The challenge
A black box that couldn’t explain its own spend
The brand had been using a retail media software platform from a competing provider, but their ad spend wasn’t yielding satisfactory results. The underperformance was attributed to a focus on branded campaigns that hurt organic sales.
The platform was described as a “black box.” The brand team lacked visibility into how ad spend was allocated and struggled to identify the true drivers of performance, which kept them from making informed decisions or improving their strategy over time.
- Branded campaigns hurting organic: Spend focused on terms that cut into organic sales
- A black-box platform: No view into how ad dollars were allocated
- No room for data-driven input: The team couldn’t optimize the approach over time
The solution
Spend where ads are incremental
CommerceIQ’s integrated retail ecommerce platform introduced Incremental ROAS (iROAS). By estimating organic performance, the brand can find the keywords with the largest opportunities for incremental ad spend that won’t cannibalize organic sales.
- Shift the budget mix: From low-iROAS brands to high-iROAS brands within the same category
- Boost bids and budgets: For the keywords with higher iROAS
- Maintain SOV on priority keywords: Visibility held where it matters most
The results
Less wasteful spend, with budgets matched to shoppers
In Q1 2023, the brand targeted previously overlooked but incremental areas, spending less per click while growing sales and return on ad spend year over year.
- +93% Total attributable sales: Growth for Sponsored Products manual campaigns, year over year
- −33% Cost per click: Decline in CPC year over year
- +74% Return on ad spend: ROAS growth year over year
- 70%+ Incremental ROAS: iROAS growth year over year
