Don’t Neglect the Top of the Funnel: Why CTV & DOOH Deserve Your Attention

CTV & Digital Out-Of-Home

In May of 2025, streaming surpassed cable and broadcast TV with 45% of total TV usage, according to Neilsen.

A major CTV milestone happened earlier this year: streaming surpassed cable and broadcast TV, with 45% of total TV usage in May of 2025 according to Neilsen. That represents a 70%+ increase in time spent with streaming since 2021. Even folks who have yet to “cut the cord” often still have at least one ad-supported streaming service. This means huge potential for those of us looking to reach new arts and culture audiences. The growing CTV audience, and an increasing number of streaming services to reach them, has created an ecosystem where premium placements are available at accessible CPMs and low minimum investment. CTV allows us to leverage strong audience signals to ensure we reach the right prospects, regardless of what they’re tuning in to watch. We’ll talk more about metrics below, but with CTV we’re able to track a user through to purchase with much more accuracy, giving us meaningful ROI data as well as strong reach. 

Digital Out-Of-Home is also having a real moment. Across out-of-home channels, digital made up 34% of ad spend in 2024, a nearly 8% increase from 2023. The arts are already well represented (Live Theater, Opera, Music, and Dance are in the top 10 advertising categories). Digital screens are really upping the game in terms of impact compared to traditional out-of-home strategies. DOOH campaigns offer a unique level of flexibility at a cost that makes them well worth testing. Beyond selecting the exact location you want your ads to serve, you can easily update creative to be responsive to programming changes, serve different content on different screens, and update your messaging based on time of day or even the weather. 

What awareness metrics really matter? (HINT: it’s not clicks)

Metrics across these channels do look different, and it’s important we measure them based on what they’re designed to do.

It’s time to move beyond the click, especially for your top-of-funnel campaigns. A recent study from Quantcast showed that only 0.05% of people actually click on an ad and only 1.5% of all purchases have a click in their journey to conversion. That varies of course (for search campaigns, a click is and should be the goal), but for channels like CTV and DOOH, where clicks aren’t even possible, we need to look beyond this KPI. 

Brand lift studies are one way marketers have measured the impact of CTV, DOOH, and other awareness channels. These are often cost prohibitive and thus only available to large brands–but we in the arts and culture space can take those learnings! One such finding: a recent study from eMarketer showed DOOH in particular outperforms other digital channels in terms of ad recall, with DOOH having a 13% ad recall, compared to 4% for other digital channels. That trend continued for purchase intent as well, where DOOH had the highest reported impact on purchase intent at 10%, with digital landing just south of 2%.

For ad recall, don’t dismiss DOOH: it has 13% recall, compared to 4% for other digital channels according, to eMarketer.

In the meantime, in assessing the performance of your awareness campaigns, our best advice is to embrace the mix. Running other campaigns alongside awareness channels allow you to capture intent and drive conversions. This might look like retargeting banners that accompany a CTV campaign to serve as an additional touchpoint for audiences who were served your ad, or ensuring you have a robust search campaign in place during your Out-Of-Home flights. With these tactics, you can be sure to show up in the moments when a potential visitor is Googling your organization because of the ad they just saw on their way to the train.

Ready to “feed the funnel” but not sure how to make it happen?

There are two primary considerations for exploring the awareness channels mentioned above: content and budget. 

For DOOH, content can often mirror a digital banner ad in design, though you might want to consider adding a QR code for additional tracking. If you want to take it to the next level you could consider offering different messaging based on the screen location (think “our venue is a short train-ride away” running on screens in a local transit hub). 

CTV content can be a larger lift, but if you’re creating videos for YouTube or running on your local cable station, then you likely already have content that is well suited to CTV. Voiceover is key for CTV, as that allows your ad to have an impact, even when someone isn’t glued to their screen.

Budgeting for these efforts does require planning, but we’d argue that expanding digital efforts beyond Meta and Google is becoming an imperative, not just a “nice to have.” CTV and DOOH offer more flexibility than their traditional print and broadcast counterparts. Campaign minimums are lower, as are most CPMs. This might be a controversial statement…but I’d argue that it might be time to think about pulling spend from more mid- and bottom-of-funnel channels if that allows you to invest in top-of-funnel efforts. Your superfans may love you, but they can only do (and buy!) so much. 

Ready to expand your funnel and capture new audiences?

Let’s talk about how CTV and DOOH can supercharge your awareness strategy and set you up for long-term success.