Online Retailers And Ecommerce Brands Have Struggled To Measure Top Of Funnel For Too Long...

There’s one thing every online retailer and ecommerce brand has in common...

They’re still guessing how much their top-of-funnel advertising is actually contributing to sales.

Not because they haven’t tried to solve it.

They have...

MMM can be expensive and slow.

Geo testing means deliberately changing or shutting off media in different markets and waiting to see what happens.

And traditional attribution works best when somebody actually clicks.

But ecommerce advertising is moving in the opposite direction.

More video.

More UGC.

More YouTube and CTV.

More advertising people watch, remember... and act on later.

One ecommerce growth leader told us that every time he goes to a conference and talks to other retailers, he hears the same problems.

And despite all the measurement tools available...

“Nobody has the right concrete solution to it.”    

Until now.

The Ecommerce Buying Journey Changed

For years, ecommerce measurement had a relatively easy job when the customer clicked.

Google Shopping.

Meta DPAs.

Pinterest Shopping.

Someone sees the ad...

Clicks...

Visits the store...

And buys.

There’s a digital trail connecting advertising to revenue.

In fact, this ecommerce leader said their sophisticated internal measurement works “perfectly well” for channels that are more “clicky in nature.”    

The problem starts when the advertising creates demand without creating a click.

Someone watches a creator demonstrate your product on TikTok...

Sees another video a few days later...

Watches YouTube...

Then eventually searches for your brand on Google and buys.

Google may get the conversion.

But did Google create the customer?

That’s the gap online retailers are struggling to fill.

And it’s becoming a much bigger problem as ecommerce advertising moves further toward UGC and video.

The Ads People Want To See Are Becoming Harder To Attribute

This same ecommerce leader expects a significant portion of his social content to move toward UGC.

Why?

Because customers want storytelling.

They want to see products in context.

They want to connect with the people and brands they're buying from.

But he also pointed out the obvious measurement problem...

Video is much more view-through in nature.

People watching YouTube on a television aren't clicking.

CTV isn't generating a neat click trail.

And someone who discovers your product through UGC may eventually convert through search, direct or another lower-funnel channel.

His own attribution model is click-based...

Which means it “severely under credits channels which are heavily view through based.”

Yet that same attribution is useful for day-to-day decision-making because their other methods take considerably longer.

That leaves ecommerce marketers with a strange choice.

Use the measurement that moves quickly but struggles to see top of funnel...

Or wait for measurement designed to answer a different kind of question.

MMM And Geo Testing Help... But They Leave A Gap

This isn't an argument that MMM or geo testing have no value.

They can.

But they're not an ideal always-on answer for a marketing team deciding what to do with today's budget.

The retailer we spoke with described geo studies that can require six to eight weeks...

While their MMM is refreshed every six months.

That's a very different feedback loop from the one ecommerce marketers operate in every day.

Creative changes.

Spend changes.

Channels change.

Consumer behavior changes.

And the marketer still needs to know:

Is this working?

How much is it contributing?

Should I put more money behind it?

That's the measurement gap Blueprint was built to fill.

An Always-On Way To See What Happened Before The Sale

Blueprint starts with the purchase.

Then it works backward.

First, we establish what can actually be connected deterministically.

Which advertising interactions can we directly connect to the customer and the purchase?

That's the baseline.

But if we stopped there, we'd have the same problem as everyone else.

So the next layer looks at Purchase Influence.

Instead of asking only:

Who got the sale?

We can ask:

What happened before the sale?

Which channels appeared earlier in the buying journey?

Which ads influenced the customer before the final conversion?

Which media helped create the demand that another channel eventually captured?

Blueprint brings those signals together so you can see more of the journey leading to the purchase instead of automatically giving the entire sale to whoever happened to show up last.    

We saw just how important that distinction can become with one client.

Google reported 81 purchases.

Once we reconstructed more of the buying path...

Only 22 were directly attributable to Google.

The others had been influenced by advertising that appeared earlier in the journey.

Google was getting the sale.

Other advertising had helped build the road that led the customer there.    

But Purchase Influence still isn't the entire answer.

Because some top-of-funnel media doesn't leave a customer-level path to reconstruct.

You Can’t Click A CTV Ad... But You Can Measure What It Leaves Behind

That's where Impact comes in.

Blueprint uses a separate measurement approach for the advertising that can't be understood through clicks alone.

