Scale isn’t enough: What advertisers actually want from commerce media networks

Commerce media has spent years chasing scale, with the assumption that larger audiences mean greater advertiser impact, and in turn, larger advertiser budgets.

At the same time, as commerce media matures and advertiser budgets face greater scrutiny, networks are increasingly judged on results. Advertisers are looking for more relevant engagement, incremental purchases, stronger returns, and clearer proof of business impact. These results go beyond media metrics: advertisers are gauging how commerce media fundamentally grows their brand and customer base.

New data is challenging the idea that the biggest audience always wins, for example, Kroger and Instacart generated higher profit ROI than Amazon, Walmart, and Target. Instead, advertisers are looking for performance and operating excellence. With the right technology and business strategy in place, commerce media networks can drive powerful results that keep advertisers coming back. Koddi-powered networks using semantic search, for example, saw a 21% increase in click-through rate, a 32% increase in ROAS, and a 19% increase in conversion rate.

The implication is simple: scale creates opportunity, but outcomes earn budget. And unfortunately, not all commerce media networks are ready: Forrester Consulting found that only 12% of commerce media networks can seamlessly activate and measure campaigns across onsite, offsite, and in-store environments, leading to disjointed data stories that can minimize the results of a network’s impact.

Here’s how commerce media networks can lead by impact, not traffic, and thereby continue to gain new advertiser budgets.

The first era of commerce media rewarded audience size

The early growth of commerce media was largely driven by access. Brands wanted to reach as many shoppers as possible, particularly when those shoppers were actively searching, browsing, or preparing to make a purchase.

Large commerce platforms had several immediate advantages. They could offer more impressions, categories, campaign inventory, and opportunities for brands to allocate significant budgets through a single partner and see increased revenue.

Scale became a clear way to evaluate a network. A large audience also created a natural flywheel, as more consumers generated both traffic and transaction data, which reinforced the value to advertisers. Increased advertiser demand created incremental revenue, allowing the network to invest in additional inventory, technology, measurement, and sales capabilities.

For advertisers managing dozens of media partners, scale also made budget allocation easier. It was simpler to direct significant investment toward a small number of established platforms than to manage many smaller networks with different tools, reporting models, and campaign requirements.

That approach made sense while the market was developing, but as retail and commerce media investment has increased, advertisers have started thinking differently.

Rather than allocating investment based on shopper visibility, they’re looking to understand what happens after the shopper sees an ad. Did the sponsored listing drive a short-term conversion, or cultivate long-term loyalty? Platforms with the right data, right audience, and tight measurement have the opportunity to prove this better than ever before. 

Advertisers want outcomes, not just exposure

As commerce media investment grows, advertisers are expecting more than impressions, clicks, and attributed sales. The priority is becoming clear understanding of whether their investment generated incremental revenue, acquired new customers, improved profitability, or changed purchasing behavior.

That requires commerce media networks to build around advertiser objectives from the start. Campaign strategy, targeting, bidding, optimization, and measurement should all reflect the outcome the advertiser is trying to achieve. And that looks different based on the commerce offering: for travel media networks, the outcome may be bookings, whereas for a real estate company, it could be leads for realtors.

A network with significant traffic can still underperform if campaigns reach the wrong consumers, appear at low-intent moments, or receive credit for purchases that would have happened anyway. Even if performing well, a network that isn’t able to drive core business results may fall off advertiser budgets.

The strongest networks use customer signals, relevant inventory, and continuous optimization to help advertisers spend more effectively. They also provide measurement that distinguishes campaign activity from actual business impact.

The best commerce media networks understand their own customers

Commerce media networks do not need to recreate their competitor’s audiences to create a valuable advertising business. Instead, they need to understand why consumers use their platform, which decisions they make there, and which advertisers can meaningfully influence those decisions.

That type of insight can be more valuable than undifferentiated reach. It helps the network understand which products a household purchases, how frequently it shops, which categories it prefers, how its behavior is changing, and whether advertising influenced an actual transaction.

