- Strong media performance does not always translate into sales growth
- The biggest issue may be demand leakage, not demand generation
- Media and commerce are often measured separately
- Brands need greater visibility across the commerce journey
- Growth can come from fixing conversion barriers rather than increasing media spend *
Traffic is up. Campaign performance looks strong. Media investment is optimised. So why are sales not growing at the rate you expected?
Brands have never had more ways to reach consumers. Marketing budgets remain under pressure, yet investment in commerce and retail media continues to grow.
New platforms launch regularly. More audience segments are available. More data is generated. More performance metrics are reported. Yet confidence is declining.
Not because opportunities for growth have disappeared, but because many organisations still struggle to answer a surprisingly simple question: Where are we losing sales?
Most leadership teams can tell you what they have spent on marketing. Many can tell you how much traffic their campaigns generate, and some can tell you which channels perform best.
Far fewer can identify where demand is being lost between interest and purchase. And that matters.
A shopper can arrive at a digital shelf ready to buy and still fail to convert. The product may be difficult to find. Stock may be unavailable. Ratings may not provide confidence. Product information may be incomplete. The path to purchase may simply be more difficult than it should be.
The result is that brands invest heavily in creating demand but often have limited visibility into what happens next.
The problem is not always demand
When growth targets are missed, the default response is often to increase investment. More media. More reach. More campaigns. But generating demand is only one part of the equation.
If shoppers cannot find your products, compare them easily, or buy them when they are ready, additional investment may simply amplify existing problems rather than solve them.
Every day, brands spend significant budgets driving consumers to retailer websites, ecommerce platforms, and marketplaces.
- But what happens when they get there?
- Can shoppers easily find your products?
- Is your content helping them make a purchase decision?
- Are products available when consumers are ready to buy?
- Do ratings and reviews build confidence?
- Is the path to purchase straightforward?
If the answer to any of these questions is unclear, there may be friction in the system that no amount of media investment can fix.
The disconnect between media and commerce
Most organisations have become highly effective at measuring media performance.
Fewer measure what happens after a shopper arrives.
As a result, media, trade, and commerce teams often optimise various parts of the customer journey using different objectives, metrics, and reporting structures.
Everyone sees a piece of the picture. Few see the entire system. This creates blind spots around:
- Retail media effectiveness and return on investment
- Digital shelf performance and product discoverability
- Retailer prioritisation
- First party data utilisation
- Conversion performance
- Measurement and attribution
The issue is not necessarily a lack of demand. It is often a lack of visibility into where demand fails to convert into revenue.
Questions worth asking
Before increasing your media budget, start here:
- Can shoppers find your products when they are actively searching?
- Is your product content influencing purchase decisions?
- Are stock or availability issues impacting conversion?
- Are retail media investments driving meaningful business outcomes?
- Do trade, media and commerce teams share common objectives and measures of success?
- Do you know where consumers are dropping out of the purchase journey?
If these questions are difficult to answer, your organisation may not have a demand problem. You may have a visibility problem.
Before the next planning cycle
Before allocating the next rand of budget, pause before asking how much more you need to spend. Ask a different question: Where are you losing the demand, you have already paid to create?
Because growth does not always come from reaching more people.
Sometimes it comes from removing the barriers that prevent interested consumers from becoming customers.
At dentsu BX, we help organisations identify where demand is leaking across the commerce journey. By combining commerce strategy, retail media expertise, customer experience analysis, and verified performance data, we help brands move from fragmented reporting to a clear diagnosis of what is driving, or limiting, growth.
You do not need another dashboard. You need a diagnosis
If this resonates and you want to explore where growth is leaking in your business, that is where we start.
Drop a comment or email me on what is your biggest blind spot right now. I would genuinely like to understand where growth is leaking in your organisation.
* Summary created by AI
Ansa Leighton-Buys is dentsu BX strategic head of commerce marketing, SSA.
