Obvi – a fast-growing wellness brand that scaled from ecommerce into national retail turned to Universal Ads to scale its CTV investment and prove that CTV drives incremental Walmart in-store sales. 

The Challenge: 

Obvi lacked a clear way to measure whether CTV exposure translated into incremental Walmart in-store sales and whether increasing CTV spend would drive further Walmart in-store sales. 

The team needed to move beyond platform-reported metrics and prove that CTV drives incremental in-store purchases.  

Our Approach:  

To move beyond attribution and isolate causality, Obvi partnered with Universal Ads and Lifesight to run a geo-based incrementality test tied directly to Walmart in-store revenue.  

Rather than assigning credit after the campaign ended, the test was built to prove whether CTV exposure through Universal Ads generated incremental lift, controlling for typical sales patterns and regionalvariation.  

Markets with heavy Universal Ads exposurewere compared to statistically matched control markets with minimal to noexposure — isolating the real impact of Universal Ads. 

Test Design:  ‍

• ‍Methodology: Geo-based incrementality test using synthetic control modeling ‍
• KPI: Walmart in-store revenue ‍
• Duration: 7-week treatment period ‍
• Treatment Markets: 7 states with concentrated Universal Ads exposure ‍
• Control Markets: 14 comparable states with minimal or no exposure 

The experiment asked a simple, decision-oriented question:  

When Universal Ads runs in select markets, do Walmart in-store sales for those markets increase more than they would have without CTV?

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Results:  

Universal Ads delivered a statistically significant 5% incremental lift in Walmart in-store sales, exceeding the pre-defined threshold at a 95% confidence level. 

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“For the first time, Universal Ads allowed us to clearly see the real impact of CTV on retail sales — not just what we hoped it was driving.” 
Ashvin Melwani, CMO & Co-Founder, Obvi  

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What this proved:  

• CTV exposure throughUniversal Ads directly influenced in-store purchasing behavior  
• Incremental lift was observed beyond normal sales patterns and regional variation  
• The results validated CTV via Universal Ads as a measurable retail growth lever, not just an upper-funnel awareness channel  

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Rather than hoping CTV worked, Obvi tested first and gained data-backed budget decisions to scale with confidence.   

By combining premium CTV access with transparent measurement, Universal Ads gives brands the ability to measure true incrementality, connect CTV to real outcomes, validate performance before scaling spend and make confident investment decisions.