When CTV, FAST & Retail Collide: New Paths to Full-Funnel Impact (Skepticism Included).
- Origin
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
The convergence of CTV, FAST channels, and retail media networks (RMNs) isn’t just a trend. It’s fast becoming a staple in the marketer’s toolkit - especially as brands chase full-funnel performance in a world where audiences fragment and privacy regimes evolve.
But with growing interest comes healthy skepticism. Recent industry conversations highlight that many measurement frameworks - especially in retail media - still leave advertisers questioning (possibly even doubting) true incremental value. A recent opinion piece, for example, points out that more than half of senior retail media executives express low confidence that current metrics actually capture incremental impact.
That kind of honesty is valuable. Fixating on measurement shortcomings isn’t productive - but acknowledging them is the first step toward better outcomes. With that context in mind, here are three ways brands and planners should think about the intersection of CTV, FAST, and retail media to drive real performance.
Use CTV to Bridge the Funnel - But Don’t Treat It Like Linear TV
CTV isn’t simply “digital TV.” It’s a measurable medium where upper-funnel attention and mid-to-lower-funnel actions can be connected. With connected screens, marketers can integrate first-party audience signals from retail ecosystems into CTV targeting and optimization frameworks - giving brands a clearer picture of who saw the ad and how they behaved afterward.
This matters because today’s MMM approaches often still treat channels in silos. If retail media and CTV appear under different buckets in modeling, you can miss their combined effect on outcomes like category lift or in-store conversion. Smarter planners are starting to feed unified exposure and outcome data into models to better credit CTV’s full funnel role - not just its upper-funnel reach.
Retail Media Measurement Critics Aren’t Wrong - But They’re Incomplete
Critics of retail media measurement often point to inconsistent standards, lack of cross-network comparability, and inflated ROAS signals that don’t prove incremental success. These aren’t trivial concerns. Fragmented KPIs and opaque attribution can make it hard for brands to trust the data.
But here’s the nuance: third-party measurement partners (including those Origin works with, like NCS and InMarket) emphasize incrementality and closed-loop validation precisely to address these gaps. Rather than simply counting exposure or attributing outcomes to last touch, these partners design experiments and matched market tests that disentangle advertising impact from background demand - giving brands more defensible insights.
The criticism isn’t “measurement doesn’t matter.” It’s that measurement should be transparent, incremental, and comparable - and that’s exactly what modern retail + CTV measurement frameworks aim to deliver.
FAST & Cross-Channel Synergies Redefine Creative & Frequency
When CTV and FAST viewers engage with content across screens, creative consistency - and evolution - matters. Here’s where dynamic creativity becomes a competitive edge.
Maintaining high effective frequency across channels is critical for recall and conversion. But repetition can cause fatigue if the same static message runs everywhere. That’s where solutions like Slingshot come into play: brands can wrap core creative with different narrative or contextual extensions before or after the base message. This supports higher frequency without negative sentiment - increasing memorability and reducing ad burnout.
Instead of simply increasing impression counts, dynamic creative introduces controlled variation which is both more engaging for viewers and more informative for measurement systems that can test performance lift between variations.
Make Measurement a Shared Language, Not a Battleground
As audiences and channels converge, the industry’s long-term opportunity isn’t to declare one measurement framework the “one true source.” It’s to build shared language and standards that align media, analytics, and finance on outcome definitions - like incremental ROI and true lift.
That means:
Using independent measurement partners that can validate results across channels
Advocating for incrementality and closed-loop testing as standard practice
Integrating retail media, CTV, and FAST exposure into unified models rather than siloed buckets
This approach doesn’t dismiss skepticism. It incorporates it - turning it into a catalyst for more precise, strategic investment decisions.
The Bottom Line
CTV, FAST, and retail media don’t just coexist - they amplify each other when measurement and creative strategies evolve together.
Savvy brands will resist the temptation to treat each channel as a discrete line item in a spreadsheet. Instead, they’ll embrace cross-channel exposure, defend incremental success and let creative adaptation fuel both engagement and measurement clarity.
That’s where full-funnel impact stops being a buzzword and starts being a reality.
If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, you can schedule a consultation with one of Origin's CTV specialists by clicking here.
Origin is a multi-award winning provider of creative solutions and services for media buyers, creative teams and brands who want to transform conventional CTV ad creatives into powerful, personal and provocative advertising experiences.
With unparalleled creative capabilities and proprietary ad serving technology, Origin’s unique suite of dynamic ad overlays and native CTV ad extensions allows advertisers to engage distracted audiences and achieve the results they need.
Founded by media veterans Stephen Strong and Fred Godfrey, Origin is driven by the belief that winning viewers today requires breaking free from how it was done yesterday.
Learn more at: originmedia.tv
