Brands preparing for the holiday shopping season may want to rethink how they measure the success of digital advertising. New data from Billo, based on an analysis of 88,329 Meta video ads, found that ads generating the most clicks did not necessarily deliver the strongest financial returns.
The findings highlight a disconnect between consumer attention and return on ad spend (ROAS), suggesting that high click-through rates (CTR) alone may not be a reliable indicator of advertising effectiveness.
Health & Beauty generated the highest CTR among the 14 categories analyzed, at 2.36%. The category also recorded the third-highest hook rate, with 28.11% of viewers watching beyond the first three seconds. However, its ROAS was 1.82, ranking 11th among the 14 categories.
Baby & Toddler produced the opposite result. The category had the lowest CTR in the dataset, at 1.37%, but generated the highest ROAS at 4.99.
According to Billo, Baby & Toddler’s return was 2.7 times higher than Health & Beauty’s, despite having a CTR that was roughly half as high. The company said the difference demonstrates why marketers should consider what happens after a consumer clicks rather than treating attention metrics as the primary measure of campaign success.
“Most teams are measured on attention, because it moves fast and looks like progress. But attention and return are not the same thing, and in this data, they often move in opposite directions,” said Donatas Smailys, co-founder and CEO of Billo.
Other categories showed similar differences between engagement and financial performance. Toys & Games had the highest hook rate in the analysis at 28.79% and the fourth-highest CTR at 1.89%, but its ROAS ranked 12th at 1.62.
Electronics offered another contrast. Its hook rate was 22.21%, the second-lowest among the categories studied, yet its ROAS reached 3.44, making it the second-best-performing category by return.
Business & Industrial also demonstrated the complexity of the relationship between attention and return. It posted a top-three hook rate of 28.74%, but its CTR ranked among the bottom three and its ROAS was 1.84.
With brands setting advertising budgets and creative strategies ahead of Black Friday and the broader holiday shopping season, the Billo findings suggest that marketers may need to look beyond clicks and views when evaluating video advertising.
The data indicates that strong engagement can attract attention without necessarily translating into proportional sales or profitability.