With confusing funnels and conflicting metrics, performance marketing often feels like a guessing game. In this CommerceNext webinar, leaders from Catalyst Brands, JEGS, TickPick and RTB House came together to separate myth from reality and reveal the strategies that actually drive incremental growth.
What We Learned:
- Attribution isn’t incrementality. True performance comes from measuring impact, not just credit.
- Broken tags and messy product feeds can quietly tank campaign performance without warning.
- Performance plateaus are signals to evolve your tech stack, not signs to scale back.
- More partners can mean more scale if each brings something different to the table.
- Maximizing conversions is just the beginning—full-funnel growth starts after the sale.
Speakers:
- Brian Schmidt, VP, Digital & eCommerce – Brooks Brothers & Eddie Bauer, Catalyst Brands
- Crist Costa, SVP, Digital, JEGS
- Matt Ferrel, VP, Head of Growth, TickPick
- Allison Reiter, Director of Account Management, RTB House
- Moderated by: Jenny Marlo, Head of Content, CommerceNext
Watch the replay here or read the recap below.
What’s Really Holding Back Performance?
Allison Reiter from RTB House kicked off the conversation by debunking three common myths hurting performance:
- Simple tagging is better: False. Broken or incomplete tags disrupt models. Quarterly QA can boost performance by 10%+.
- 80% product feed coverage is fine: Not anymore. The best campaigns exceed 90% with rich metadata and clean structure.
- Performance plateaus mean you’ve maxed out a tactic: Often, it’s the underlying logic that needs upgrading.
Layering in a second retargeting partner with different tech can drive a 57% lift without sacrificing ROAS. The key is combining diverse targeting strategies and leveraging deep data to uncover high-potential customers you might be missing.
The Shift to Full-Funnel: A Wake-Up Call
Brian Schmidt of Catalyst Brands revealed how rethinking media spend helped Brooks Brothers and Eddie Bauer shift from bottom-funnel bias to full-funnel strategy. After cutting affiliate spend by 90%, they reinvested in CTV, out-of-home and awareness-driving creative, leading to stronger in-store traffic and broader brand lift.
The takeaway: Last-click ROAS might look good, but it doesn’t tell the full story.
Debunking Vanity Metrics
Panelists agreed that relying on surface-level metrics leads to misinformed decisions.
- JEGS warned against chasing vendor-reported ROAS without understanding true contribution.
- TickPick urged marketers to abandon the idea of a “single source of truth,” instead layering insights from multiple attribution models.
- Catalyst Brands called out CPM as an overrated metric in top-funnel campaigns, where “bad impressions” are just as costly as none at all.
Mid-Funnel: The Overlooked Opportunity
When asked about the middle of the funnel, the panel emphasized its growing importance in driving consideration, especially for brands with high awareness but low conversion.
TickPick uses brand tracking to measure movement from awareness to “ever used” and “regularly used.” Catalyst Brands frames mid-funnel as the product-specific message that nudges a prospect to act.
Getting Technical: Don’t Sleep on Tags and Feeds
Behind every scalable campaign is a solid foundation. JEGS revealed that inaccurate product data caused disapprovals across millions of SKUs—a quiet killer of performance. Meanwhile, RTB House stressed syncing your site with your dynamic feed to avoid broken ad links and poor UX.
Even smart marketers sometimes “over-tag” or misfire tags too early in the page load, creating invisible data gaps that silently erode performance.
Counterintuitive Truths That Work
Sometimes, the best moves don’t feel intuitive at first.
- Top-funnel investments can improve CAC over time by priming brand consideration.
- Marketing to existing customers still drives incremental growth, despite assumptions otherwise.
- “Firing the bottom funnel” (or at least trimming it) can create budget space for impactful upper-funnel plays.
TickPick summed it up: “We’re not just chasing attribution—we’re trying to build a business.”
Final Takeaway: Smarter ≠More Complex
To scale efficiently, you don’t need more tools, but rather a better strategy. Fix your feeds, audit your tags, diversify your tech stack and stay curious. The most effective ideas might feel counterintuitive at first—but the data won’t lie.
Want to dive deeper into the strategies reshaping performance marketing?
Join us on October 15 in NYC at the Post-Purchase Forum: a no-fluff, one-day event for CX and marketing leaders ready to go beyond the buy button. We only have 150 spots, so make sure to apply now.
