How To Measure Advertising Effectiveness Across Premium Video

Connecting the dots on campaign impact with Warner Bros. Discovery

Premium video platforms have become more than destinations for entertainment. They are cultural stages where brand stories meet consumer attention. For media publishers like Warner Bros. Discovery, that means playing a dual role: creating must-watch content and delivering measurable business outcomes for advertisers.

The rules have shifted with viewers curating their own streaming experiences and advertisers under pressure to prove performance. It’s no longer just about delivering content. It is about delivering results across every screen, format, and stage of the funnel.

As reported in DISQO’s latest Premium Video Advertising report, nearly half of consumers say they value brands more when they advertise within content they enjoy. But value is not earned by presence alone. Publishers must prove that premium placements drive awareness, intent, and action.

To explore how one of the industry’s largest media companies is adapting to this challenge, we sat down with Michele Resnick, Senior Director of Campaign Effectiveness at Warner Bros. Discovery, during a recent DISQO x Ad Age webinar. Below is what she shared on the topic of helping advertisers connect the dots between exposure and impact.

Q&A With Michele Resnick, Warner Bros. Discovery

Q: Can you share more about your role and how you connect ad impact to consumer engagement in premium video?

I lead a team that measures campaign effectiveness across the entire Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio. That includes everything from streaming on Max to digital platforms, sponsorships, news, entertainment, tentpole events, and sports. We also work with advanced advertising offerings like StreamX, our convergent offering, which is data-driven, linear addressable, sports, and syndication.

Our goal is to connect the dots between what advertisers care about at the top of the funnel, like awareness and perception, and what matters at the bottom, like search, site visitation, and purchase. We measure across every stage to demonstrate the full value of advertising within premium video.

Q: How do you help advertisers embrace streaming and CTV in their strategies?

We help advertisers embrace CTV and understand its value by demonstrating the platform's effectiveness in driving the advertiser’s campaign goals. We do that in several different ways.

First, we focus on measurement and attribution offerings. We have a robust suite of campaign effectiveness offerings that align with advertiser KPIs at every stage of the marketing funnel. We also use education, such as past success stories and case studies, to help guide renewals.

We recently conducted research on our premium streaming service Max, where we found that Max AVOD provides a premium ad environment compared to the competitive set, with strong results in areas like ad recall and ad relevancy.

Reach is also key to driving volume in bottom-funnel actions. Our StreamX product allows us to reach advanced audiences across linear and digital media. We start with a cross-platform media plan that reduces waste and drives incrementality, and then measure its effect. We optimize during the campaign as needed. In one example, a travel category campaign using StreamX saw nearly $10 million in incremental sales. 

Q: How do you balance brand and performance goals, and where does premium video fit?

We think of brand and performance as complementary. Aligning on key campaign performance metrics, success factors, KPIs, and audiences all contribute to performance. It’s crucial to drive demand at the top of the funnel. Without it, you minimize those who will eventually convert to a sale.

We are fortunate at Warner Bros. Discovery to have a diverse portfolio of products underpinned by premium content. That helps us serve all parts of the funnel. Our job is to understand each product's role and inform the right media mix.

Q: Can you share an example of a premium video campaign that worked well and why it was effective?

We have a ton, so it was tough to pick just one, but in Q4 of last year, we partnered with an alcohol brand and conducted research with DISQO for the launch of The Penguin on Max. If you have not watched The Penguin, it is fantastic.

The campaign included several custom elements, all with the goal of driving brand metrics and web engagement. We saw exceptional results. There were double and triple-digit lifts across the funnel. Each of those metrics also surpassed DISQO’s normative benchmark database. The campaign also gave us key audience insights that allowed for targeting opportunities in future campaigns.

Q: How are you solving for deduplication and attribution across platforms like linear, CTV, streaming, and social?

We’re already doing this today with our StreamX campaigns, which I mentioned earlier. We’re measuring attribution across endpoints and using methodologies like DISQO’s to evaluate cross-platform campaigns holistically. Before launch, we align on KPIs across platforms to ensure consistent metrics and reporting.

We’re also implementing data clean rooms with all of our attribution vendors. This enables us to combine exposure data and deliver measurement in a privacy-compliant way.

Q: What are your clients expecting now when it comes to measurement?

Clients expect us to measure everything. They want to see results tied to their specific KPIs and understand how each part of the media plan contributed to the overall outcome.

What has differentiated DISQO for us is the ability to measure brand lift and outcomes lift deterministically. We can show how changes in awareness or perception connect to downstream behavior. That is incredibly valuable when we are helping advertisers justify investment in premium placements.

Q: What has your experience using DISQO to measure full-funnel performance across platforms been?

DISQO has been a partner of Warner Bros. Discovery for nearly three years and has since become one of our preferred brand lift partners. We work with DISQO to measure our key tentpoles on Max, across news, our entertainment networks, and sports. Through our partnership, we have also built a normative database that provides context on how our ad products perform at every stage of the purchase funnel. This allows us to evolve and learn constantly.

Q: Can you tell us more about how DISQO’s insights managers specifically provide value for your teams?

We work very closely with the insights team as we extract insights, learnings, and recommendations from campaign performance. They help us brainstorm why specific metrics performed in a particular way and guide us in positioning those results to clients.

Q: What is the most challenging issue preventing complete measurement today, and how can the industry solve it?

It’s a balance of cross-platform measurement and timely simplicity. Brands want actionable insights in real time, but there’s often a significant lag between when a campaign runs and when results are available.

We’re working with partners to solve this by building always-on measurement capabilities. At the same time, we face challenges due to varying methodologies and approaches across publishers, agencies, and brands. These inconsistencies make it difficult to deliver true apples-to-apples comparisons. 

Q: With so many sources of truth, how do you balance all the data you receive around campaign effectiveness and distill it into actionable insights?

Aligning on what success looks like before a campaign starts helps. That framework clarifies how we package results and what we emphasize. It allows us to lean into certain stories, whether that is ad product performance or audiences that responded well. These key pieces allow us to give clients the most relevant and actionable insights.

Q: What role does understanding the incremental lift of brand and performance KPIs play in your overall measurement framework?

In a general sense, it tells us what changed because of the campaign. That knowledge helps inform smarter strategies moving forward. Ultimately, if we understand what shifted, we can help clients make better investment decisions and reduce waste.

Why It Matters

Michele’s perspective highlights what it takes to prove the value of premium video today. It is no longer enough to deliver impressions. Advertisers want evidence that those impressions turn into outcomes. And media publishers like Warner Bros. Discovery are meeting that challenge with full-funnel measurement, smart planning, and transparency across platforms.

DISQO helps make that possible. With our direct audience, we help publishers and advertisers connect brand exposure to real consumer behavior—search, site visits, e-commerce, and more. Premium video has the power to influence decisions. The key is being able to measure it.