Onsite retail media has been revolutionary in its ability to get brands closer to the point of purchase. But it has also been somewhat limited in execution. Much of onsite retail media has focused on placing ads as sponsored search results. They’re designed to fit in with the aesthetics of the retailer’s website and often just use the search query to inform what products to place in the sponsored ad. On some retailer sites, there could be many competing products from other companies and very little room to differentiate brand’s offerings.

Offsite Commerce Media Has A New Set Of Requirements

With offsite commerce media, brands will have different creative requirements. They’ll need to prepare for all sorts of different formats to suit a retailer’s campaign in a specific environment such as Social or CTV incorporating brand imagery that helps the products stand out in a sea of competitors. To fulfill these requirements, brands will want to take advantage of a platform that automates the creative process to suit both a retailer’s aesthetic requirements and a brand’s unique identity.

The Best KPIs For Offsite Retail Media Are Not Yet Defined

With offsite commerce media, brands and retailers are still experimenting and discovering what end it best serves. The majority of advertisers say it’s best suited for upper funnel strategies according to emarketer. But many marketers are trying to optimize campaigns toward a higher conversion rate. For retail media buyers, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus for its utility, so brands will have to keep this ambiguity in mind when going offsite.

However, this is less of a confusion over its purpose and more a sign that offsite has a lot of potential. In terms of mapping a full-funnel strategy, it makes the most sense to use offsite for upper-funnel marketing and onsite for lower.

Regardless of what KPIs a brand uses offsite retail media for, they’ll still be benefiting from product purchase data – a reliable indicator of what a consumer will purchase in the future.