Rethinking retail media – beyond performance

How running consideration campaigns in retail media can improve your customer KPIs.

Retail media is on the rise. However, even marketing professionals need help to navigate between different campaign types and fully grasp their impact on meaningful customer KPIs.

We at Zalando Partner Marketing Services (ZMS) conducted incrementality lift studies across various consideration campaigns. We saw statistically significant impacts like an average increase of 255% in brand follows, and 24% in ‘add to wishlist’ events. Through case studies on My Essential Wardrobe, Ellos, and Vero Moda, brands can better understand the value of mid-funnel campaigns.

Retail Media continues to outgrow other advertising channels1 and is well known to boost performance and sales. But when we take a closer look, we see different strategies. Up-and-coming brands often almost purely focus on performance campaigns on Zalando, while marketing and growth leaders typically go for holistic marketing plans with ZMS, including mid- and upper-funnel campaigns.

But what prevents certain brands from realising sufficient marketing strategies beyond sales-focused Sponsored Products campaigns? They are often looking primarily at conversion KPIs such as sales and return on ad spend while not taking into account how awareness and consideration campaigns influence customers along the full path to purchase.

Why campaigns with a focus on consideration are key to encouraging customer engagement

Sponsored Collections by ZMS include campaigns which are designed to drive the consideration stage. These campaigns foster initial customer connection and guide users to purchase decisions through their content, brand and product information.

In standard campaign reports on different ad platforms, it’s often hard to recognize the true impact of campaigns on top of organic customer KPIs. Therefore ZMS conducted a set of incrementality tests, considered the ‘gold standard’ in the industry to measure the causal impact driven by Sponsored Collections.

In our lift study, we randomised our customers into two groups. The first group was allowed to see the campaign as usual, whereas the second cohort, who should normally see the ad, was not exposed to it. By comparing these two groups, we capture the normal organic baseline of a brand in addition to incremental uplift directly caused by the campaign. This setup allowed us to measure the campaign’s exact impact on Zalando customer consideration and broader customer behaviour.

The impact of Sponsored Collection campaigns is essential for partners to drive engagement KPIs in the mid-funnel of the customer journey. The study measured an average statistically significant increase in various KPIs. Sponsored Collections campaigns are also particularly effective for engaging new to-brand visitors. The uplifts in the tests were between 1.2 and 2.4 times larger than for existing visitors. (1)

Here's what we found in our study:

255% increase in brand followers
12%increase in product detail page views
24%increase in ‘add to wishlist’
17% increase in ‘add to cart’ events

“ We are excited to see clear evidence of consideration campaigns significantly influencing the pre-conversion stage and paving the way for strong customer connections and commercial success. ”
Sema SaglikHead of Solutions at Zalando Partner Marketing Services

Diving into case studies

To better understand the impact of retail media, here are three partner case studies with a focus on consideration which show the impact at a brand level.

How partners can maximise consideration for their brand and products

Drawing from our knowledge of consideration campaigns in the mid-funnel stage of the customer journey, we’ve put together a list of practical tips for you.

You can leverage dedicated ad formats to drive consideration KPIs such as Sponsored Collections on the Zalando Homepage, which are essential to drive engagement. This allows you to familiarise your customers with your products by highlighting for example your most popular or discounted items. It can be especially beneficial ahead of, or in parallel to typical sales events in order to drive customer impact along the funnel and convert in sales-relevant periods.
You can expand your campaign success evaluation beyond sales, and leverage consideration KPIs such as Product Detail Page views, Brand Follows and Add-to-Wishlist to understand how customers and prospects are influenced in the mid-funnel of the customer journey
You can drive engagement by promoting key styles based on functionality, category or objective, as well as by leveraging our smart algorithms for performance optimisation
Through engaging content, you can foster customer connections. With fresh and seasonally up-to-date content, you can make sure your content and messaging align with your collection and convey your brand's unique voice and message.
If you have a Brand Home on Zalando, you can directly set up a Sponsored Collections campaign on ZMS Ad Manager on your own. Our demo makes it easier for you to understand how you can do it yourself! You can also connect with your ZMS Partner Consultant to create a plan with different consideration-focused ad formats.

In conclusion

Understanding the impact of marketing campaigns in the different stages of the customer journey is essential for ensuring sufficient customer impact. As seen in the research results, for consideration campaigns, the most valuable KPIs to consider are brand followers, product detail page views, and add-to-wishlist or add-to-cart. Partners who are running consideration-focused campaigns can significantly increase these KPIs and create the foundation for strong business performance. ZMS offers dedicated Sponsored Collections campaign formats both available through Partner Consultancy as well as through Ad Manager on zDirect. Using either of these, partners can gain experience with consideration campaigns, influence customer-focused KPIs directly, and ultimately, foster strong customer connections.

(1) New visitors are Zalando users who did not view a Product Detail Page for a particular brand in the past 365 days.