The golden years of TV advertising, when ITV had a captive audience of up to 20 million viewers on a Saturday night, may be long gone but the rise of streaming TV-on-demand is heralding something of a renaissance for the channel, with a new analysis revealing ads are driving measurable, incremental sales rather than just awareness.
That is according to the results of a new six month study, carried out by WPP Media in conjunction with Amazon Ads, which set out to test whether advertisers who expanded their TV investment to streaming-on-demand could deliver real, measurable business outcomes.
The research covered Prime Video campaigns for eight UK brands that do not sell on Amazon, spanning retail, automotive, healthcare and travel. It found a mean lift in modelled business outcomes of +1.65%, with the best performing individual result reaching +6.63%.
If the same results were replicated for a £10m brand, it would deliver the equivalent of £165,000 in incremental revenue over a single campaign flight. It is claimed the findings highlight streaming TV’s value as a measurable driver of business outcomes for the brands, with the campaigns involved in the study generating a 22% stronger ROI against the benchmark of the all-channel media average of the brands involved.
WPP Media SVP of commercial strategy and solutions development Mark Stephenson said: “Advertisers have long understood the brand-building power of TV, but this research gives us much clearer evidence of its ability to drive measurable business outcomes in the short term too.
“By isolating the incremental impact of streaming TV, we can show that adding services like Prime Video to the media mix can translate directly into sales. For advertisers, the opportunity isn’t about choosing between linear and streaming but understanding how each works together to make total TV investment work harder.”
Each campaign ran for four weeks between December 2025 and May 2026 covering approximately 20% of the UK population at an equivalised national spend of circa £100,000.
To isolate the incremental sales impact of Prime Video from all other media activity, WPP Media applied its proprietary geo-lift solution, supported by a meta-analysis to aggregate results across the eight campaigns. This was triangulated with Amazon Ads Brand Lift Studies, client marketing mix modelling data and industry benchmarks from Profit Ability 2.
Amazon Ads Brand Lift Studies conducted alongside the incrementality research recorded a mean uplift in ad recall of +5.43 percentage points, with purchase intent and consideration rising by +2.01 percentage points.
Using YouGov data, the relationship between current customers and advertising awareness has been used to predict the longer-term impact, resulting in a multiplier of 2.5x over two years, in line with Profit Ability 2.
The findings add to a growing evidence base that TV and video advertising delivers not only brand-building but tangible, measurable business outcomes – and that streaming TV on demand is a valuable, measurable layer within that mix rather than a substitute for it.
Amazon Ads director of agency UK Krishan Patel concluded: “This research shows brands across sectors including automotive, healthcare and travel, achieving measurable sales lift with Prime Video. It gives advertisers the confidence to invest in streaming TV knowing it can deliver immediate commercial impact as well as long-term brand growth.”
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