When performance stalls, smart marketers look to CTV

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By now, most growth marketers have had that meeting. The one where results are flat, even though you’ve optimized everything in sight. The creative’s been tested to death. Targeting is sharp. Budgets are balanced. But still, there is no lift.

It’s not your team. It’s the channels.

Social and search have carried the performance playbook for more than a decade. But they’ve hit their ceiling. The auctions are overcrowded. The costs keep rising. And the scroll speed is faster than your creative can catch. Everyone’s bidding on the same users and using the same strategies.

Performance marketing isn’t broken, however, it’s evolving. Increasingly, that change is playing out on a much bigger screen.

When everyone’s optimized, optimization isn’t enough

We’ve been conditioned to believe that performance only happens inside so-called “performance channels.” But that idea no longer fits the way people engage or the way modern campaigns are built. Today, performance isn’t defined by where your ads run; it’s defined by what they drive.

That’s the real shift underway inside high-growth marketing teams. They’re rethinking the fundamentals and asking where they can reach net-new audiences rather than retargeting the same ones. They also need to find people who are actually paying attention, and not just scrolling past. These questions are reshaping strategies and expanding the performance conversation beyond the usual phone screens and feeds.

“Social and search have been incredibly effective for a long time, but they’re starting to hit limits,” said Justin Fromm, Head of Insights & Thought Leadership at Samsung Ads.

AI is having a real impact on search, for example. One Pew Research study showed that when an AI summary appears at the top of search results, people are 50% less likely to click on anything else on the page.

“Social, meanwhile, lives inside walled gardens where platforms grade their own homework,” said Fromm. “You have to trust their reporting, and niche audiences can get maxed out quickly. When that happens, finding the next wave of customers is tough.”

That is why companies that scale beyond their initial niche eventually turn to brand advertising – they need a broader reach. “That’s where television, with its reach and trust, becomes a powerful complement,” said Fromm.

Connected TV: From brand play to growth driver

CTV has historically been used as a pure branding tool. It’s always been great for reach, but was viewed as fuzzy on results. The skepticism made sense in the early days, but consumer behavior – and the tech – have changed.

When people see a compelling ad on TV today, they don’t just sit back. They pick up their phone, search, install, and even buy. CTV has moved from a passive experience to an interactive journey.

In a study of 1,000 smart TV users, 83% reported that they use their TV for more than just watching shows – and among 25-34 year-olds, that increases to more than 95%. Gaming is big, but people are also using fitness apps, art displays, and all kinds of interactive experiences.

“This matters because diversity of data helps us predict behavior,” said Fromm. “Viewing habits can get you partway there, but when someone actually uses a fitness app on their TV, that’s a much stronger signal.”

With Samsung’s Tizen OS, advertisers can deliver personalized ads, track campaign performance, and see the customer journey from end to end. Because the company owns the screen where the ad plays and the screen where the user takes action, Samsung can connect exposure to outcome both in real time and across devices. For advertisers, it means TV finally works like digital: accountable, precise, and built for scale.

Performance isn’t gone – it’s moved.

Samsung Ads’ Mobile Conversion solution is changing the performance game. It ties CTV ad exposure to lower-funnel outcomes like site visits, app installs, and purchases, all while using Samsung’s first-party, real-time data. So it doesn’t need modeled assumptions or stitched-together signals. You know what someone watched. Then you see what they did next.

No guesswork. No lag. Just verified performance.

It reframes CTV not as a top-of-funnel tool, but as a performance channel with real attribution and real impact. For growth marketers, it delivers the kind of feedback loop that’s missing from linear TV and increasingly elusive in social or search.

“CTV has always been able to sell – think QVC or direct response – but it wasn’t efficient,” said Fromm. “With targeting and ad optimization, we can be much more precise.”

For performance marketers, that means measurable ROI – cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, installs – just like they expect from digital. But the bigger point is flexibility. “Every brand has different KPIs, and we work with them to hit those specific goals, whether they’re in gaming, retail, QSR, or another category,” said Fromm.

Another plus? No full-stack rebuild required. Samsung Ads’ Mobile Conversion solution integrates with your brand’s existing performance setup to extend your reach, save you time, and unlock a fresh layer of measurable outcomes.

CTV is core to the modern performance stack

The future of performance isn’t about wringing one more conversion out of a crowded social or search feed. It’s about finding attention in new places and turning it into action in new ways.

CTV isn’t just an add-on to your growth stack. It’s the engine that powers your next wave of performance.

With Mobile Conversion, your brand can test, learn, and scale campaigns in weeks, not months. And you can easily quantify the value it drives. “That makes it a central piece of the performance marketing puzzle,” said Fromm. “True performance is full-funnel that drives short-term actions while building long-term brand equity. CTV is uniquely positioned to do both.”

So if your results in social and search are stalling, shift the screen to change the outcome. Reimagine where performance can happen and turn your biggest screen into your top-performing channel. Connect with us today.

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