Overview

Curious how your campaign is shaping brand perception — not just direct response performance? MNTN partners with Upwave to offer a brand lift study that measures top-of-funnel impact, such as ad recall, brand favorability, and unaided awareness. Want to measure brand lift? Connect with us to to explore eligibility.

Upwave uses a census-representative digital network and advanced fraud, attention, and honesty filters to deliver top-of-funnel insights like ad recall, brand favorability, and unaided awareness. It’s real data that validates your strategy — and shows how your brand is landing with real people.

MNTN may cover the cost of the study on a case-by-case basis. You’ll lead onboarding and complete setup in both Upwave and the MNTN platform.

Set It Up

After MNTN sets the study dates in Upwave, you’ll complete the remaining setup. Upwave will email you login details to access the Upwave platform. Once you receive the email, follow these steps:

📝 Note: You may receive discrepancy emails from Upwave during the first 7 days of the study. These are expected—ignore them. They typically stop during the second week.

Log in to Upwave and generate your tracking tags.
In Upwave, generate the tag(s) Upwave uses to track exposures from your MNTN campaign.
Implement your tag(s).
Add the Upwave tag(s) to your MNTN creatives. If you’re measuring all campaigns in your account, apply the Upwave impression tag at the advertiser level. If you want to measure only specific live campaigns, apply the impression tag at the creative level.
Automate MNTN reports to Upwave.
In MNTN, create a custom report with these fields: Day, Campaign Name, Campaign Group ID, Creative Name, Creative ID, Impressions.

Filter for the campaign that will be included in your Upwave study, and save.
Schedule the report to email the Upwave-provided address as a CSV once per day with a 7-day lookback. Schedule the email from the table view, not the report view.
Complete the Objectives & Targets Form.
In Upwave, complete the Objectives & Targets form to confirm what you want to measure. After you submit it, Upwave begins building your survey.
Review and approve your survey draft.
Upwave will email a draft study questionnaire within 2-3 business days. Review it, request updates if needed, and approve when it's ready.
Study launch
Upwave launches your study on your campaign start date, once your MNTN media beings delivering impressions.

⚠️ Warning: Campaign changes — such as launching or pausing, changing budget, adding new flights, or updating creative — can impact your Brand Lift Study. Contact your MNTN team before making changes so your study stays aligned and results remain accurate.
Complete tactic mapping (optional).
Fore more detailed reporting (for example, results by creative or audience), complete Upwave’s optional Tactic Mapping step.
Access results
A MNTN team member will review results with you. Results can be downloaded or viewed directly in the Upwave platform.

Evaluate Results

What is percentage point lift

The percentage point lift is a metric that shows the difference in response rates between the ad-exposed group (those who saw the ad) and the control group (those who did not).

For Example:

The survey question for Awareness might ask, “When shopping for furniture, which of the following brands would you consider? Please select all that apply.”
Suppose 2% of control users selected the brand, while 5% of ad-exposed users selected it.
The percentage point lift would be 3 points (5% – 2%), meaning ad-exposed users were 3 percentage points more likely to consider the brand than those in the control group.
A report showing “2.3 lift” means +2.3 percentage points—not 2.3× more likely.

📝 Note: Control Group % means baseline level of brand consideration (or awareness, intent, etc.). Exposed Group % means post-ad exposure response rate.

Statistical significance (confidence levels)

Statistical significance tells you whether the observed lift is likely due to the campaign rather than random chance. This is evaluated at three levels:

80% confidence: There’s an 80% chance the result is real (not random)
- Suggestive evidence of impact – directionally useful, but less certain
90% confidence: There’s a 90% chance the result is real
- Moderately strong evidence that the campaign drove the observed lift
95% confidence: There’s a 95% chance the result is real
- Very strong evidence that the lift is statistically significant

What this means

A statistically significant result means we’re confident that the campaign, not just random variation, is what caused the change.
The higher the confidence level, the more reliable and trustworthy the result.
In brand lift studies, 95% is typically considered the gold standard for decision-making, but 80% and 90% are often still useful, especially in directional or early-stage testing.

📘 Example: A lift in Aided Awareness at 95% confidence means we’re highly confident the campaign caused the change. If you ran the same campaign 100 times, you’d expect a similar result in about 95 of them.

Pro Tips

Target nationally

Regional campaigns are not typically recommended, as they’re less likely to show lift. If you do go regional, the target area must have a population of at least 10 million and use designated market area (DMA)-level targeting or higher — zip code–level targeting isn’t supported.

Skip Multi-Touch

Multi-touch impressions for prospecting campaigns don’t expand reach, limiting the study’s effectiveness.

Think long-term

This study is designed to validate how your MNTN campaign drives brand lift KPIs. We're currently offering this a one-time validation measurement, not an ongoing performance indicator.

Quick Answers

Can I run more than one Upwave study?

MNTN’s brand lift study is a one-time, added-value offer to validate our platform’s impact. A second study may be considered if the initial results were inconclusive or statistically insignificant. Otherwise, you’re welcome to work with Upwave directly — and we’re happy to help coordinate.

Do I need to pause campaigns to run a Brand Lift Study?

No, you don’t need to pause. However, it is important to note that if you do pause your campaigns, then it could impact the study’s results.

Brand Lift Study compares two groups: Test (Households that saw your MNTN ad) and Control (Households that did not see a MNTN ad).
Best practice: Run the study on a new or unexposed audience when possible.

If you’ve advertised to the same audience or market before, some Control households may have already seen your ads, which can dampen measured lift. You can still move forward with the Brand Lift Study, but it’s recommended to discuss the potential performance impact with your MNTN team beforehand.

How many impressions does each creative or audience tactic need for a statistically significant performance read?

2M+ impressions per tactic

How are surveys conducted?

Upwave conducts surveys through its digital publisher and communities network (known as the Upwave Digital Network) to gather large-scale, self-reported attitudinal data. Read more about it, here.

If a respondent selects “None of the above” in the Aided Awareness question, they skip brand-objective KPI questions and complete only the targeting/weighting section.

If a respondent indicates awareness of your brand or any competitor, they proceed to the brand-objective KPI questions. The answer choices in those KPI questions include only the brands they selected in Aided Awareness, so if they picked competitors but not your brand, only those competitors appear.

Where will users answer the survey questions?

Content unlock / paywall bypass: Appears when trying to read or watch something behind a paywall.
- Prompts “Answer a few questions to access content.” Short survey (< 90 seconds), then content unlocks.
Site pop-up / overlay intercept: Appears while browsing a publisher site (news, blog, etc.). Opens as a pop-up or embedded window.
- Prompts “Answer a few questions to access content.” Short survey (< 90 seconds), then content unlocks.
Mobile/in-app survey: Appears inside apps that are part of Upwave’s digital network.
- Typically as an interstitial or small prompt.
Retargeted / follow-up survey: Triggered after a site visit or ad interaction. Appears later while browsing other sites.
CRM-matched customer survey: Appears to existing customers on participating publisher sites. This is based on a brand’s hashed customer list matched to Upwave’s network.

What should I review if Upwave flags a discrepancy report for my campaign?

Start by checking time zones. Upwave Measured Impressions use UTC, while MNTN served impressions use the time zone set in your MNTN account — so daily totals may not match exactly. You may also see Upwave Measured Impressions appear a day later, particularly when inventory serves later in the day or around live events like sports. Before flagging an issue, confirm you're comparing the same reporting window.