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TripleLift, the “Creative SSP” that powers its own AI‑driven layer TL Spark, unveiled a Total Economic Impact (TEI) study commissioned by the company and executed by Forrester Consulting. The analysis, released on Feb. 26, 2026, examines how six senior decision‑makers at global advertising and media agencies have fared after adopting TripleLift’s custom creative formats. According to the findings, those agencies collectively realized a 272 % return on investment (ROI) and a net present value (NPV) of $2.2 million over a three‑year horizon.
The study’s headline numbers are striking, but the real story lies in how the data translates into everyday agency operations. By marrying premium inventory with flexible, programmatic‑ready creative, TripleLift appears to have addressed three persistent pain points: rising media costs, fragmented ad ecosystems, and increasing consumer resistance to intrusive formats.
The study’s methodology and the “composite” agency
Forrester’s approach mirrors its classic TEI framework: it aggregates qualitative interview data and quantifies the financial impact using a standardized model. The six interviewees—senior buyers and strategists from agencies that collectively spend $1.2 million annually with TripleLift—were combined into a single “composite” organization for the purpose of the analysis. This composite represents a global media agency with $5 billion in annual revenue and eight programmatic buyers.
By consolidating the experiences of these agencies, Forrester could isolate the incremental value attributable to TripleLift’s custom creative formats while applying a uniform discount rate of 10 % and adjusting for risk. The resulting model projects a three‑year benefit of $3 million, broken down into performance uplift, cost avoidance, and workflow efficiencies.
Quantifiable financial upside
The TEI report lists three headline financial outcomes:
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): Agencies reported an average $3.70 in revenue for every dollar spent on TripleLift campaigns.
- Incremental profit: The uplift translates to roughly $1.3 million in additional profit over three years.
- Labor cost avoidance: By automating creative assembly and asset development, agencies saved an estimated 40 hours per campaign, amounting to $357 000 in avoided labor expenses.
These figures combine to produce the 272 % ROI and $2.2 million NPV highlighted in the press release. While the study does not disclose the exact mix of campaign types, it notes that the benefits stem from both performance gains (higher CPMs, better engagement) and operational savings (reduced manual DSP work, streamlined data handling).
From bottlenecks to scalable performance
Interviewees painted a consistent picture of pre‑adoption challenges. Agencies struggled with:
- High CPMs on legacy native and display inventory.
- Lengthy creative turnaround times that limited the ability to respond to real‑time market shifts.
- Fragmented supply chains that required manual stitching of data, deals, and creative assets.
- Transparency concerns around where ads appeared and how they were measured.
TripleLift’s custom creative formats appear to have mitigated these issues. The platform delivers native, branded video, CTV, and retail‑media formats that are pre‑formatted for programmatic delivery. Agencies can activate these assets through curated deal IDs, bypassing the manual DSP configuration that typically slows down campaign launches. TL Spark’s AI layer further refines audience targeting and contextual relevance, reducing the need for separate data‑management tools.
The study highlights that agencies appreciated the “white‑glove” service model, which includes a dedicated support team that handles creative assembly and ensures compliance with publisher specifications. This service model, combined with a standardized native format that works across thousands of premium publishers, helped agencies achieve the reported time savings and cost reductions.
What exactly are TripleLift’s custom creative formats?
TripleLift’s offering sits at the intersection of supply‑side technology and creative production. The platform provides:
- Custom native formats that transform standard brand assets (images, videos, copy) into publisher‑specific native ad units without requiring a redesign for each site.
- High‑impact non‑native formats such as branded video and CTV, delivered programmatically with the same workflow as native inventory.
- Creative assembly tools that automatically generate the required HTML5, VAST, or other specifications based on a single asset upload.
- Curated deal IDs that grant agencies access to premium inventory at pre‑negotiated rates, simplifying the buying process.
- TL Spark, an AI‑driven layer that matches creative to audience signals and contextual data, aiming to improve viewability and engagement.
These capabilities are packaged as a “Creative SSP,” meaning TripleLift not only supplies inventory but also handles the creative production side, a model that is gaining traction as agencies look to reduce the number of point solutions in their tech stacks.
Market relevance: where TripleLift fits in the ad‑tech landscape
The ad‑tech ecosystem has been moving toward greater integration of creative and media buying. Programmatic native, once a niche, is now a core component of many agencies’ media plans, driven by consumer fatigue with traditional display banners. At the same time, advertisers demand measurable performance and brand‑safe environments, pushing supply‑side platforms to offer more transparent, premium inventory.
TripleLift’s approach—bundling creative production with programmatic access—mirrors trends set by larger players such as Google’s DV360 and The Trade Desk, which have introduced native and video solutions that automate creative assembly. However, TripleLift differentiates itself by focusing exclusively on custom formats and by providing a dedicated service team that handles the end‑to‑end process, a feature that many larger platforms lack.
The Forrester TEI study suggests that this model can deliver tangible financial benefits, a claim that could influence agencies weighing the trade‑off between in‑house creative resources and outsourced solutions. As agencies continue to consolidate their tech stacks, a platform that promises both performance uplift and operational efficiency may become a compelling addition.
Executive perspective
Dave Helmreich, CEO of TripleLift, emphasized the strategic importance of the findings:
“As agencies face increasing pressure to do more with less, this study confirms what our partners experience every day – creative formats can deliver both performance and efficiency at scale.”
Helmreich added that TripleLift’s custom approach “helps agencies improve outcomes across CPMs, engagement, and productivity, without adding complexity.” The quote underscores the company’s positioning of its platform as a productivity tool rather than a purely performance‑driven ad network.
Access to the full study
For those interested in the granular data, Forrester Consulting made the full “Total Economic Impact™ of TripleLift Creative Formats” study available for download in January 2026. The report contains the detailed methodology, risk adjustments, and sensitivity analysis that underpin the headline numbers. Agencies can request the document directly from TripleLift’s website.
Bottom line
The Forrester TEI study provides a data‑driven endorsement of TripleLift’s custom creative formats, quantifying a 272 % ROI and $3 million in three‑year benefits for a composite agency model. By automating creative assembly, offering curated premium inventory, and leveraging AI‑based audience matching, TripleLift appears to address long‑standing agency challenges around cost, speed, and transparency.
While the numbers are compelling, the broader implication is that ad‑tech vendors that can combine creative production with programmatic buying may gain a competitive edge as agencies continue to streamline their technology stacks. Whether TripleLift can sustain these gains across a wider client base remains to be seen, but the current evidence positions the platform as a noteworthy option for agencies seeking measurable performance without sacrificing operational efficiency.
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