Display And Video Are The First Budgets Cut, Because They Are The Hardest To Prove
So We Settle The Measurement First
Six Ways To Say Display Worked, Ranked From Weakest To Strongest
- 1Impressions And Reach. Not Evidence.
These describe delivery. A campaign can deliver perfectly to people who were never going to buy. Useful for checking a campaign is alive, useless for deciding whether to keep funding it.
- 2View Through Conversions. Barely Evidence.
Someone saw the ad, did not click, and bought later. The platform claims it. No report can separate an advert that changed a decision from one that merely preceded it. Treat it as a hint, never as a number to defend a budget with.
- 3Last Click Attribution. Evidence Of The Wrong Thing.
Display and video almost never take the last click, so this makes them look worthless. It is as misleading in one direction as view through is in the other.
- 4Data Driven Attribution. Better, And Still Modelled.
The platform distributes credit across touchpoints using its own model, which it does not show you and which cannot see anything outside its own inventory. Directionally useful. Not proof.
- 5Brand Lift Or Search Lift. Real, Within Limits.
A controlled study run by the platform, comparing exposed people against unexposed people. It does measure something real. It needs enough impressions to reach significance, and below that threshold it returns inconclusive and you have paid for nothing.
- 6Geo Holdout Or Incrementality Test. Actual Proof.
Take a matched group of regions or audiences, show them nothing, and compare against everyone else. It is the only method on this list that answers the real question. It costs reach on purpose, which is why so few agencies suggest it.
Where Does Your Current Reporting Sit?
Four Channels, What Each One Is Actually For, And Where The Budget Floor Sits
| Channel | Bought on | Realistic monthly floor | What it is good at | How it gets read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | Google Ads, Microsoft Ads | Modest. It is the cheapest way in and the easiest to waste | Staying present through a long consideration cycle, and supporting search demand you already have | Geo holdout, or search volume lift on your brand terms |
| YouTube | Google Ads, as a campaign type | Low to moderate, and it needs enough runway to leave the learning phase | Explaining something a static image cannot, and reaching people on a television | Completion and view rate early, then a brand lift study once impressions allow one |
| Connected TV | Google Ads, YouTube and Google living room placements | The highest floor of the four, and the one most often ignored | Reach in the room where television gets watched, at frequency you control | Geo holdout. Anything else at this spend is guesswork |
| Retargeting | Google Ads, Meta | The lowest floor, and the easiest to over spend | Bringing back people who already showed intent, and finishing carts | A holdout group. Without one the reported numbers will be wrong and flattering |
Not Sure Which Row You Belong In?
What Is Display And Video Advertising?
The practical difference from search is intent. Search reaches people already looking. Display and video reach people who are not. So they get used for awareness, for staying present during a long decision, and for bringing back visitors who left. It also explains why they need different measurement. Komplex runs this from Austin, Texas, alongside paid search and paid social, with one senior lead across all of it.
Display And Video For Ecommerce, B2B And Software, Home And Kitchen, And Local Brands
Agree The Proof, Plan, Buy, Read, Decide
-
Agree The Proof
What will count as evidence at your budget, decided before anything is built. If the honest answer is that nothing will prove it at this spend, we say that now.
-
Plan
Channel, audience, format, and frequency, built backwards from the measurement rather than forwards from the inventory available.
-
Buy
Campaigns built manually, with exclusions, placement lists, and capping set at launch. Automated campaign types are used where they earn it and never as the default.
-
Read
Monthly, against the standard agreed in stage one. Delivery metrics are reported because you asked, not because they are the answer.
-
Decide
Scale it, change it, or stop it. A channel that cannot show a result after a fair run should be turned off. Expect us to raise that before you do.
See What The Current Spend Is Buying
Get A Free Display And Video Review
- Where the ads are actually appearing
- Placement and app exclusion gaps
- Audience overlap and segmentation
- Frequency and suppression
- What the current reporting can and cannot claim
- Whether the budget clears the floor
- 1Tell us what you are running
The website, the channels in play, roughly what you spend a month, and the outcome you want.
- 2We look
Read only access to the ad accounts and analytics goes deepest. Nothing gets changed, and an NDA is available on request.
- 3You get the scorecard and a call
A written scorecard ranked by impact, then a call to walk through it.
Ready To Find Out What The Spend Is Really Doing?
How We Price Display And Video Work
What Clients Say About Working With Komplex
The Komplex team helped us reach new audiences and drive higher conversions.
Strategies that delivered results beyond our expectations.
Their expertise helped us scale efficiently, attract more customers, and drive measurable growth.
Komplex played a key role in growing our user base and optimizing our marketing efforts.
