From Awareness to Add-to-Cart: How Commerce Media Connects the Dots for CPG Brands

Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing advertising channels in Canada. Loblaw, Walmart, Amazon, Canadian Tire—every major retailer now operates a media network, and CPG brands are pouring dollars into them. The appeal is obvious: advertise where people shop, measure results against actual sales, and reach consumers at the moment of decision. 

But here’s what most CPG brands are missing: retail media is just one piece of a much larger opportunity. 

The way most brands use retail media today is narrowly focused—sponsored products, search ads, bottom-funnel tactics designed to capture demand that already exists. It’s effective at closing sales, but it does little to create new demand. And in categories where growth depends on reaching new consumers or shifting purchase behaviour, that’s a significant limitation. 

Commerce media is the broader opportunity. It’s the ability to use commerce data—purchase history, shopping behaviour, retailer audiences—across the entire customer journey, from initial awareness through to the shopping cart. For Canadian CPG brands navigating a concentrated retail landscape, understanding this full-funnel potential is becoming essential. 

Key Takeaways 

• Commerce media extends beyond retail media networks to include offsite programmatic, connected TV, and in-store digital—all powered by commerce data 

• Most CPG retail media spend clusters at the bottom of the funnel, missing the opportunity to build awareness and drive consideration 

• Canadian retail concentration (Loblaw, Walmart, Sobeys control ~60% of grocery) creates both challenges and opportunities for CPG media strategy 

• Full-funnel commerce media connects awareness campaigns to in-store and online sales through closed-loop measurement 

• Executing a connected strategy requires platform partnerships, unified reporting, and coordination across media types 

What Is Commerce Media—And Why Is It More Than Retail Media? 

Retail media and commerce media are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Understanding the difference matters for CPG brands trying to build effective strategies. 

Retail media refers specifically to advertising within retailer-owned properties—sponsored product ads on Walmart.ca, display banners on Loblaw’s PC Express, search placements on Amazon.ca. These are powerful tools for reaching shoppers who are actively browsing and buying. But they’re limited to the retailer’s own ecosystem. 

Commerce media is broader. It’s any advertising that leverages commerce data—purchase history, shopping intent, retailer audiences—regardless of where that advertising appears. This includes: 

• Onsite retail media: Sponsored products, search ads, and display within retailer platforms 

• Offsite programmatic: Display, video, and connected TV ads served across the open web, targeted using retailer audience data 

• In-store digital: Digital out-of-home screens, in-aisle displays, and checkout advertising within physical retail locations 

• Shoppable media: Social and display ads with direct add-to-cart functionality 

The common thread is commerce data. Unlike traditional digital advertising, which relies on demographic proxies and behavioural inference, commerce media uses actual purchase behaviour to target, optimize, and measure. For CPG brands, this means reaching people based on what they actually buy—not just what they browse. 

Why Are Most CPG Brands Missing the Full-Funnel Opportunity? 

Look at how most CPG brands allocate their retail media budgets and you’ll see a familiar pattern: the vast majority goes to bottom-funnel tactics. Sponsored product ads. Search placements. Promotions designed to capture shoppers who are already in the category, already considering a purchase. 

This makes sense on one level. These tactics have clear, measurable returns. You can see the ROAS in your dashboard. The path from ad to purchase is short and trackable. 

But there’s a problem: bottom-funnel tactics mostly capture existing demand. They’re effective at winning the sale once a shopper is ready to buy, but they do little to expand the pool of potential buyers in the first place. If you’re only investing at the bottom of the funnel, you’re fishing in a pond that isn’t getting any bigger. 

For Canadian CPG brands, this limitation is particularly significant: 

• Mature categories with flat growth need demand creation, not just demand capture 

• New product launches require awareness before shoppers will search for them 

• Competitive displacement depends on reaching consumers before they’ve made their habitual choice 

• Premium positioning needs brand building that bottom-funnel ads can’t deliver 

The full-funnel opportunity in commerce media is using commerce data not just to close sales, but to build awareness and drive consideration. Reaching your target shopper while they’re watching streaming TV in the evening. Serving them display ads as they browse recipes online. Building familiarity and preference before they ever walk into a Loblaw or Sobeys—then reinforcing that message with in-store digital as they shop. 

How Does a Full-Funnel Commerce Media Strategy Work in Practice? 

Let’s walk through what a connected commerce media strategy looks like for a Canadian CPG brand launching a new product—say, a better-for-you snack targeting health-conscious families. 

Stage 1: Awareness through offsite programmatic 

Using retailer audience data, you identify households that regularly purchase in adjacent categories—organic snacks, health foods, products for kids. Through a demand-side platform like The Trade Desk, you serve connected TV and online video ads to these audiences across streaming services and the open web. The creative introduces your product and establishes its positioning. These consumers have never searched for your brand, but now they’re aware it exists. 

