Alexia Nakad, VP of Commerce Media, UK & MEA for LiveRamp
Every year, the “Golden Quarter”, the critical run-up to Christmas, sparks a surge in media investment by brands. Budgets are usually funnelled into prioritising performance-oriented campaigns for short-term sales bumps through formats like search and online display.
For more than a decade, social media platforms have been the big beneficiaries of this seasonal surge in marketing spend. More recently, retail and other commerce media networks have gained more attention and started to claim a growing share of these search and display budgets.
Once the Christmas rush has passed, a slump occurs for many sectors, but while these trends on the surface reflect natural seasonal dynamics, the pattern reveals a structural problem in the way commerce media is developing.
A question of commitment
Throughout the year, advertisers tend to deploy performance budgets with these media networks, but not their larger brand budgets. The networks respond with campaign-led activations that drive short-term sales, but leave a gap to deliver the full-funnel insights that brands truly want.
Recent research from IAB Europe found that the number of buy-side stakeholders partnering with media networks for more than a year had increased by 13% since 2024, suggesting a shift toward long-term engagement. However, satisfaction levels at this time have remained relatively flat, with common pain points including limited access to granular data and inconsistent measurement.
This lack of satisfaction stems from a more cautious outlook impacting initial commitments and creating misalignment in expected outputs. Brands seek comprehensive measurement, but are only offering their smaller, performance-based budgets.
Media networks, meanwhile, want the larger branding budgets, for which they can justify access to their more sophisticated planning capabilities, yet are left running short-term performance activations.
Both sides are leaving value on the table. Commerce media owners are missing out on larger brand budgets, and advertisers are losing the opportunity to build strategic, always-on connections that create lifetime customers. So, what can be done to set up these mutually beneficial collaborations?
Common hurdles
First, let’s be clear: brands understand the opportunity. As the IAB Europe data shows, few marketers today doubt that commerce media can influence the whole customer journey. The problem is not awareness, but execution.
For one, scaling strategies up the funnel can be hard. Many teams simply don’t have the capacity to push these long-term partnerships, or the teams are not structured in a way that lets them easily coordinate full-funnel media activity – for example, the teams in charge of branding and performance operate in silos.
Another common stumbling block is how a brand has collected, stored and structured its own first-party data. While privacy-enhancing technologies are readily available, many marketing teams remain cautious about compliance and permissioning. They want to connect network data with their own CRM or loyalty data, but aren’t sure how to do it safely, or don’t have the in-house expertise to set it up.
Meanwhile, on the sell side, the dominant focus has been on proving performance on ads delivered via owned media at the point of sale. Longer-term KPIs such as incremental growth and lifetime customer value have been less of a focus. As the marketplace becomes more cluttered, commerce media network owners need to differentiate their offerings by demonstrating how they can control the whole customer journey. Helping brands to influence awareness, consideration and loyalty.
These networks also face their own structural challenges. In particular, many legal teams are stretched thin and struggling to keep up with the compliance requirements of these partnerships. That slows down progress and makes it harder to scale relationships.
Breaking this deadlock requires technology, talent and tenacity from both sides.
A collaborative approach
Privacy-conscious data collaboration technology is the cornerstone of a long-term partnership. Agnostic clean rooms enable media networks and advertisers to connect their first-party data, as well as that of other data owners, including walled gardens, publishers and connected TV environments. This produces marketing insights that can fuel a 360-degree view of the customer path to purchase. Collaboration can enhance this by providing transparency, uniting measurement across channels to link exposures to outcomes in a way both marketers and CFOs can believe in.
While access to more data is highly compelling for many brands, achieving successful full-funnel commerce media outcomes requires clear objectives, a test-and-learn approach and a partnership mindset to help evolve and refine the strategy. This takes organisational change. Advertisers need to break down the walls between brand and performance teams so that both budgets can be deployed strategically in commerce media. The networks need to ensure their commercial, data, and legal functions can support partnerships at scale, not just seasonal activations.
The smarter play
The Golden Quarter always delivers a spike in sales, but if commerce media networks are to mature into a channel that wins brand budgets and not just performance, both sides need to reframe what success looks like. That means advertisers putting more than promotional spend on the table, and networks offering more than sales activations in return.
The technology is there, but tools alone don’t solve the problem. What’s needed is commitment and a partnership mindset. Advertisers must find a way to empower multi-functional marketing teams to work more closely together so brand and performance aren’t competing silos. Networks must package and productise brand-ready offerings, with transparent reporting and clear governance baked in.
If advertisers and media owners lean in now, the Golden Quarter can become more than a seasonal surge. It can be the launchpad for enduring partnerships that drive brand equity, unlock richer data access, and create lifetime customer value.
Author
Alexia Nakad is VP of Commerce Media, UK & MEA for LiveRamp
