Commerce Media’s Rush to Brand Budgets

As growth in commerce media moves from search into display and further up the funnel into brand budgets, its growth is being held back by limited measuring capabilities. The majority of commerce media today is being measured using last-click attribution, however, upper-funnel brand media rarely drives clicks or is the last touch before a purchase. Instead, it’s usually long-form content, like online video or CTV, where the goal isn’t immediate action but building perception and awareness.

By relying on click-based measurement, brands aren’t just overlooking the upper funnel, they’re working against it. This creates a vicious cycle where brands invest in the upper funnel, see weak measurement results, and react by shifting that money into the bottom funnel where it’s easy to measure via click-based attribution. Brands that get pulled into this downward spiral often don’t realize the issue until it's too late and growth platitudes and the effectiveness of their lower funnel spending drops without the aircover above it.

Measurement is a huge limiting factor in upper funnel media, and progress will be limited if we keep relying on the same outdated metrics.

Leaving Last Click Behind

One way to rethink measurement is by moving away from the mechanics of measuring just what happened (i.e., someone clicked then purchased) to why it happened (i.e., what caused someone to purchase). This is a marked (and needed) shift from descriptive analytics to predictive analytics. Beyond the typical impression- and click-based descriptive metrics there are a suite of metrics that are far more relevant among upper funnel campaigns, including viewability, video completes, and on-target audience delivery.

From an outcome measurement standpoint the upper funnel doesn’t drive immediate sales, so the mechanism of measurement needs to account for delayed effects. Lift tests, whether user level randomized control or geo-based match markets, typically need a longer lead period post-campaign to capture the trailing effects that occur after the campaign is complete. If measured through marketing mix models, ad-stock, decay rates, and retention rates need to be tuned to capture the lagging and compounding impact.

This ensures that the effect of advertising through memory is accounted for as it builds and decays over time and when there is a future trigger event contributes to a higher propensity to purchase one brand over another. These techniques aren't new, they’ve been used for decades in media, but it’s time for us to bring them into commerce media.

Who Owns the Brand Building?

As commerce media networks continue to push their upper funnel brand offerings, organizations are facing tension over who should own upper funnel media. Commerce media is typically run by shopper or trade marketing teams, while brand building sits with the brand team. This can create friction as commerce media moves up the funnel into traditional brand-building channels. Who will manage the planning, strategy and creative development? Creative drives about half of the upper funnel impact, so it’s crucial to spend the time and money to make sure the creative asset being used is top quality. Whether it's borrowing from the brand team's existing assets or taking and adapting it to reuse and reframe for their purposes, quality and cohesion matter most.

The bigger challenge is outcome alignment between the two teams. Brand budgets are supposed to raise the tide for all sales channels, while trade and shopper is often goaled on sales through a particular channel.

Looking Ahead

Commerce media’s move into brand budgets requires a re-evaluation of measurement. Applying lower funnel performance measures to upper funnel investment is a recipe for disaster. If retail networks and advertisers are going to move commerce media into brand budgets it needs to come with a paradigm shift in measurement.

David Pollet is the CEO of Incremental, a provider of trusted cross-channel analytics to help brands measure retail media investment impact, optimize marketing spend, and achieve growth.