Stage 2: Consideration through targeted display 

Consumers who’ve been exposed to awareness messaging get retargeted with more detailed display ads—highlighting benefits, nutritional information, flavour varieties. You’re moving them from ‘I’ve heard of this’ to ‘I should try this.’ This can happen through programmatic display or through offsite extensions offered by retail media networks. 

Stage 3: In-store reinforcement 

As target consumers enter physical retail locations, in-store digital screens can deliver contextual messaging. Digital out-of-home networks in grocery environments—screens at entrance, in-aisle, at checkout—reinforce the product at the point of decision. The shopper who saw your connected TV ad last week now sees your brand again as they push their cart through the snack aisle. 

Stage 4: Conversion through retail media 

For online shoppers, sponsored product ads and search placements on Loblaw, Walmart, and Amazon ensure your product appears when they’re actively shopping the category. The awareness and consideration work you’ve done increases the likelihood they’ll click—and convert. For in-store shoppers, the same principle applies: you’ve primed demand that now gets captured at shelf. 

Stage 5: Closed-loop measurement 

Because commerce media is built on retailer data, you can connect the entire journey. Did households exposed to awareness advertising actually purchase? How did conversion rates differ between exposed and unexposed audiences? What’s the incremental lift from each stage of the funnel? This closed-loop measurement is what makes commerce media fundamentally different from traditional brand advertising. 

What Makes Commerce Media Different for Canadian CPG Brands? 

The Canadian grocery market has unique characteristics that shape how CPG brands should approach commerce media. 

Retail concentration 

Three banners—Loblaw, Walmart Canada, and Sobeys—control roughly 60% of Canadian grocery sales. This concentration means fewer retail media networks to manage compared to the fragmented U.S. market. But it also means each relationship is higher-stakes, and being locked out of a major network significantly limits your reach. 

Maturing retail media networks 

Canadian retail media networks are evolving rapidly. Loblaw’s Advance platform, Walmart Connect, and Amazon Advertising Canada have all expanded capabilities in recent years. But they’re generally less mature than U.S. equivalents, which creates both challenges (fewer features, less sophisticated targeting) and opportunities (less competition, more willingness to partner). 

Cross-border complexity 

Many CPG brands operating in Canada are subsidiaries of U.S. or global companies. Media strategies often get developed at a North American level and adapted for Canada—sometimes losing effectiveness in translation. Canadian-specific consumer behaviour, retailer relationships, and media options require locally informed strategy. 

Privacy landscape 

Canada’s privacy regulations and the deprecation of third-party cookies make first-party retailer data increasingly valuable. Commerce media, built on consented retailer data and purchase behaviour, is better positioned for this privacy-conscious future than traditional digital advertising that relies on third-party tracking. 

What Does It Take to Execute a Full-Funnel Commerce Media Strategy? 

Understanding the full-funnel opportunity is one thing. Executing on it is another. Most CPG brands face practical barriers that prevent them from activating commerce media beyond basic retail media tactics. 

Platform partnerships and access 

Full-funnel execution requires working across multiple platforms: demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk for programmatic, individual retail media networks for onsite activation, digital out-of-home networks for in-store. Each has its own requirements, interfaces, and minimum spends. Brands need either internal expertise across all these platforms or partners who can provide access and orchestration. 

Unified reporting and measurement 

The power of commerce media is closed-loop measurement—but that only works if you can connect data across platforms. This requires investment in reporting infrastructure that brings together awareness metrics, consideration indicators, and conversion data into a coherent view. Without it, you’re back to measuring each tactic in isolation. 

Creative suited for each stage 

A connected TV spot designed to build awareness is fundamentally different from a sponsored product ad designed to convert. Full-funnel execution requires creative assets developed for each stage of the journey and each media format. This is often where strategies break down—brands have bottom-funnel assets ready but haven’t invested in upper-funnel creative. 

Strategic coordination 

Perhaps most importantly, full-funnel commerce media requires someone to orchestrate the whole thing. Awareness, consideration, and conversion can’t be managed in silos—they need to be planned together, measured together, and optimized as a system. For many CPG brands, this coordination role is the missing piece. 

Connecting the Dots 

Commerce media represents a fundamental shift in how CPG brands can reach and convert shoppers. It’s not just another advertising channel—it’s the ability to connect brand building and sales activation through data in ways that weren’t possible before. 

For Canadian CPG brands, the opportunity is significant. A concentrated retail landscape means fewer networks to master. Maturing platforms are hungry for sophisticated advertisers. And the shift away from third-party data makes commerce media’s first-party foundation increasingly valuable. 

But capturing this opportunity requires moving beyond bottom-funnel retail media tactics. It means thinking about commerce media as a full-funnel system—awareness, consideration, and conversion working together, measured together, optimized together. 

That’s the shift we help CPG brands make. With two decades of ecommerce expertise and partnerships across programmatic, retail media, and in-store digital, we connect the dots from first impression to final purchase. If you’re ready to move beyond bottom-funnel retail media, let’s talk.