Navigating the Walled Gardens of Commerce Media: How Leading Brands Achieved Omnichannel Success

To build commerce-focused campaigns that connect with customers at every point in their journey, brands are using an omnichannel approach by integrating channels like retail media, search, and social into a single, holistic campaign. However, the major challenge of walled garden platforms is that they limit data sharing and complicate cross-channel efforts. Overcoming these barriers is key to optimizing omnichannel commerce strategies and avoiding fragmented campaigns.

Successfully navigating the walled gardens of commerce media requires a strategic approach. The primary issue lies in managing campaigns across various platforms, each with its own data silos and unique requirements. Additionally, fragmented ad tech stacks add to this complexity, making it difficult for brands to obtain a unified view of their performance across all channels. 

Skai addresses these challenges by consolidating data from multiple channels into a single omnichannel platform, empowering brands to break down the barriers of commerce media’s walled gardens. This centralization enables better visibility, streamlined decision-making, and optimized performance across all digital channels. 

With a consistent design and uniform capabilities across Skai’s platform, practitioners can effortlessly move between channels, optimize budgets, align creative strategies, and leverage cross-channel insights to refine targeting within a single, streamlined interface. This integrated approach not only simplifies the process but also amplifies the impact of omnichannel campaigns, particularly in the challenging environment of commerce media.

In this post, we explore how Skai’s tools have helped brands overcome these challenges and achieve exceptional results. Through three case studies, we’ll demonstrate how these companies successfully navigated the complexities of commerce media and realized the full potential of their omnichannel marketing strategies.

The walled gardens of commerce media

When data is scattered across different platforms, each with its own metrics and interfaces, gaining a comprehensive view of performance becomes increasingly difficult. This lack of integration can lead to inefficiencies, misaligned strategies, and missed opportunities for optimization, especially within closed ecosystems like Google, Meta, and Amazon. 

Thus, the first step to mastering the walled gardens of commerce media is to have digital advertising’s three most utilized channels—paid search, social advertising, and retail media—under one roof. Last year, these three channels accounted for 57% of total worldwide advertising spending, including both offline and online budgets. In the U.S., these channels represent over 75% of digital advertising spending, underscoring their importance in a comprehensive omnichannel strategy.

Skai centralizes all data into a single source of truth, enabling more effective cross-channel analysis and reporting. With everything in one place, managing and optimizing campaigns across multiple channels becomes much simpler. Moreover, with Skai’s nearly two decades of experience developing technology solutions for advertisers, the platform offers a suite of powerful tools and capabilities that allow marketers to maximize their program performance, even within the constraints of commerce media.

“With over 18 years of industry-leading decisioning, activation, and optimization solutions across all top performance media channels, Skai is uniquely positioned to empower media leaders and activation teams to unlock this huge opportunity,” says Cohen. 

Real-world success: case studies in omnichannel excellence

Knowing that Skai can deliver these capabilities is one thing, but seeing how it works in practice is another. Below, we share three case studies highlighting how our clients have successfully navigated the challenges of omnichannel marketing with Skai.

Centralizing data for strategic decision-making

Challenge: A global consumer goods company faced significant challenges managing its vast digital media program. With over $400 million in yearly spend across 26 brands, 14 regions, and 20 channels, the brand’s data was fragmented across various platforms. This fragmentation made real-time access and decision-making difficult, leading to inefficiencies in their global media operations. The company needed a unified system to consolidate all its media data into one platform, providing a comprehensive view of its performance.

Strategy: The brand turned to Skai to centralize its search, social, and retail media data. By integrating all data into Skai Decision Pro, the brand enhanced visibility and decision-making across its global media operations. This consolidation allowed the brand to quickly identify performance issues and optimize its strategy for better results.

Outcome: The impact was significant, with a 9% increase in revenue year-over-year. By centralizing its data with Skai, the brand unlocked new opportunities for strategic decision-making, ultimately achieving what once seemed impossible with its fragmented media data.

Driving cross-channel success with sponsored TV

Challenge: A sports equipment manufacturer faced the challenge of adopting new tactics for brand awareness while managing existing successful digital strategies. The brand’s success with Amazon’s Non-Endemic Sponsored Display highlighted the need for a more strategic approach, especially with upcoming product launches and a crucial seasonal period ahead.

Strategy: The brand utilized Skai to integrate Amazon Sponsored TV with paid search and social advertising, optimizing its budget for a unified cross-channel strategy. Leveraging Skai’s features, the brand targeted specific audiences with precision, ensuring that its message resonated across all channels.

Outcome: The results were impressive, with a 30% reduction in CPMs, a 55% increase in Paid Social CTR, and a 43% increase in Paid Search CTR. These results underscore the effectiveness of Skai’s cross-channel integration in driving comprehensive success.

Achieving omnichannel efficiency with consolidated reporting

Challenge: A prominent electronics company struggled with managing campaigns across multiple markets due to a fragmented tech stack. This complexity made tracking performance and monitoring budgets difficult, leading to disjointed marketing efforts and missed opportunities.

Strategy: The brand integrated all media data into Skai for unified reporting and budget tracking. The company streamlined its operations by leveraging Skai’s advanced optimization and decision-making tools, allowing for better cross-channel insights and more effective campaign management.

Outcome: The integration provided a unified view across channels, paving the way for more effective omnichannel strategies. The brand now has a clear path forward, with enhanced confidence in its marketing strategies and a more streamlined approach to campaign management.

Conclusion: centralization is the key to omnichannel marketing

These case studies show how Skai’s omnichannel capabilities help brands navigate the complexities of modern media management. By centralizing data, integrating cross-channel strategies, and optimizing performance across platforms, these brands saw significant improvements in their marketing outcomes. Skai continues to support brands in managing the intricacies of digital marketing, providing the tools and insights needed to succeed.

Skai is the only omnichannel marketing platform for performance advertising. We’re helping marketers connect the walled gardens across retail media, paid search, paid social, and app marketing, making true omnichannel performance marketing a reality. We’ll keep you at the forefront of the digital evolution with data and insights, marketing execution, and measurement tools that work together to drive powerful brand growth

We welcome you to schedule a brief demo with our team to see how our powerful omnichannel capabilities can help your team and clients drive performance and efficiency.