Instead of trying to manufacture an attribution path that doesn't exist...

It watches what happens downstream as the advertising changes.

CTV spend moves...

What happens to purchases?

YouTube changes...

What happens elsewhere in the business?

Programmatic moves...

What changes with it?

Blueprint continually analyzes the relationship between changes in advertising and changes in business results to estimate the impact those harder-to-attribute channels are having downstream.    

You don't need to pretend someone clicked a television.

You measure the effect the advertising leaves behind.

And because that measurement continues as the advertising continues...

It becomes an always-on part of how you understand the business.

You Don’t Have To Throw Away The Measurement You Already Have

This matters for larger online retailers.

You may already have attribution.

You may already run lift studies.

You may have an internal data team.

You may even have your own proprietary models.

Blueprint doesn't require you to tear that apart.

There’s no new Blueprint pixel.

No need to rip out the systems already running the business.

Blueprint connects to the platforms and data sources already capturing what’s happening and brings those signals together.    

So if you already have a sophisticated measurement environment...

Blueprint can fill the gaps.

But most ecommerce brands don't have an internal marketing science team building proprietary attribution models and running their own geo experiments.

They don't need to build one.

Because Blueprint can also become the cross-channel measurement layer.

One View From The Bottom Of The Funnel To The Top

At the bottom of the funnel, Blueprint can show what is directly attributable.

As the buying journey becomes less direct, Purchase Influence helps uncover what contributed along the way.

And when you get into media that can't be followed through a clean customer path, Impact gives you another way to understand what it's creating downstream.    

Attribution.

Influence.

Impact.

Not three different projects your team has to stitch together six months later...

A measurement environment designed to help you understand the entire funnel while the marketing is actually happening.

And then comes the part measurement too often forgets.

Knowing What Happened Isn’t Enough

Eventually somebody has to make a decision.

Should we put more money into Meta?

Is YouTube actually helping?

Can we scale this UGC strategy?

Are we spending too much at the bottom of the funnel because that's where attribution is strongest?

Where is there still room to grow?

Where should the next dollar go?

Blueprint brings those signals together to help identify what's driving growth, where there's room to scale, what appears to have peaked and where money can potentially work harder.    

So the goal isn't another attribution report.

It's moving from:

“We think top of funnel is working.”

To:

Here's what created the purchase...

Here's what influenced it...

Here's the impact we're seeing from the media we can't directly attribute...

And here's where I'd put the next dollar.

Ecommerce advertising has already changed.

Now the measurement can finally catch up.

See What Your Top-Of-Funnel Spend Is Actually Creating

If you're investing in UGC, video, YouTube, CTV or other demand-creating media, you shouldn't have to wait months for another study to tell you whether it's working.

Blueprint can connect to the advertising, purchase and revenue data you already have...

And help you see the part of the customer journey your existing attribution can't.

FAQ

How can ecommerce brands measure top-of-funnel advertising?

Ecommerce brands can combine direct attribution with measurement of the advertising that influenced the buying journey and the downstream impact of media that doesn't produce a clean click-to-purchase path. Blueprint separates these into attributable, influential and impactful layers rather than forcing every channel into the same measurement methodology.    

How is Blueprint different from MMM?

Blueprint is designed as an always-on cross-channel measurement environment rather than a periodic MMM project. MMM is refreshed every six months, while marketing decisions have to be made continuously.

Can you measure top of funnel without geo testing?

Blueprint's Impact approach is designed to estimate what harder-to-attribute advertising is creating downstream by analyzing the relationship between changes in advertising and changes in business outcomes. That provides an additional option beyond continually running geographic holdout experiments.    

Can Blueprint work with our existing ecommerce measurement stack?

Yes. Blueprint is designed to connect to the systems and data sources already in place. It does not require a new Blueprint pixel or a complete replacement of the retailer's existing measurement infrastructure.    

What is Purchase Influence?

Purchase Influence helps uncover advertising that contributed to a purchase before the final conversion. It is intended to show more of the path that led to the sale rather than assigning all credit to the channel where the customer ultimately converted.    

Why is UGC and video harder to measure with traditional ecommerce attribution?

Video-heavy media can create demand without producing a click. TikTok, CTV and YouTube are environments where view-through behavior matters more, while click-based attribution models severely under-credit view-through-heavy channels.