Brand Lift Studies for Video Ads: What They Measure and How to Use Them
Brand lift studies measure what surveys can't — the effect of your ad on awareness, consideration, and preference. How they work, what they cost, and when to run them.
Brand Lift Studies for Video Ads: What They Measure and How to Use Them
Brand lift studies solve a measurement problem: most of what advertising does isn't captured by click-based metrics. Someone sees your ad, doesn't click, but is slightly more likely to choose your brand later. That effect is real and invisible to CTR. Brand lift makes it visible.
How they work
A brand lift study splits an audience into two groups: people who saw your ad (exposed group) and people who could have seen it but didn't (control group). Both groups are surveyed about brand awareness, consideration, preference, or purchase intent. The difference between the groups is the lift — the incremental effect of the ad on the measured outcome.
Platforms like Meta, YouTube, and TikTok offer built-in brand lift study tools that handle the splitting, surveying, and statistical analysis. Third-party providers like Kantar and Dynata offer cross-platform studies with more rigorous methodology.
What they measure
Brand lift studies typically measure:
- Ad recall: "Do you remember seeing an ad for [brand]?" Measures whether the creative was memorable enough to be consciously retrieved.
- Brand awareness: "Have you heard of [brand]?" Measures whether exposure increased familiarity.
- Consideration: "Would you consider [brand] next time you [purchase in category]?" Measures whether the ad moved the brand into the consideration set.
- Preference: "Which of these brands would you choose?" Measures competitive preference shift.
- Purchase intent: "How likely are you to purchase [brand] in the next [time period]?" Measures stated intention, with all the caveats that apply to stated intentions.
When to run them
Brand lift studies require sufficient scale to produce statistically significant results. The minimum recommended budget varies by platform but typically starts around $10,000-$30,000 for a single study. Below that threshold, the sample size is too small to detect lift reliably.
They're most useful for:
- Major campaign launches where the investment justifies the measurement cost
- Testing whether a new creative approach is building brand metrics, not just driving clicks
- Proving the value of upper-funnel advertising to stakeholders who only see lower-funnel metrics
They're less useful for:
- Small-budget campaigns where the study cost exceeds the insight value
- Direct-response campaigns where conversion data already captures the primary objective
- Frequent iteration cycles where the study timeline (typically 2-4 weeks) is too slow
The lift you should expect
Typical brand lift results range from 1-5 percentage points in absolute terms. A 2-point lift in brand awareness means the exposed group's awareness was 2 percentage points higher than the control group's. This sounds small. In advertising measurement, it's normal.
Relative lift — the percentage increase over the control baseline — is usually more impressive. A 2-point increase from a 10% baseline is a 20% relative lift. Both numbers matter: the absolute lift tells you the real-world impact. The relative lift tells you the efficiency of the creative.