If you're still measuring your CTV campaign, your social presence, and your search performance separately, it might be time for an update, or at least regular analysis of how they are effecting each other.
The latest travel and consumer research (Skift & tvScientific by Pinterest) makes one thing clear: these channels aren't three isolated tactics competing for budget. They're one connected system and for DMOs, understanding how they feed each other is the difference between a campaign that just gets seen and one that actually drives demand.
Social media used to be the "inspiration" channel - a place to daydream about a beach vacation you'd never actually book. Not anymore. Travelers are now using social media at every stage of the planning journey, not just the first one.
Yes, 63% use social for destination inspiration. But 56% use it to discover restaurants and experiences, 45% to compare hotels, and 35% to hunt for deals. Social has quietly become a full-funnel booking tool — which means your next Reel or TikTok isn't just building awareness. It might be the exact thing that gets someone to book their hotel.
• • •
Meanwhile, television has quietly reshaped itself into something else entirely.
Streaming has crossed the threshold for every generation - including Baby Boomers.
92%of Gen Z watch TV via streaming apps 90%of Millennials do too 61%of Baby Boomers now stream
This matters for a simple reason: CTV (Connected TV) advertising now reaches audiences that traditional cable buys simply can't - including the "cable loyalist" generations that finally made the jump.
Here's the part that makes CTV and social inseparable: viewers aren't giving a show their full attention. They're dual-screening, constantly.
Gen Z is the most distracted. Millennials shop the most. Gen X looks up the most ads.
78% scroll social media while watching TV. 74% search for something related. 69% browse online shopping mid-episode. That CTV ad isn't playing in isolation — it's playing directly alongside the second screen where your social content lives.
This dual-screen habit isn't just a distraction problem — it's actually building trust in a very specific, measurable way.
TV gives a brand credibility. Social gives it context. Together, they do more than either channel could do alone.
42% say a TV ad alone builds trust, but that jumps to 43% when they see the same brand again on social. And 43% say seeing a brand on social first makes the TV ad feel more legitimate when it shows up later. It's a loop, not a funnel.
65% of consumers have made a purchase after seeing a TV ad and 60% went and searched for the brand first.
All of this national research is great context but we didn't have to look far to see it play out ourselves.
When our client ran a very large investment CTV campaign alongside two Brand Alliances (with GoPro and Huk) in 2025, branded search volume for "Sevierville" didn't hold steady, it climbed sharply. Year-over-year search interest went from roughly -13% in March to a dramatic swing by summer as the campaign and partnerships ramped up.
Branded search volume moved right alongside the CTV spend and brand partnerships.
Translation: the CTV investment didn't just build awareness in a vacuum, it showed up directly in people's search behavior, exactly like the national data predicts it should.
We saw an even bigger version of this effect this year - for a much more bittersweet reason. When Dolly Parton passed away, organic traffic and social mentions of Sevierville didn't climb, they exploded almost overnight. This is an example of how first, you need the right content on your website, but also that huge news on TV and social drive action - that's where everyone found out about Dolly.
This wasn't a paid media moment, it was a cultural one. But it proves the exact same underlying principle from a different angle: when something captures big attention anywhere (a CTV buy, a viral post, or breaking news), it ripples straight into search behavior. People see something, and their very next move is to Google it.
Stop budgeting for CTV, social, and search as if they're separate line items competing for the same dollars. Think of them as one connected system:
If your destination runs a big media moment, planned or unplanned, check your Search Console. More often than not, that's exactly where the real proof shows up in big or more subtle changes.
Q: Does this mean we should shift budget away from social and into CTV, or vice versa?
No — that's the whole point. The data shows they reinforce each other rather than compete. Cutting one weakens the other's impact, since trust and search lift come from seeing a brand in more than one place, not from any single channel alone.
Q: We're a smaller DMO without a $320K CTV budget. Does any of this still apply to us?
Yes. The mechanism scales down — even a modest CTV or streaming buy paired with consistent social presence should show up as a bump in branded search. Start by tracking your search console around any paid push, however small, to see if the same pattern appears.
Q: How do we actually measure this "loop" instead of just each channel separately?
Watch branded search volume (Google Search Console or a rank tracker) before, during, and after a CTV or big social push. If search interest rises alongside the campaign — like it did for "Sevierville" — that's your cross-channel lift, even if it never shows up in a last-click attribution report.
Q: The Dolly Parton spike wasn't a campaign — why include it?
Because it's proof of the same underlying behavior in its purest form: attention (of any kind, paid or earned) drives search. It's a reminder to watch your search data closely around any major moment tied to your destination, not just planned campaigns — you may be sitting on a demand spike you haven't capitalized on yet.
Q: Does this apply to all age groups, or mainly younger travelers?
All of them, increasingly. Streaming TV adoption is at 92% for Gen Z but has also crossed 61% for Baby Boomers, and dual-screening behavior (searching, scrolling, shopping while watching) shows up across every generation — just at different intensities.