What’s broken in commerce media, & how leading CPGs are addressing it

Why legacy digital tactics are costing CPG brands millions, and what to do about it

The modern shopper moves fast, and your media strategy should too. Yet many consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands are still relying on outdated tactics built for a slower, disconnected retail environment. From over-reliance on cumbersome media mix modeling to the default use of "Where to Buy" tools that kill conversion, the gap between media spend and measurable sales outcomes plagues the digital marketer’s day-to-day.

In this article, I’ll break down what’s no longer working and how CPG marketers with large teams and complex retail footprints can embrace a closed-loop approach that’s optimized for today’s commerce journey. It's not just about seeing what happened; it's about knowing what’s working now and what to do next in real time.

Keep reading if you’re:

• Still relying on MMM as your main compass for offsite media
• Finding that Where to Buy experiences are killing your conversion rate
• Constrained by fair and equitable practices governed by the Robinson-Patman Act

The cost of outdated commerce media practices

Imagine telling your CFO that you spent $5 million on impressions last month. Impressions. Not sales, not conversions, just the hope that someone saw your ad. That might have made sense in the Mad Men era. But today, every dollar should be tied to measurable outcomes.

Here are the top outdated tactics that are holding CPG brands back:

1. Still using media mix modeling (MMM) for optimization?
MMM is great for 12-month planning cycles, but not for real-time decision-making. Today’s commerce moves in days, not quarters. Brands that rely solely on lagging indicators are wasting budget and missing growth opportunities.

Modern Fix: Enhance MMM with real-time attribution models that leverage actual retail conversion data. You’ll make more informed, faster optimization decisions that impact sales this week, not next fiscal year.

2. "Where to Buy" as the default in your media? Think again.
Where to Buy buttons are often treated as default, but they create friction and disconnect in the path to purchase. They’re a bolt-on solution to a relatively irrelevant or misunderstood policy that impacts a marketer's ability to deliver a shopper seamless purchases that they want.

Modern Fix: Replace “Where to Buy” with intentional commerce journeys that meet shoppers where they are, in the moment. When intent is signaled, remove the extra clicks and interruptions and deliver them directly to a logged-in retailer app that you know will provide a great purchase experience. Don’t make the customer work for the sale.

3. Siloed teams, siloed media, siloed results
When brand, shopper, trade, and sales operate in silos, so does your data. That slows your feedback loops, muddles accountability, and breaks the customer journey. Even worse, it can lead to a lot of duplicative or wasted spend, costing your already stressed media budgets.

Modern Fix: Align top-funnel storytelling with bottom-funnel intent signals using a closed-loop system. This creates a virtuous cycle: brand media generates awareness and drives purchase, and retail signals sharpen creative and media targeting. Make sure all media teams, no matter where they sit in the organization, understand the holistic strategy across the publisher, not just the portion of the budget they own.

The Power of Closed-Loop Commerce Media

Closed-loop media means that every click, impression, and creative asset is connected to actual sales performance, not modeled guesses.

What does it look like in practice?

• Real-time feedback: Know within days which creatives, platforms, and audiences are driving purchases.
• Retail attribution: Use conversion and basket data from retailers to optimize spend and messaging.
• Smart data activation: Fuel Meta, Google, and programmatic platforms with your 1st-party commerce data to improve performance autonomously.

At Ampd, we’ve helped clients turn small test budgets into million-dollar wins. One campaign drove $1.5M in retailer sales within five days from a modest paid social test. Another CPG brand was able to increase spend by 90% because, for the first time, they could see what was working and knew that they had the swiftest moment to capitalize on it.

Let real-time sales signals guide your creative rotation, audience targeting, and channel mix. Be sure to hold your agencies accountable to performance, not just process.

Why Ampd was built for this moment

Ampd connects offsite media (like Meta or programmatic display) directly to retailer sales, without relying on outdated lift studies or manual attribution.

We enable:

• Smarter campaign planning with real-time signals.
• Seamless commerce journeys without clunky “Where to Buy” redirects.
• Meaningful in-flight optimization using granular media intelligence connected with retail outcomes.

Think of Ampd as your always-on agent for commerce media: learning, optimizing, and activating better shopper experiences daily.

Ready to see what modern commerce media can really do?
It’s time to stop measuring ads by reach and impressions. Start driving revenue by design.

Book a demo with our team to see how closed-loop optimization can transform your results.