Better performance starts with structured retail campaigns

In 2026, retail marketing is evolving in a more constrained environment. Acquisition costs are rising, and e-commerce journeys are increasingly fragmented between website and mobile, making performance analysis more complex.

In this context, the challenge is no longer to multiply campaigns, but to structure them. A clear organization helps identify what truly creates value, allocate budgets more precisely, and manage performance in a more consistent way.

Key takeaways 

• Structuring retail campaigns makes performance easier to read in a more fragmented data environment. 
• A clear campaign setup improves budget allocation and supports better long-term decision-making.
• App and web should be approached as complementary levers within the same user journey, not as silos. 
• A granular performance analysis helps uncover real value drivers beyond short-term results. 
• When properly structured, creatives become a strategic lever for performance analysis.

Why structuring campaigns is becoming essential in retail marketing

Fewer direct signals, more models to interpret

In retail marketing, performance can no longer be read as directly as before. Privacy-related changes have significantly altered access to data, without eliminating signals altogether.

They are still available, but in a more aggregated and indirect form.

• On mobile, ATT and the SKAN framework on iOS limit user-level analysis and require performance to be interpreted through models. As an order of magnitude, ATT opt-in rates remain low, at around 35% in Q2 2025
• On the web, stricter consent rules also reduce the precision of available signals.

As a result, data remains usable, but it now requires more structure and methodology to be properly interpreted.

Making sense of performance across fragmented journeys

E-commerce journeys are no longer linear. Nearly 73% of retail shoppers engage across multiple channels during their buying journey. This multiplication of touchpoints translates into journeys spread across different environments, notably web and mobile, and across multiple sessions. Without a clear campaign structure, this fragmentation makes performance analysis more difficult.

Some channels may appear efficient in the short term, while in reality contributing to longer journeys or delayed conversions.

Without a clear organization, these dynamics remain invisible and ultimately distort budget allocation decisions.

The foundations of effective campaign structuring in retail marketing

A clear campaign structure

Structuring campaigns does not mean making media architecture more complex, but ensuring that each campaign is clearly defined in terms of role and objective. In retail marketing, overly broad or hybrid structures tend to blur performance analysis:

• Acquisition and retargeting overlap
• Messages compete with each other
• Budget decisions become harder to justify.

An effective structure relies on clearly defined scopes, with campaigns designed around a specific objective and a consistent alignment between targeting, messaging, and performance indicators. This organization makes it easier to understand what works and to react quickly when performance changes.

Granular performance analysis

Once campaigns are properly structured, performance analysis becomes more precise. Relying solely on aggregated views often hides significant differences between channels, creatives, or user journeys.

A more granular approach helps identify the true drivers of performance. Some creatives may generate most of the value, while others consume budget with limited impact. Similarly, certain journeys contribute to conversion without being visible in overly simplified analyses.

An actionable test-and-learn approach

Finally, strong campaign structuring enables a test-and-learn approach that is actually actionable. Well-organized campaigns make tests: 

• More comparable
• More readable
• Easier to analyze over time.

Rather than running isolated tests, structuring allows teams to build on learnings, identify trends, and progressively refine their strategy.

Retail marketing fundamentals remain the same, but turning data into actionable decisions now requires a more rigorous organization.

App and web: structuring complementarity rather than silos

Distinct roles within the same journey

In retail marketing, web and app do not serve the same purpose, but they often intervene at different stages of the same user journey. When both coexist, the goal is not to oppose them, but to organize their roles to avoid fragmented performance analysis.

• The web often acts as the first point of contact. It captures volume quickly, responds to immediate intent, and reaches broader audiences. In many retail marketing strategies, it forms the foundation of acquisition and feeds the upper funnel.
• The app usually plays a role further down the journey. Once users are engaged, it enables smoother experiences, more efficient conversion, and higher customer value over time. It becomes a key lever for retention, engagement, and long-term user relationships.

Structuring complementarity to manage performance

Structuring this complementarity starts with clearly defining the role of each environment within the acquisition strategy. This means separate retail marketing campaigns, differentiated objectives, and KPIs adapted to each stage of the journey, rather than applying a uniform performance reading.

An effective structure also requires analyzing performance at the journey level, not only at the final conversion point. Some web campaigns contribute to discovery or intent creation, while the app concentrates conversions or re-engagement. Without this holistic view, budget decisions tend to favor the most visible short-term levers.

In practice, structuring app and web means:

• Clearly defining roles across acquisition, conversion, and retention,
• Avoiding overlap between web and mobile campaigns,
• Allocating budgets based on long-term value rather than last-touch attribution alone. 

Creative as a structuring lever in retail campaigns

In retail marketing, creatives are often produced at scale but rarely structured as an analytical lever. Visuals rotate, messages evolve, but without a clear framework, it becomes difficult to understand what actually drives performance changes.

Structuring creatives starts with making performance comparable. This requires limiting the number of variables changed at once and designing creatives as measurable variations rather than a succession of isolated concepts.

In practice, structured creative testing relies on:

• Testing variations around a single message or product
• Evolving only one element at a time (headline, visual, emphasis)
• Analyzing creative performance using indicators aligned with campaign objectives.

Example : Lalalab

This approach makes creative performance easier to interpret, helps identify which messages truly contribute to conversion or value, and prevents poorly anticipated creative fatigue. This is not anecdotal: creativity can account for up to 50 to 70% of the sales uplift generated by a campaign, making it one of the most decisive drivers of advertising performance.

In a context where journeys and data are harder to interpret, creative remains one of the most directly observable levers. Structuring it does not mean producing more, but producing with purpose, turning each campaign into a source of actionable insights.

Conclusion

Structuring retail marketing campaigns means clarifying their role, better understanding what truly creates value, and making more consistent decisions over time. Whether it concerns campaign architecture, web and app orchestration, or creative performance, this approach helps move beyond short-term optimization.

In an environment where signals are less direct, structuring becomes a key lever to turn campaigns into tools for understanding and decision-making, and to manage performance more sustainably.

Q&A