One of the biggest promises of Connected TV (CTV) advertising is that it doesn’t just replicate traditional television — it extends it.
Advertisers use CTV not only to reach streaming audiences but also to find incremental reach: those additional viewers they can’t capture through linear TV alone.
Understanding how incremental reach works is essential for any brand shifting budgets from traditional broadcast to streaming. It’s how you ensure you’re not paying twice to reach the same people, and how you quantify the real value CTV adds to your overall media plan.
What Is Incremental Reach?
Incremental reach refers to the unique audience that CTV advertising delivers beyond what linear TV campaigns already reach.
Think of it as the extra layer of exposure — the viewers who aren’t watching cable or broadcast but are still consuming premium video content through streaming platforms.
For example, if your linear campaign reaches 60% of your target audience, and CTV helps you reach another 15% who didn’t see your ads on traditional TV, that additional 15% is your incremental reach.
Why Incremental Reach Matters
Television viewing habits have changed dramatically. Millions of households have cut the cord, and many others split their time between streaming and traditional TV.
That fragmentation means linear-only buys can no longer reach a complete audience. Even the most popular primetime shows miss a large share of younger and digital-first viewers.
CTV fills that gap. By layering streaming campaigns on top of linear TV, advertisers can reach audiences that cable and broadcast no longer capture — ensuring total campaign coverage grows instead of plateauing.
Incremental reach isn’t about replacing linear. It’s about complementing it.
How Incremental Reach Is Measured
Measuring incremental reach requires identifying which households have been exposed to your linear campaign and which ones have not, then comparing those groups against your CTV delivery data.
Here’s how the process generally works:
Establish a Baseline Audience:
Use panel or set-top box data to determine who your linear campaign has already reached.
Add CTV Exposure Data:
CTV impressions are tracked using device identifiers or IP addresses. These signals show which households were exposed to your streaming ads.
Match and De-Duplicate:
Using cross-platform measurement tools or third-party identity graphs, linear and CTV audiences are matched and de-duplicated to remove overlap.
Calculate Incremental Reach:
The remaining households — those who saw your CTV ads but not your linear ones — represent your incremental reach.
The result is a clear picture of how much new audience your CTV investment actually added.
What Drives Incremental Reach
Several factors determine how much incremental reach a CTV campaign provides:
1. Audience Overlap
The more your CTV and linear audiences overlap, the less incremental reach you’ll get. Targeting younger or cord-cutting demographics typically increases incremental exposure.
2. Platform Diversity
Running ads across multiple streaming platforms (Roku, Hulu, Pluto TV, YouTube TV, etc.) expands reach. Each platform has unique viewers that others may not.
3. Frequency Controls
If your CTV campaign over-delivers impressions to the same households, incremental reach suffers. Balanced frequency ensures you reach more unique homes instead of repeating to the same ones.
4. Data Matching Accuracy
High-quality identity resolution between linear and digital data sources ensures accurate de-duplication. Without it, you risk underestimating or overstating incremental impact.
The Value of Incremental Reach
Incremental reach isn’t just about hitting new eyeballs — it’s about efficiency.
Every impression that reaches an unexposed household represents true incremental value. It means your media dollars are expanding your total audience rather than overlapping with what you’ve already paid for.
Advertisers use incremental reach to:
Quantify the added value of CTV within cross-platform campaigns
Optimize spend between linear and digital channels
Justify increased investment in streaming inventory
Build unified measurement models that reflect real audience coverage
Ultimately, incremental reach helps marketers plan smarter. It ensures campaigns grow total brand exposure instead of recycling the same impressions across screens.
Example: Linear + CTV Working Together
Imagine a national brand runs a four-week TV campaign that reaches 60% of its target audience through cable and broadcast. The brand then layers a CTV campaign targeted toward younger streaming households.
At the end of the flight:
60% of the audience saw the linear ads
15% of the audience saw only the CTV ads
10% saw both
That means the CTV campaign delivered 15% incremental reach, raising the total unduplicated audience to 75%.
That additional 15% represents streaming-exclusive viewers who would have been missed entirely without CTV.
How to Maximize Incremental Reach
To make the most of CTV’s incremental potential:
Target audiences underrepresented in your linear campaigns
Diversify across multiple streaming platforms and publishers
Use household-level frequency caps
Measure overlap continuously to avoid redundancy
Shift budget dynamically toward underexposed segments
CTV’s real power lies in extending the reach of your video strategy, not duplicating it.
The Bottom Line
Incremental reach is one of the clearest indicators of CTV’s value. It shows how streaming advertising extends your message to new households and fills the gaps left by linear TV.
By understanding how incremental reach works — and measuring it accurately — advertisers can build cross-platform strategies that maximize efficiency and ensure every dollar drives growth.
CTV doesn’t just replace television. It completes it.