The ROI Reckoning: Why Marketers Are Shifting from Demand Capture to Demand Generation

Advertisers are waking up to what actually drives new business growth which delivers improved return on investment (ROI).

At this year’s Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Members-Only Conference in Irvine, California, Viant welcomed leaders from companies including Mazda, King’s Hawaiian, and Clorox to its headquarters to speak on one of the most important shifts in marketing today: understanding what truly drives ROI. 

For years, the marketing mix has been heavily weighted toward channels like search, social, and retail media— places where consumers are often already signaling intent. These channels are powerful, measurable, and easy to optimize, but they’re often not where new customer acquisition actually begins. 

When a consumer searches for a brand on Google or clicks a product ad on Facebook, they’re likely already in-market. They’ve seen something, heard something, felt something, oftentimes from a brand-building effort that happened earlier in the consumer journey, like a Connected TV (CTV) commercial, billboard, or an audio ad. Search, social and retail media may be where the conversion happens, but it’s rarely what sparked the interest in the first place.

That’s the fundamental difference between demand capture and demand generation, and it’s one that marketers are now being forced to confront.

The 70/30 Problem

According to eMarketer, roughly 70% of all advertising budgets go toward search, social and retail media—channels that “capture” demand— and only 30% toward the other channels like CTV and streaming audio that create it.

“Performance marketing” looks great on paper: measurable, predictable, and trackable down to the click. But as Tim and Chris Vanderhook, Co-Founders of Viant Technology, explained in their keynote address at Viant’s event with the ANA in Irvine, performance marketing is really just demand capture, or harvesting intent that already exists.

“When a consumer searches for a branded term, the ad has already done its job,” Tim Vanderhook, Chief Executive Officer at Viant said. “Search is generally navigational. By the time someone types your name, they’ve already made their choice.”

That means many brands are spending the majority of their budgets buying back traffic from people who already know them, not securing new customers. As Jim Mollica, CMO of Bose aptly asked after evaluating the limited impact of branded search, “Are we giving the cash register credit for the sale?”

And in the age of AI-driven search, that cycle is only getting more expensive. With Google’s AI Overviews crowding out organic and paid results alike, and consumers turning to chatbots like ChatGPT or Perplexity for answers, there’s no longer a guarantee that you can buy your way into visibility.

The only way in is if they ask for you by name.

Reframing Performance and Brand Marketing

Marketers were challenged to reframe their thinking:

• Performance Marketing (Search, Social, Retail Media) = Demand Capture
• Brand Marketing (CTV, Streaming Audio, OOH) = Demand Generation

Demand Capture focuses on efficiency, squeezing incremental conversions from those already in the funnel. Demand Generation builds intent through the storytelling, visibility, and emotional connection that makes people want to enter the funnel in the first place. It builds baseline revenue and sustained growth that comes from recognition, trust, and recall.

Right now, most marketers have that mix backward. But Viant’s data shows the balance is starting to shift. “We’re seeing organizations go from that 70/30 split to something closer to 50/50,” Chris Vanderhook, Chief Operating Officer at Viant said. “They’re optimizing for growth, not just short-term ROI.”

Incrementality: The Truth About What’s Working

When Viant runs incrementality testing across channels in its Viant DSP, the results are striking.

In the Viant DSP, while CTV currently represents just 8-10% of total ad budgets, those same tests show CTV driving roughly 45% of incremental sales, meaning nearly half of new growth is coming from a channel that’s historically been underfunded.

As Chris noted, “Marketers are shifting more money into CTV and pulling it out of branded search, display, and social, because that’s where they’re seeing the impact.”

The key, he said, is to test everything:

“Does Meta have a place on your media plan? Of course. Does Google search have a place? Of course. But should they make up 70% of your budget? Of course not. You need to measure incrementality to understand the true value of each channel in your mix.”

The Role of CTV in the New Mix

CTV is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for generating demand in a privacy-safe, measurable way. It blends the emotional and storytelling power of television ads with the precision and measurability of digital, giving brands the best of both worlds.

With Viant’s incrementality testing, marketers can now see how CTV drives new customers and growth, not just recycled clicks. CTV is finally performing like digital: measurable, efficient, and driving outcomes that matter. 

The Real Performance Play? Creating Demand That Lasts

The marketers who win in the next era won’t just capture demand—they’ll create it.

They’ll rebalance their budgets to build brand equity, not just chase attribution. They’ll test for incrementality to uncover what’s truly driving growth. And they’ll use transparent, measurable channels like CTV to reach audiences before they even start their search.

“It’s time to stop paying tolls to buy back the demand you already created,” Tim said. “Invest in creating new demand instead.”

Want to learn more about how Viant helps marketers generate demand and measure true incremental growth? Reach out to your Viant representative to explore our latest solutions.