Connected TV (CTV) is no longer just a brand awareness play. Advertisers increasingly expect it to deliver measurable sales, customer acquisition, and other business outcomes, especially during the critical holiday shopping season.

"TV can be about brand awareness, but it's increasingly about driving a sale or some sort of other outcome," said our analyst Ross Benes, during a recent EMARKETER event.

With CTV ad spending growth stabilizing, the channel's next opportunity lies in proving it can influence purchases, not just reach audiences. And as marketers prepare for the holiday rush, that means reaching shoppers earlier, coordinating TV with social, and demonstrating incremental returns.

CTV is moving beyond its awareness roots

CTV advertising is no longer growing at the breakneck pace it once did. Instead, the market is expanding only slightly faster than linear TV advertising is declining, according to Benes.

But the number of brands advertising on television is increasing significantly.

MediaRadar estimates that smaller TV advertisers, those spending less than $50 million annually, are growing in number by roughly 38% per year, Benes mentioned.

"It's never been easier for a brand to get on the TV screen," he said. "The creative is easier to make. The inventory is cheaper than it used to be."

The influx of advertisers is helping accelerate CTV's evolution into a performance channel.

Brand awareness remains the leading objective for CTV campaigns, according to EMARKETER research, but performance goals are gaining ground.

"Historically, CTV was really seen as that upper funnel, a reach, frequency, and branding play," said Heather Carver, tvScientific by Pinterest’s chief customer officer, at the talk.

Now advertisers increasingly expect television campaigns to generate measurable sales, customer acquisition, and other business outcomes.

In tvScientific's holiday research, 94% of marketers said they expect performance TV to support their growth initiatives during the holiday season.

Holiday advertisers need to create demand earlier

One of CTV's biggest opportunities is influencing consumers before they have decided what to buy. According to tvScientific's research, 76% of marketers say reaching shoppers before they begin searching for or comparing products is critical.

"I think it's a lot about creating the demand and filling that upper funnel, and then watching it through like consideration and then actually conversion," Carver said.

Pinterest's intent signals offer an example of how brands can identify consumers who are still exploring their options. The platform processes approximately 80 billion monthly searches, and 96% of visual searches don't include a specific brand, according to Carver.

"People are just getting inspired and they're discovering things,” she said. “They haven't yet picked a brand.”

That creates an opportunity for advertisers to influence brand preferences before the shopping journey reaches the point of purchase.

Carver recommends using earlier shopping occasions to refine campaigns before the biggest spending periods.

"You can test how different offers perform, test different audiences, test different creatives, and take those learnings as you go into your peak spending around Black Friday, Cyber Monday," she said.

CTV and social are becoming more connected

CTV's growing performance role is also changing how advertisers coordinate campaigns across channels.

• A full 74% of marketers coordinate television with social media during holiday campaigns, according to tvScientific by Pinterest.

That approach reflects how consumers increasingly use multiple screens simultaneously.

• Some 78% are scrolling social while they're watching TV, and 69% browse online shopping, with 68% looking up products that they saw advertised, Carver said, citing the company's research.

For advertisers, those behaviors create opportunities to connect brand-building messages on television with more immediate shopping actions on social and other digital platforms.

Pinterest's acquisition of tvScientific is intended to bring the platform's intent data into CTV advertising, helping marketers reach consumers based on interests and measure subsequent outcomes.

But coordinating channels also requires a clearer understanding of what each contributes to a conversion.

Incrementality is becoming the ultimate performance test

As CTV advertisers focus more heavily on outcomes, proving that campaigns actually caused additional sales is becoming increasingly important.

"I think there's more pressure on actually just proving that your channels work right, and what actually is incremental," Carver said.

Advertisers are using marketing mix modeling (MMM), third-party measurement, and experiments to understand what would have happened without their CTV campaigns.

"We talk to our advertisers a lot about tests, whether it's geo-tests or PSA tests, so that we really help prove out that incrementality," said Carver.

Those efforts are especially important as advertisers face rising costs and pressure to justify every dollar spent.

For Carver, the starting point is defining exactly what each channel should accomplish.

"Be really, really crisp on what the KPIs are and how you're going to measure them," she recommended.

That also requires closer collaboration between advertisers and their technology partners, including sharing performance data to improve campaigns while they're running.

"The best customers and partners we have are those that share data with us," Carver said.

As CTV matures, the distinction between brand advertising and performance advertising is becoming less meaningful. The challenge for marketers is proving how television contributes to growth across the entire purchase journey.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.