The same visits, a different buy
Put $1,000 into paid search or streaming TV, and the dashboard shows the same result of site visits. But visits are only part of what that budget buys.
Hold cost per visit at $3.06, the rate we saw in a 2025 case study with a regional retailer. On paid search, $1,000 buys 327 clicks, which at a 2% click-through rate takes about 16,340 impressions. On streaming TV at a $30 CPM, $1,000 buys 33,333 impressions and the same 327 visits.
Per impression, search costs more than twice as much, a $61.20 effective CPM against $30.
The math to prove it
The same $1,000 buys the same 327 site visits on either channel, but the impressions behind those visits, and the effective cost of each one, are very different.
What the visit doesn't show
In that case study, the retailer moved $10,000 from cable to streaming TV, and we used its customer database in a clean room to build targeted audiences and track real outcomes. The test drove 3,258 site visits at a lower cost per visit than the retailer's paid search, and those visitors converted at 4x the rate of other digital channels.
So what can $1,000 buy?
On paid search, 327 visits and credit that shrinks once every touchpoint counts. On streaming TV, the same 327 visits, more than twice the impressions, and buyers ready to act.