Beyond Last-Touch: Proving Your Advertising's Hidden Brand Impact
When budgets tighten, the first thing to get cut is often the hardest to measure. We've all been there—staring at disappointing ROAS numbers from upper-funnel campaigns while knowing these ads are doing more than the metrics show.
The problem isn't that upper-funnel advertising doesn't work; it's more likely that the measurement is wrong.
Traditional last-touch attribution models and isolated ROAS calculations miss the bigger picture. They can't capture the halo effect that lifts your entire brand or the awareness building that makes your lower-funnel campaigns more effective. This creates a dangerous cycle: Poor attribution leads to budget cuts on upper-funnel advertising, which reduces overall brand performance, which leads to more budget cuts. Meanwhile, competitors who understand the full value of their advertising investments are capturing market share you're unknowingly surrendering.
But what if you could actually prove these hidden impacts exist—like we did for a recent client by delivering a +130% increase in impressions and +63% boost in sales while reducing cost per impression?
What Traditional Attribution Misses
Customer journeys are far more complex than traditional attribution suggests. Only 22% of marketers believe they're using the right attribution model (Funnel). A customer might see your DSP video ad, search for your brand the next day, click a Sponsored Brand ad, and purchase a different product than originally advertised. Last-touch attribution would credit only that final ad, completely ignoring the DSP video that started the journey.
This measurement gap creates several blind spots:
Halo effect across product lines. Upper-funnel advertising for one product often drives awareness and sales for your entire catalog, but traditional metrics can't connect these dots.
Brand awareness lift that influences lower-funnel performance. When customers already know your brand from upper-funnel exposure, they're more likely to click your Sponsored Product ads and convert at higher rates—but the upper-funnel campaign gets no credit.
Cross-campaign synergies. Multiple touchpoints working together often deliver exponentially better results than the sum of their parts, but single-touch attribution treats each campaign in isolation.
The "advertised product only" trap. Many brands focus solely on whether their DSP campaigns are driving direct sales for the specific products being advertised, missing the broader brand lift that's happening across their entire portfolio. This narrow view can lead to cutting campaigns that are actually driving significant business value.
When Pausing Reveals the Truth: A Case Study with a Strategic Discovery
One of our clients discovered this firsthand when they were spreading their DSP budget across multiple product lines with mixed direct-attribution results. Frustrated by what appeared to be underperforming campaigns, they decided to pause their broader DSP strategy entirely.
That's when their suspicion was confirmed: total brand traffic declined significantly across their entire portfolio—even for products that weren't being directly advertised through DSP. The pause revealed what traditional attribution had missed: their DSP campaigns were driving substantial halo effect beyond individual products.
This discovery prompted them to seek GO's strategic optimization expertise to maximize this hidden impact they'd accidentally uncovered.
GO's Strategic Solution: Optimizing for Maximum Halo Effect
Instead of abandoning their DSP strategy, we helped this client optimize specifically for halo effect through two key approaches:
Hero Product Strategy. Rather than spreading budget across multiple product lines, we shifted focus to their top-performing ASINs in the two highest-impact categories. These "hero products" had proven their ability to drive brand-wide awareness and consideration.
Full-Funnel Integration. We combined Display, Video, and Search tactics to support these hero products across the entire customer journey, creating a unified strategy where each touchpoint reinforced the others.
The strategic insight? Sometimes the best way to drive brand-wide growth is by strengthening your proven winners first.
The Measurable Proof: Results That Speak to Attribution Skeptics
GO's strategic DSP restructure delivered immediate brand-wide impact:
+130% increase in impressions
+63% increase in total sales
+63% increase in detail page views
-21% decrease in CPMs
The real proof of halo effect showed up in the hero ASIN performance:
Category 1 Hero ASIN: +121% shipped revenue YoY
Category 2 Hero ASIN: +106% shipped revenue YoY
What made these results compelling wasn't just the scale, but the efficiency gains. The -21% decrease in CPMs while achieving massive reach increases proved the strategy was driving better, more cost-effective volume.
A Broader Measurement Principle
This case study illustrates a critical measurement principle: the best way to prove halo effect isn't always to turn campaigns off and watch performance decline. Sometimes it's to optimize specifically for halo effect and measure the brand-wide improvements that follow.
By concentrating DSP efforts on proven performers rather than spreading budget across underperforming initiatives, this brand unlocked the true power of their upper-funnel investment. The hero products became engines that lifted the entire portfolio.
Three Key Lessons for Measuring Hidden Impact
Look Beyond Direct Attribution. Monitor brand-wide metrics when testing upper-funnel changes. Track total advertising cost of sale (TACOS) across your entire portfolio, not just campaign-specific ROAS. Start by auditing your current measurement approach—are you relying too heavily on last-touch attribution? Consider implementing linear or multi-touch attribution models that better capture customer journey complexity. Tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud’s (AMC) Path to Purchase reports can help demonstrate these cross-campaign relationships that traditional attribution misses.
Focus on Portfolio Performance. Identify which products naturally drive the most engagement and halo effect, then concentrate your upper-funnel efforts on amplifying their impact rather than trying to force underperformers to succeed. These are your candidates for concentrated upper-funnel investment.
Measure Efficiency Alongside Scale. When halo effect works, you often see improved efficiency metrics like decreased CPMs and higher conversion rates. These efficiency gains are often the first measurable proof that your upper-funnel investment is working. Establish brand-wide measurement protocols before making changes to your upper-funnel strategy—set up systems to track total brand performance, not just individual campaign metrics.
The Bottom Line
If you've been questioning your upper-funnel investment based on disappointing ROAS numbers, you might be measuring the wrong things. The brands that understand how to measure and optimize for halo effect aren't just protecting their advertising investments—they're uncovering growth opportunities that their competitors can't see.
Ready to uncover the hidden impact in your advertising strategy? Our team specializes in identifying and optimizing for the brand-wide effects that traditional attribution misses.