October '24 Monthly Roundup
No tricks, just treats in this month's roundup. We've conjured up case studies for your inspiration, bewitching insights from Prime Big Deal Days, and scary-good retail media strategies and actionable ideas to maximize your success during the upcoming Turkey 12 (T12).
?? Let’s get GO-ing.????
From the GO Team:?
GO works with a Beauty brand that was launching a new product and wanted to promote a multi-ASIN regimen, but they were working on a limited budget in a highly saturated category. To protect their resources and utilize them for the greatest impact, we orchestrated a strategy that would test upper-funnel tactics one month at a time, proving their impact before expanding further up the funnel.??
When comparing Month 1 to Month 6, we saw:?
With Amazon’s holiday season anticipated to be its strongest yet, and more brands coming into the fold and continuing to spend more, it’s not enough to set your deals and advertising strategy and then say, “Amazon’s influx of traffic will do the rest of the work for me”. Your competitors will take the extra time to figure out and enact additional nuances during T12 that set themselves apart from the rest, and if you don’t do the same work, your brand will get lost in a sea of other products.?
So you’re probably asking yourself, “What are some things I can do mid-event to ensure my brand experiences the highest success possible?” Check out the article with some key tips on...?
?? Retail Readiness?
?? Inventory Monitoring?
?? Keyword Management?
? Lead-Out Approach?
A GO client that has a presence in both FR and DE was only leveraging Sponsored Ads within their advertising strategy. We launched an upper-funnel test for the client to drive incremental new-to-brand (NTB) via OLV prospecting, DSP prospecting, and DSP retargeting, and then utilized AMC data to prove that...??
Check out the GO team’s roundup of data and details from these early fall shopping days:??
Posts by others that stood out:?
Andrew Lipsman researcher and analyst of Media, Ads + Commerce , recently shared compelling research demonstrating how retail media networks deliver superior incremental returns compared to traditional advertising channels. Through his analysis of one CPG brand's performance data, Lipsman reinforces his longstanding argument that retail media networks' unique combination of media and merchandising creates powerful synergies for driving incremental sales.?
Key takeaways from his analysis:?
And in case you want a refresher on the retail media networks out there, Eric Savitch , SVP at the Path to Purchase Institute , shared his latest visualization of the omnichannel landscape.
This visual covers retail media networks across nine categories, including:?
Amazon Ads Partners shared a great recap of the announcements from unBoxed this year. While there was a lot of buzz around AI, the AMC announcements were the ones that caught a lot of our team’s attention:?
Thanks to our own Lem Turner for calling out Helium 10 ’s drop of their Q3 benchmark report. There are lots of nuances in the report for different categories but the chart above highlights the big picture callouts across CTRs, CPCs, CPAs, CVRs, ACOS, ROAS, and eCPM:?
Roger Dunn , Global Retail Media Lead at Diageo, highlighted some EMARKETER forecast data that compared spend across the largest platforms. He called out:??
?? Retail media is forecasted to grow +$29.2 billion during the 2024-2026 period?
?? Amazon Ads is set to make $22.3 billion of this, that's 76%?
?? The remaining players will make $6.9 billion?
?? Combined, Meta & Alphabet are forecasted to grow +$27.4 billion?
While this forecast is interesting, advertisers shouldn’t just follow the crowd for the sake of the crowd. Every advertiser needs to build their own combination of channels based on how they answer two key questions:??
Breaking the Brand vs Performance Divide: Why Great Marketing Should Do Both?
Stephen Whiteside shared a great piece for WARC this month exploring how brands can break free from the traditional brand vs. performance divide. His reporting, featuring insights from strategy expert Fergus O'Carroll and research from Dr. Grace Kite and Tom Roach, reveals why this artificial split may cost companies more than they realize.?
Marketing leaders often face pushback when advocating for brand-building initiatives. The common objection? "Show me the numbers." While performance marketing's immediate results are appealing, new research reveals why this singular focus may be costing companies more than they realize, as Whiteside reports.?
"I absolutely think that further driving a gap between performance marketing and brand marketing isn't helping anybody. They can be done together," strategy expert Fergus O'Carroll tells WARC. Recent studies support his view, showing that 58% of advertising's profit effects occur in the first three months, while the remainder builds over time—suggesting that focusing solely on short-term metrics fundamentally misunderstands how marketing drives business growth.?
The concept of "performance plateau," developed by Dr. Grace Kite and Tom Roach, illustrates this clearly. Companies relying exclusively on performance marketing eventually exhaust their pool of ready-to-buy customers, leading to diminishing returns and rising acquisition costs. It's like fishing in a pond without restocking it—eventually, you run out of fish.?
Think of brand building not as a separate activity but as future demand creation. When GEICO features its gecko mascot across both brand and performance campaigns, it's not just building awareness—it's making every marketing dollar work harder. The gecko's presence in performance ads leverages years of brand equity to drive immediate action, demonstrating how strong brand assets can enhance short-term results.?
"I would rather go to the client and say, 'Do great work as it'll cost you less' than enter into a lingo conversation about brand versus performance," O'Carroll notes in Whiteside's report. This isn't just rhetoric—the "Cost of Dull" reveals that uninspiring, purely tactical advertising requires significantly more media spend to achieve the same results as campaigns that build brand equity while driving performance.?
For marketing leaders seeking buy-in, the key is reframing the conversation. Instead of positioning brand building as a nice-to-have, present it as an efficiency play that makes performance marketing more effective. Document your current performance metrics, identify plateaus in effectiveness, and demonstrate how brand integration can lower customer acquisition costs while building sustainable growth.?
The most successful modern marketing strategies don't choose between brand and performance—they leverage both to create a compound effect that drives both immediate results and long-term success.?
Clifton R. Wharton Jr. was a pioneering CEO who broke racial barriers as the first Black leader of a major U.S. corporation (TIAA-CREF) and later became one of the highest-ranking Black officials in U.S. foreign policy.?
Wharton's journey from academia to corporate leadership demonstrates how embracing new opportunities—even in the face of systemic resistance—can drive transformative change. His philosophy reminds us that innovation often requires letting go of comfortable but limiting traditions.?
As you look ahead to the next month, identify one "we've always done it this way" practice in your brand strategy that might be holding you back. Spend 30 minutes this week mapping out how you could transform this limitation into an opportunity for growth. What possibilities open up when you embrace change instead of resisting it??