Shoppable Media Benefits and Best Practices

For multichannel consumer brands, the pressure to drive eCommerce sales through retail partners is greater than ever. Retailer performance now defines success, not just for eCommerce teams, but also for marketers and media strategists. As Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) acquisition costs rise and retail media networks dominate, brands are shifting spend, but often lose visibility and growth.

Retail media converts existing audiences, while national media drives net-new customers. To increase profitability, brands need both to reach shoppers across the entire journey.

Enter Shoppable Media: the bridge between brand storytelling and real-time, retailer-connected sales.

Shoppable Media, or shoppable content, is digital content that drives shopper engagement and enables direct purchase actions.

Shoppable Media spans formats like display ads, videos, social posts, WhatsApp messages, CTV ads, and more. By merging content and commerce, shoppable content turns engagement into instant conversion opportunities.

Brands can route shoppers to a DTC site, a retail partner, or offer multiple checkout options. This flexible, shopper-first approach boosts conversion, improves satisfaction, and delivers valuable insights into buyer behavior.

Here’s how the multi-retailer journey typically works from a shopper’s perspective:

1. SEE: The shopper sees an ad and clicks on a ‘Shop Now’ Call-To-Action,
2. CHOOSE: …selects a preferred online or in-store retailer,
3. BUY: … and initiates checkout.

Traditional Digital Media vs. Shoppable Media

Traditional digital media builds awareness and drives traffic but often falls short in linking these actions to actual sales. Shoppable Media is designed to turn engagement into purchases. It makes buying easier and offers better measurement from a commerce point of view, linking results to retail outcomes. The table below highlights the key differences between the two approaches.

You can layer Shoppable Media to nearly any digital format to turn your brand storytelling into direct paths to purchase. It works across paid, owned, and earned media. Popular formats include social, CTV, display, video, influencer content, and digital out-of-home. Here are some key use cases:

1. Paid Social Campaigns

• Turn Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest ads into instant purchase paths

• Use first-party data and shopper behavior to identify and retarget high-intent audiences

• Optimize creatives and placements based on retailer-level performance

Ideal for: Product launches, promotions, and audience testing

2. Influencer Campaigns

• Empower influencers to drive sales at your retail partners

• Ensure brand consistency and product availability across all creator and influencer content; from social posts and stories to emails, blogs, livestreams, and more

• Attribute influencer marketing ROI with detailed conversion tracking

Ideal for Gen Z/Millennial reach and influencer marketing ROI

3. Email, SMS & Owned Media

• Add Shoppable Media links to CRM, loyalty programs, and promotional messaging

• Personalize by location, or product interest

• Boost DTC and retail sales from existing customers

Ideal for: Re-engagement, personalization, and lifecycle marketing

4. OOH & In-Store Media

• Activate QR codes on packaging, displays, billboards, or shelf talkers

• Drive shoppers to digital purchases even when in physical environments

• Track omnichannel influence on digital commerce

Ideal for: Bridging physical and digital journeys

5. CTV & Streaming Video

• Make traditionally non-clickable formats shoppable via QR codes or smart links

• Attribute sales to video ads running on platforms like Hulu, Roku, YouTube, or programmatic CTV

• Extend reach while retaining a direct path to purchase

Ideal for: Brand awareness and household-level attribution

6. Retailer Direct Strategy

• Lead shoppers straight from your shoppable content to the retailer PDP (Product Detail Page) of your choosing

• Collect retailer-specific Purchase Intent data and measure outcomes against other media campaigns

• Adjust and scale your retail media strategy based on first-party data

 Ideal for: Scaling across specific retailers while maintaining unified and independent measurement

Brand Example: Measuring Retailer-Specific Performance

MikMak’s Retailer Direct solution helps brands direct consumers to a specific retail partner. Brands can run special campaigns while collecting data consistently. This helps them monitor performance and make comparisons on one platform for improved optimizations and decision-making. Here are two examples from the Toy and Beauty sectors:

Shoppable Media is more than a tactical addition; it's a strategic driver of eCommerce growth, retail success, and media profitability. Here's how it delivers measurable value for both brands and their media partners:

🛒 Drives Incremental eCommerce Sales:

Connects media to retailer transactions, reduces drop-off, and meets consumers where they prefer to buy.

📈 Enables Full-Funnel Measurement:

From awareness to conversion, track the complete shopper journey and prove media impact at every stage.

Case Study: Improving Marketing Effectiveness

Kraft Heinz uses data from MikMak to improve the consumer experience and create new value opportunities for the brand.

🛍️ Strengthens Retailer Partnerships:

Offer multi-retailer choice, avoid channel conflict, and drive collaborative retail success.

🔍 Delivers Rich Commerce Insights:

Gain visibility into real shopper behavior across platforms and retailers for smarter decision-making.

🎯 Unifies Brand + Performance Goals:

Make brand campaigns shoppable and measurable, aligning eCommerce and media KPIs in one strategy.

“The funnel is changing because the consumer is changing. And I think we have a real opportunity as advertisers to put a little bit more shopability everywhere, which is what we're trying to do with MikMak. There is no reason why I could not try and convert when there is an awareness piece that is being displayed because, you know, it's such a big missed opportunity. ”

Arthur Sylvestre, VP Digital Commerce, Danone

Shoppable Media connects campaigns directly to sales performance. This helps brands understand which marketing efforts lead to conversions and where improvements can drive a higher return on investment.

Advanced solutions like MikMak provide a consistent and reliable way to track Shoppable Media and commerce-related data across your organic and paid media. You can pinpoint which channels, campaigns, creatives, and audiences actually drive business. Go beyond top-of-funnel metrics to access real-time conversion data, including:

• Purchase Intent Rate: The percentage of shoppers who clicked through to at least one retailer. This shows how effectively your content drives purchase behavior.

• Purchase Intent Value: An estimated monetary value generated. This helps calculate the potential revenue impact of your Shoppable Media campaigns.

• Add-to-Cart actions at specific retailers: These are strong signals that a shopper is ready to buy and can highlight which retailers and placements perform best.

• Total Basket Attribution Sales: The total sales value tracked from purchases made within the retailer’s defined attribution window.

With tools like MikMak you can also compare your performance against category benchmarks. See how your brand stacks up against other brands in your category.

“I would really focus on the data. Making everything shoppable is critical, but also what we can learn from that. And not just our access to the data, but our account team as well. Your team at MikMak has really been invaluable to us as a partner and helping to interpret that and also kind of give a more holistic view from what, you know, more broadly in the marketplace.”

Dawn Puskas, Digital Engagement, Church & Dwight

Marketers find Shoppable Media most effective when they treat it as a strategic capability, not just a campaign tactic. These best practices help brands launch successfully and scale profitably across channels, products, and retailers.

Shoppable Media is transforming how brands connect media and commerce. It shortens the path to purchase, increases marketing ROI, and provides rich data for smarter decisions.

Brands that embrace Shoppable Media are not just keeping pace; they're setting the pace. They're aligning teams across eCommerce, media, and insights. They're turning awareness campaigns into sales engines. And they're proving, with real data, what’s working and where to optimize.

Whether you're launching a new product, scaling across retail partners, or trying to unify your performance metrics, MikMak provides the Shoppable Media tools and insights needed to succeed in the new era of commerce.

If you’re ready to put Shoppable Media to work for your brand, get in touch today!

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