The most successful NBA player shoots one free throw. You shoot one hundred. Who makes more baskets?
With enough opportunities, even average performance can outshine excellence. This is the essence of "Everything Works at Zero,” a principle that challenges conventional thinking about TV media costs and campaign effectiveness.
The price you pay for media fundamentally informs the effectiveness of your entire TV advertising campaign. Here’s why.
Media economics change everything.
If media were free, nearly every marketing campaign would look like a rock star. But in the real world, the price you pay for media in your TV advertising campaign drastically impacts your ability to drive results.
Our research shows that cost is the principal determinant of TV advertising's ability to drive ROI. While marketers are trained to obsess over response rates, conversions, and creative execution, the reality is that reducing your cost per impression can be the most powerful lever for improving campaign performance.
So yes, CPM is king.
There’s a price problem with hypertargeting.
One of the most common ways marketers drive up costs is through hypertargeting. On streaming TV platforms, advertisers often pay 2-5 times the base rate to target specific audience segments defined by interests, behaviors, or demographics.
This premium pricing creates a significant hurdle. For hypertargeted media to outperform broader buys, it must deliver response rates proportionally higher than the cost increase. If targeting doubles your CPM, it must also more than double your conversion rate to make mathematical sense.
The problem? Those target audiences aren't always who's watching.
Even on streaming platforms, you can only target as precisely as the streaming account holder using third-party data. But what if they’re not in the living room watching TV at that exact moment? What if it’s their spouse, kids, or friends using the account?
This disconnect means you pay premium rates for targeting precision that often fails to materialize. You're essentially applying digital-first targeting logic to an inherently different medium, often with diminishing returns.
Analysis shows that broader, more cost-efficient media buys often reach the same audiences at a fraction of the cost, creating a multiplier effect on performance metrics from the very top of the funnel down to final conversion rates. I’m absolutely not saying you should abandon targeting. Every campaign should have a clear target audience. But find balance so that targeting’s costs don't outweigh its benefits.
Let’s bust the frequency myth.
Conventional marketing wisdom suggests consumers need multiple exposures to your message before taking action. This belief has led many brands to prioritize frequency over reach in their media strategies.
Our data tells a different story.
The most efficient level of frequency from a cost-per or ROI basis is a frequency level of one. It's true that as you see an ad more times, you become more likely to eventually convert and purchase. However, if I see an ad once and then twice, I need to become at least 2X more likely to convert for that second impression to be more efficient than the first.
So if your first frequency costs a $10 CPM and generates a 1% response rate, that's $1,000 per 100 responses. For a second frequency to be equally efficient, it would need to generate an additional 100 responses, not just an incremental improvement. But that second impression might only lift response by 20-30%, making it substantially less efficient than the first.
That 2X conversion boost rarely materializes, meaning additional frequency typically reduces efficiency. This counterintuitive finding suggests that reaching more unique viewers once is often more effective than reaching fewer viewers multiple times.
Premium doesn’t equal better performance.
Many marketers assume that more expensive media placements deliver better results, especially when it comes to TV advertising. After all, premium inventory comes at premium prices for a reason, right?
Not necessarily. This assumption creates another hidden cost multiplier that works against campaign efficiency. Premium placements often cost 3-5 times what more diverse, efficient media buys cost. For this premium to be justified, these placements would need to deliver proportionally better performance. They rarely do.
Using automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, we've compared the audience reach of premium network buys against more cost-efficient strategies. The findings are clear. There is typically 90% or more overlap in the audiences reached, despite vastly different price points.
This challenges the assumption that you need to pay top-dollar to reach quality audiences. In most cases, your target audience watches a variety of content. Premium inventory simply represents one of many possible touchpoints to reach the same audience, but at inflated costs.
When you can reach the same audience at one-third or one-fourth the cost, you create an immediate multiplier effect on your campaign performance. The math is straightforward. Same audience, same response rate, but at dramatically different price points means vastly different ROI outcomes.
What about brand perception?
One of the most common concerns we hear from marketers is: "Won't this hurt my brand perception if we move away from premium placements?"
This concern is understandable but largely unfounded for TV audiences. First, traditional TV doesn't present the same brand safety concerns as digital channels. Plus, consumers rarely form opinions about brands based on where they see a TV commercial. They care far more about what the ad says and how it's presented. Have you ever thought less of Apple, Nike, or Coca-Cola because you saw their ad during daytime programming instead of primetime? Of course not.
Research consistently shows that what damages brand perception isn't appearing in diverse media environments, but rather excessive frequency. When viewers see the same ad repeatedly within a short timeframe, irritation grows and brand perception suffers.
How to build a smarter TV media strategy.
So how should marketers apply the "Everything Works at Zero" principle? Start by rethinking your approach to media buying.
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Build a broad foundation first. Create an efficient base layer that stretches wide across a variety of networks and dayparts. This foundation should prioritize cost efficiency to maximize the number of impressions for your investment.
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Be selective with premium buys. Pick strategic spots for premium placements as the "frosting on the cake" rather than making them the cornerstone of your campaign.
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Prioritize reach over frequency. Focus on reaching more unique viewers once rather than hitting the same viewers repeatedly. Data consistently shows that the first impression delivers the highest efficiency, so maximizing unique reach creates greater total campaign impact than building frequency.
- Question targeting premiums. Assess whether expensive targeting is truly reaching different audiences than you would engage through broader buys. Ask your media partners to prove the incremental value of targeting premiums with actual performance data, not just theoretical benefits.
This approach transforms cost from a budgetary constraint into a strategic advantage. By understanding the mathematical relationship between cost and performance, you can create campaigns that outperform competitors.
Because the real multiplier in your campaign isn't found in targeting algorithms or premium placements. It's in the economic leverage created through cost-efficient media buying.
Want to learn more about why "Everything Works at Zero?” Listen in on our team’s discussion on The Marketing Architects Podcast.
