Case Study
The Hard Deadline—Why Post-Campaign Refunds Can’t Save a Stalled Campaign
The Challenge: You Can’t Buy Back a Missed Opportunity
For industries with a hard expiration date—such as political campaigns, product launches, or “Black Friday” events—standard fraud protection is fundamentally broken. If a candidate loses an election on Tuesday, or a retailer misses their Cyber Monday targets, a “post-spend refund” from a DSP 90 days later is worthless.
In these high-stakes windows, the cost of fraud isn’t just the 15% of the budget that was stolen—it’s the 15% of the target audience that was never reached. For a CTV advertiser paying a $28 premium to secure the “big screen” in the final week of a campaign, every fraudulent impression represents a household that was left uninfluenced at the most critical moment.
The Solution: Upfront Reach Insurance
By using Real Impression’s Verified Devices to filter the audience before the campaign launches, advertisers move from reactive recovery to proactive protection. Instead of waiting months for a credit, you ensure that 100% of your high-value CTV budget is talking to real, human voters or shoppers while the window of opportunity is still open.
The Math: CTV at a $28 CPM
Because the math is so skewed in favor of the advertiser, protecting a time-sensitive flight is a mandatory operational step.
Monthly CTV Budget
Calculation
Value
Media Investment
$10,000 Flight
357,143 Impressions
Cost of Real Impression
$0.32 CPM
$114
Rescued Media (15% Fraud)
15% of Budget
$1,500
Annual Cash Gained
Net Monthly x 12
$16,632
The Conclusion
At a $28 CPM you are spending $114 to ensure that $1,500 of your budget reaches real humans. In a “hard deadline” scenario, of course you are going to do this. The $114 investment is a negligible cost to guarantee your message actually lands when it matters most.