Wellness brand improves CTV ROAS by 50%
CTV can perform like a direct-response channel—when the creative is built for it
The right creative format changes what CTV can do for an e-commerce business.
Strong product, underperforming creative
The brand's first CTV flight used a beautifully produced brand commercial—visually strong, but without a clear call to action. For a performance-first e-commerce business, brand awareness without a path to conversion is a budget problem. Flight 1 confirmed the channel could reach the right audience. It had not yet proven it could convert them. Brand creative drove awareness but lacked a direct conversion path, and the initial audience mix included segments that did not generate checkout activity.
Diagnose, adapt, and relaunch with new creative
The team repurposed existing social video content into direct-response CTV ads with embedded QR codes. Simultaneously, underperforming audience segments were removed and budget was reallocated to segments that had shown conversion activity. Flight 2 applied both changes at once, making the second campaign a structured test of what optimization could deliver.
Flight 2 proved the optimization model worked
The second flight delivered materially stronger ROAS than the first—approximately 50% improvement—moving the campaign toward profitability. More importantly, it confirmed a repeatable process: test creative formats, read conversion signals, eliminate waste, and scale what works. The brand now has a defensible CTV investment model. Website visits attributed to CTV reached 28,190 across both flights, and social-style direct-response creative outperformed the brand awareness format on conversion rate.