Common Questions About Display And Video Advertising
What is display and video advertising?
Display means paid image and banner placements on websites and apps. Video means paid video placements, mostly on YouTube and connected television. Both are bought at auction through advertising platforms rather than negotiated with publishers one at a time. These channels reach people who are not currently looking for you. That is the point of them, and the reason they need different measurement.
Where do the ads actually run?
The Google Display Network, which covers a very large number of websites and apps. YouTube, including on televisions. Google’s connected TV placements. The Microsoft Audience Network. And Meta for retargeting. We publish placement reports and maintain exclusion lists, so you can see where the money went rather than trusting that it went somewhere sensible.
What is the minimum budget to start?
It depends on the channel and the answer varies more than most agencies admit. Retargeting can work on a small budget because the audience is small and warm. Connected TV has a real floor and below it you are buying reach nobody can measure. The channel map above gives the honest ordering, and the free review tells you which row your budget puts you in.
How do you prove display and video are working?
By agreeing the standard before we spend. At smaller budgets that means a geo holdout: run the campaign in some regions and not others, then compare. At larger budgets a platform brand lift study becomes available. The strongest method is an incrementality test, which costs reach deliberately in exchange for an answer. We tell you which is affordable at your spend before we build anything.
Do view through conversions count?
They are a hint, not a number to defend a budget with. A view through conversion counts anyone who saw an ad, did not click, and later converted. It cannot separate people the ad influenced from people who were coming anyway, and on retargeting that second group is usually the majority. We report them because they appear in the platform anyway. We do not build a case on them.
What is the difference between display and programmatic?
Display is the format, meaning image and banner placements. The second word describes how they are bought. An automated auction prices each impression in real time, rather than a deal negotiated with a publisher. Almost all display is bought that way now, so people use the two words interchangeably even though they describe different things.
Do you produce the video?
We edit footage you already own into ad ready cuts. Where new material is needed, we brief it and direct a contract editor. No studio sits behind us and we shoot no original footage. Plenty of YouTube and connected TV campaigns run on material a company already has. We will tell you whether yours is one of them.
Who runs my account?
One senior lead owns the strategy, the buying, the creative direction, and the reporting, and stays on the account. You are not handed to a junior after the pitch and you will not be introduced to people you never speak to again. Editing work goes to a small group of contract editors, directed by that lead.
How is this different from paid search?
Search reaches people already looking for what you sell, and it is measured by the click that follows. These channels reach people who are not looking yet, which means a different job and a different standard of proof. Most accounts run both. Our paid search work and this share one lead, so the two get planned together rather than argued about.
How is this different from paid social?
Vertical, in feed video on Meta, TikTok, and the rest is paid social and lives there. This cluster covers display placements, in stream video on YouTube, and connected television. The one overlap is retargeting, which runs across Google and Meta, and our retargeting page says so plainly rather than pretending the line is clean.
What do you do about ad fraud and low quality sites?
Exclusion lists that get maintained, placement reports reviewed monthly, and category exclusions set at launch. Campaigns stay off inventory that exists mainly to carry advertising. Invalid traffic is a real cost across this whole category, and the honest answer is that you reduce it rather than eliminate it. Anyone promising otherwise is guessing.
Which industries does this suit?
Anything with a considered purchase, a long decision, or a product that needs showing rather than describing. It suits ecommerce, software, home and kitchen, and multi location brands well. It suits emergency services and pure commodity purchases poorly, because those buyers search when they need you and stop existing when they do not.
How long before we see anything?
Delivery data arrives immediately and means very little. A fair read needs enough runway for the campaigns to leave learning and enough volume for the measurement to say something. We agree that window at the start and put a date on it. Nobody ends up judging a channel too early or funding it out of habit.
Do you work with companies outside Austin, Texas?
Yes. Komplex is based in Austin with a presence in New York City and Reykjavik, and media buying happens remotely by nature. Campaigns in more than one country get the audience and measurement planned per market at the start. Geography is also how the holdout gets built.
What We Run Alongside Display And Video
Paid Search Management
The demand that already exists. These channels create the searches that paid search then has to be waiting for.
Paid Social Management
Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and everything adjacent. Vertical feed video is a separate discipline and it belongs on that page.
Conversion Rate Optimization
We drive the click. CRO decides whether the page it lands on does anything with it.
Affiliate Marketing
Partners paid on outcome. Worth understanding alongside display, since both can end up claiming the same sale.
SEO Services
The traffic you do not pay for per click. Slower to build and much cheaper to keep.
Email Marketing
What happens after someone converts, and the list that makes retargeting cheaper by giving it something to match against.