to measure CTV success with surface-level metrics like impressions or completion rates.
Instead, focus on these 5 metrics to ensure your campaigns are tied to the outcomes that matter most — revenue, efficiency, and long-term growth — to future-proof your CTV strategy. In a season where every dollar counts, these metrics provide the clarity you need to maximize performance and prove CTV’s role as a true driver of retail success.
tvScientific is focused on delivering radical transparency through purpose-built CTV measurement tools. Get in touch with us to see how real Performance TV attribution works.
Performance TV Metrics FAQ
Why is everyone obsessed with ROAS for CTV campaigns? Because ROAS is basically your campaign's report card. It shows exactly how much revenue you generated for every dollar spent. While your competitors are celebrating impression counts, you'll be celebrating actual profit from both online sales and foot traffic. It's the difference between feeling good and making money.
Incrementality sounds fancy. What's it actually measuring? Think of incrementality as your campaign's truth detector. It answers the million-dollar question: "Would these sales have happened anyway?" By comparing customers who saw your ads versus those who didn't, you can finally separate your campaign's real impact from coincidental purchases. Spoiler alert: the results might surprise you.
What's the deal with customer acquisition metrics for CTV? Here's the plot twist: not all customers are created equal. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) tells you how much you're paying to win new hearts, while Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) reveals if those hearts are worth winning. Always check if you're attracting fresh faces or just convincing your regulars to buy more stuff.
Why should I care about cross-channel attribution? Because your customers are channel-hoppers! They might see your CTV ad on their living room TV, research on their phone during lunch, and buy in-store on Saturday. Without cross-channel tracking, you're only seeing part of the story—and probably underestimating your CTV campaigns' true superhero powers.
