The Maze: Brands buying advertising around shopping want stronger proof before increasing investment. A survey across the UK, US, France, Germany, Spain and Australia found that measurable returns and extra sales dominated their answers. The finding describes what buyers say would unlock spending. It does not show what they actually spent.
Source: SMG. The original survey page lists its 281 respondents and three professional groups.
The Details:
The headline has a smaller denominator. SMG, a consultancy and technology supplier to retailers, worked with the Interactive Advertising Bureau and IAB UK, two advertising trade bodies. Their study covered 281 professionals, including 168 brand respondents. But 161 brands answered the open question about investing more. Approximately 74, or 46%, were grouped under measurable return on investment and incremental sales impact. Here, incremental means sales that would not have happened without the advertising. Researchers assigned each open answer to one main theme, so the percentage is not a vote on a fixed list of options.
Buying the ads is easier than joining the evidence. Commerce media includes advertising on retailer websites, in stores and through outside media using shopping data. A brand buying across several retailers can receive separate briefs, definitions and reports. The study found that 34% named reporting as the least connected area. Only 14% said campaigns across channels always began with one brief; the same share always received unified reporting. The practical problem is comparison: putting several sales totals into one document does not make the underlying measurements equivalent. The research authors also point to separate objectives and budgets inside brands themselves.
A tidy report still needs a credible comparison. The IAB and IAB Europe's measurement guidelines, released in November 2025, distinguish assigning sales to ads from establishing what ads caused. Experiments compare exposed and control groups. They offer strong causal evidence, but can be expensive, slow and vulnerable to groups seeing the same advertising elsewhere. Statistical models can cover more channels and longer periods, with less detail about an individual campaign. The useful question is which decision the measurement can support, rather than whether every retailer supplies the same dashboard.
MarketMaze Take: Retailers face two different jobs: make their advertising easier to evaluate together, and show that it changes business outcomes. The survey connects those ambitions to buyers' stated investment criteria. It cannot establish that better reporting will release budgets, or that any particular supplier can deliver the promised improvement.
Use the distinction outside these six markets. An advertiser anywhere can ask whether a reported sale is merely associated with an ad or supported by a credible estimate of what would have happened without it. The guidelines allow lighter measures for quick campaign adjustments, while calling for stronger causal foundations for major budget decisions. Demanding the most elaborate test for every adjustment can add cost without matching the decision.
Read the sponsor beside the statistic. SMG sells services and software for connecting retail advertising, including an exchange promoted in its own sponsored article. That interest does not invalidate the responses. It does make the proposed solution a commercial argument. Fieldwork ran in July and August; the published account supplies no recruitment method, country breakdown or weighting. Treat this as a useful buyer signal, rather than a forecast for global spending.
Sources: PPC Land, SMG, SMG via ADWEEK, IAB and IAB Europe
