Tracking and Optimizing Ad Performance on Commerce Media

Commerce media channels, including retail media networks, have become essential platforms for brands aiming to reach consumers effectively. These channels offer unique opportunities for targeted advertising using first-party data and advanced analytics.

They are also an important opportunity at a time when targeting and attribution for digital advertising are becoming more difficult. According to an article by McKinsey & Company, "The planned disappearance of cookies will make it harder for them to track the performance of campaigns, potentially weakening their value proposition to advertisers. They also risk losing ad dollars to retail media networks (RMNs), which are better able to measure ROAS.”

To maximize the impact of advertising efforts on these platforms, brands must focus on both tracking ad performance and optimizing their strategies. This article explores how brands can achieve these goals.

Tracking Ad Performance on Commerce Media

To effectively track ad performance on commerce media channels, brands must implement comprehensive analytics and attribution frameworks. These frameworks should capture data from various touchpoints across the shopper journey, both online and in-store, providing a holistic view of campaign effectiveness.

Key components of a robust tracking system include:

• Sales lift analysis: This involves measuring the incremental sales impact of commerce media campaigns by comparing the performance of products featured in ads against control groups. This analysis helps quantify the direct impact of advertising efforts on revenue generation.
• Multi-touch attribution: By assigning credit to each touchpoint along the shopper journey, from initial exposure to final purchase, brands can gain insights into the relative impact of different ad placements and formats. This approach enables marketers to optimize media spend and tactics based on attribution insights.
• In-store measurement: Utilizing technologies like computer vision and IoT sensors allows brands to track shopper engagement with digital out-of-home (DOOH) displays and measure the impact of in-store campaigns on foot traffic, dwell time, and basket size. Integrating this data with online metrics provides a comprehensive view of ad performance across channels.
• Cross-channel media mix modeling: As commerce media ecosystems become more complex, it's crucial to evolve cross-channel media mix modeling capabilities. This involves analyzing data from multiple sources and using advanced statistical methods to determine the optimal combination of advertising channels for maximizing ROI.
• Real-time performance tracking: Implementing tools that provide near real-time insights into ad performance allows brands to make timely optimizations. This agility is crucial in the fast-paced commerce media environment, enabling marketers to adjust campaigns on the fly for improved effectiveness.
• Viewability and brand safety metrics: Tracking viewability rates and ensuring brand safety are essential aspects of performance measurement. These metrics help brands ensure their ads are being seen by real users in appropriate contexts, maximizing the impact of their advertising spend.

By implementing these tracking mechanisms, brands can gain deep insights into the performance of their commerce media campaigns, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous optimization. This comprehensive approach to tracking ad performance allows marketers to justify investments in commerce media channels and demonstrate tangible business impact.

Optimizing Commerce Media Advertising Strategies

To maximize the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on commerce media channels, brands should implement a range of optimization strategies:

• Dynamic ad formats: Utilize interactive and personalized ad formats to increase engagement. Shoppable ads, for instance, allow consumers to make purchases directly within the ad unit, streamlining the path to conversion. Video ads and augmented reality experiences can also enhance product visualization and drive higher click-through rates.
• A/B testing: Continuously test different elements of your ads, including headlines, images, call-to-actions, and targeting parameters. This iterative approach helps identify the most effective combinations for each audience segment. For example, testing different product images or promotional offers can reveal which variations resonate best with specific customer groups.
• Audience segmentation: Refine targeting by creating granular audience segments based on behavioral data, purchase history, and browsing patterns. This allows for more personalized messaging and product recommendations, improving ad relevance and conversion rates.
• Cross-channel optimization: Analyze performance across various touchpoints within the retail media ecosystem, including on-site search, display ads, and off-site placements. This holistic view enables marketers to allocate budget more effectively across channels and optimize the overall customer journey.
• Dayparting and scheduling: Adjust ad delivery based on time-of-day and day-of-week performance data. This ensures ads are shown when target audiences are most likely to engage and convert, maximizing ad spend efficiency.
• Product feed optimization: Regularly update and refine product feeds to ensure accuracy, relevance, and competitiveness. This includes optimizing product titles, descriptions, and images to improve visibility and click-through rates in sponsored product listings.
• Contextual targeting: Leverage the unique context of retail media platforms by aligning ads with relevant product categories, search terms, and shopping behaviors. This approach enhances ad relevance and can lead to higher engagement rates.
• Budget pacing and allocation: Implement automated budget management tools to ensure consistent ad delivery throughout the campaign period. Dynamically reallocate the budget to top-performing ad sets and products to maximize overall campaign performance.

By implementing these optimization strategies, brands can continually refine their commerce media campaigns, driving improved performance and return on investment. The key is to maintain a data-driven approach, consistently analyzing results and adapting strategies based on real-time insights from the retail media ecosystem.

Utilizing First-Party Data and Automated Bidding Techniques

It’s also important to note the importance of leveraging first-party data for performance tracking and optimization. This resource is especially important for strategies like automated bidding.

First-Party Data

Brands can use first-party data to create custom audience segments based on purchase history, recency, frequency, and customer lifetime value to increase ad relevancy and conversion rates. This data-driven approach allows for precise targeting of high-value audiences, ensuring that advertising efforts reach the most promising potential customers.

By utilizing the rich customer insights provided by retail media networks, brands can tailor their messaging and offers to resonate with specific audience segments, maximizing the impact of their advertising spend.

Automated Bidding

Leveraging automated bidding strategies offered by retail media platforms can significantly enhance campaign efficiency and maximize returns. Techniques like target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and conversion bidding automatically adjust bids based on campaign goals, optimizing ad placements in real time.

This machine learning-driven technique analyzes vast amounts of data to make informed bidding decisions, freeing up marketers to focus on higher-level strategies. By setting clear objectives and allowing algorithms to handle bid management, brands can achieve better performance at scale while maintaining control over their overall advertising strategy.

Maximize Your Return on Investment in Commerce Media

In the rapidly evolving landscape of commerce media, effective ad tracking and optimization are crucial for brands to maximize their return on investment. By implementing robust tracking mechanisms, leveraging first-party data, and utilizing advanced optimization strategies, brands can gain valuable insights into their ad performance and continuously refine their campaigns.

To learn more about how you can optimize your commerce media campaigns, don’t miss Commerce Media Brand Summit 2025. It’s happening from March 10^th to 11^th at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia.

View the agenda and get tickets to the event today.