The same principle applies outside traditional retail:

• A travel media network understands destinations, booking windows, trip purposes, loyalty status, party size, and travel preferences.
• A restaurant or delivery platform understands cuisine preferences, ordering frequency, location, time of day, and whether a consumer is looking for convenience, discovery, or value.
• An automotive marketplace understands vehicle type, ownership stage, financing considerations, and where a consumer is in a much longer purchase journey.
• A healthcare marketplace may understand provider searches, appointment availability, geography, coverage requirements, and the difference between research and immediate care needs.

Each of these businesses has a distinct customer journey, meaning they also have different advertisers, buying cycles, conversion events, and optimization requirements.

Instead of copying the inventory, pricing, or measurement strategy of the largest retail networks, commerce operators should build around the unique signals their customers generate and the outcomes their advertisers want to influence.

Experience over inventory

More traffic opens up more inventory, creating additional opportunities to reach consumers. At the same time, relevance determines whether those opportunities are valuable.

For shoppers, that means seeing advertising that reflects what they are searching for, considering, or preparing to buy. A smaller group of high-intent consumers can be far more valuable than a larger audience with little likelihood of taking action.

For advertisers, relevance extends beyond the placement itself. It includes how easily they can plan campaigns, reach the right audiences, understand performance, and make changes that improve results.

Friction at any stage reduces the value of the network. Slow campaign launches, fragmented workflows, unclear reporting, and limited optimization guidance make it harder for advertisers to turn media investment into growth.

Leading networks treat the entire experience as part of the product. They combine relevant audiences and placements with intuitive campaign tools, transparent measurement, responsive support, and clear recommendations for what to do next.

That creates a reinforcing cycle:

• Consumers receive advertising that better reflects their intent
• Advertisers generate stronger returns and gain confidence in the network
• Increased investment then creates more demand for the inventory already available

The goal is not to monetize every possible impression, but to make every advertising opportunity more relevant, useful, and valuable.

Strong measurement tells the story

Networks may have the ability to deliver great experiences and outcomes, but as we mentioned at the start, most are lacking the capabilities to deliver unified, transparent measurement. Even with the right capabilities, advertisers may not see the impact unless that proof is presented in an accessible and compelling way.

Strong measurement helps close that gap. It connects media activity to the business outcomes advertisers actually care about and gives them confidence that the network deserves continued, or increased, investment. As you build your measurement tooling, ensure that you’re able to showcase your value to advertisers, answering questions like:

• What was incremental? Separate genuine campaign lift from transactions or conversions that were likely to happen anyway.
• Who was influenced? Show whether advertising reached new-to-brand customers, existing buyers, lapsed customers, or other strategically important audiences.
• What happened across channels? Connect onsite, offsite, and in-store activity where possible so advertisers can understand the full customer journey rather than evaluating each placement in isolation.
• What business outcome improved? Tie performance to the metrics that matter for the advertiser, whether that is revenue, bookings, leads, customer acquisition, profitability, repeat purchases, or another objective.
• What should the advertiser do next? Measurement becomes more valuable when it informs optimization. Reporting should help advertisers understand which audiences, placements, products, creative, and strategies deserve more or less investment.

Measurement also needs to be understandable. Advertisers should not have to reconcile multiple dashboards, attribution methodologies, and disconnected channel reports to determine whether a campaign worked. Consistent definitions, transparent methodologies, and unified reporting make it easier to compare performance, defend investment internally, and identify opportunities to improve.

Getting started

Networks that create the most value from the traffic, intent, data, and advertiser demand they already have will be best positioned to earn long-term advertiser budgets.

Building the capabilities to drive stronger outcomes, experiences, and measurement requires a clear understanding of the customer journey, an operating model built around advertiser objectives, and technology that continuously improves decisions across targeting, ranking, pricing, and optimization.

Learn how to turn customer intent into sustainable advertiser growth by connecting with us at Koddi.