Summary
The Cross Media Reach report provides the incremental reach YouTube added on top of a linear TV campaign. It deduplicates viewers across TV and YouTube and reports the unique audience that only YouTube delivered. Placement, Full Funnel Impact and Audience Insights reports have no TV data, so none of them can produce that number.
Nitin Batra is a Google Video Ads certified professional who plans and measures YouTube campaigns for brands running alongside linear TV, including cross media reach and frequency measurement.
Last updated: August 23, 2026
To see the incremental reach YouTube added on top of a linear TV campaign, use the Cross Media Reach report, which combines TV and YouTube exposure data to show deduplicated total reach and YouTube-only incremental reach.
- Placement Report
- Full Funnel Impact Report
- Audience Insights
- Cross Media Reach
The correct answer is: Cross Media Reach
Key Takeaways
- – The Cross Media Reach report shows the incremental reach YouTube delivered on top of a linear TV campaign.
- – It deduplicates audiences across TV and YouTube so the same viewer is not counted twice in total campaign reach.
- – Incremental reach is the core planning metric for brands that already buy TV and need to justify shifting budget to YouTube.
- – Cross Media Reach needs to be set up before the campaign starts with matching flight dates, demographic and market, and availability depends on the country and the TV measurement partner.
What exactly does incremental reach mean in a Cross Media Reach report?
Incremental reach is the percentage or number of unique people who saw your YouTube ads but were not reached by your TV schedule at all. It is calculated after deduplication, so anyone who saw both the TV spot and the YouTube ad is excluded from the incremental figure. This is the number media planners use to argue for a bigger digital share of the budget.
Why can a Placement report not answer this question?
A Placement report tells you which channels, videos, apps and websites your ads appeared on, and how each placement performed. It has no visibility into linear TV at all, and it does not deduplicate people across media. It is a delivery and exclusion tool, not a reach planning tool.
Is Cross Media Reach the same thing as Reach Planner?
No. Reach Planner is a forecasting tool you use before you buy, to model what reach and frequency a proposed YouTube plan would deliver. Cross Media Reach is post campaign measurement of what actually happened across TV and YouTube together. Many teams use both, Reach Planner to plan the split and Cross Media Reach to verify the outcome.
What is the most common mistake when setting up Cross Media Reach measurement?
Requesting it after the campaign has already finished. The TV panel data has to be aligned to the same flight dates, target demographic and geography as the YouTube activity, and that alignment has to be agreed up front with the measurement partner. Mismatched demographics, for example TV bought on 25 to 54 and YouTube targeted at 18 to 34, will make the deduplicated numbers useless.