New findings from McKinsey, eMarketer, and the IAB confirm a structural performance gap in off-site programmatic advertising. New ShopLiftr CPG campaign results show what closing it delivers: $5.11 iROAS and 7.1% overall sales lift.
Off-site programmatic advertising – targeted digital ads placed across the open web and digital screens outside any retailer’s own platform – is growing at nearly 30% year-over-year, faster than any other segment in retail advertising. Yet Q1 2026 independent research by McKinsey , eMarketer , and the IAB all identify the same structural problem: brands are scaling off-site budgets without the execution infrastructure to make ads locally relevant or the measurement tools to prove they drove incremental sales.
ShopLiftr, the off-site performance engine for CPG brands and retailers, released campaign results today showing what happens when that gap is closed. Most platforms optimize ad delivery after an impression is served. ShopLiftr starts upstream — with the live trade promotion itself — so that every ad automatically reflects the actual deal at the shopper’s nearest retailer before a single impression runs.
The Off-Site Performance Gap
The barrier to off-site media campaign performance is no longer strategy or budget – it’s execution, at scale.
McKinsey’s March 2026 survey of 150 U.S. advertising decision-makers found advertisers now work with a median of six retail media networks, up from four the prior year, and one-third manage nine or more. Only 3% say incrementality is measured accurately – yet half say improved measurement would directly unlock more budget. eMarketer’s Commerce Media Buyer research identified creative limitations as a top-three challenge across every spend segment surveyed.
Three friction points explain why:
- Creative disconnected from the shelf. Most off-site programmatic creative is built for brand awareness – reaching the right audience, but disconnected from what’s on deal at the shelf now. Without a live promotional signal tied to the shopper’s nearest retailer, brand messaging creates awareness but breaks down at the moment of purchase. ShopLiftr connects brand messaging to shopper outcomes in a single impression.
- Fragmentation across retailers. CPG brands working across multiple banners face incompatible metrics, different attribution windows, and creative specs that differ by network. Execution overhead scales with complexity. Consistent measurement becomes harder to produce as portfolio breadth grows.
- Measurement that Finance doesn’t trust. Platform-reported ROAS is under increasing scrutiny. The Skai/Path to Purchase Institute’s 2025 report found roughly half of marketers still cannot measure incrementality proficiently. When off-site digital creative is disconnected from the real promotion, causal measurement becomes nearly impossible.
The pattern is consistent: brands are investing heavily in off-site advertising but hitting friction at every stage, from creative production to campaign delivery to proving what actually drove a sale.
How ShopLiftr Closes the Performance Gap
ShopLiftr starts where most platforms don’t – with the live trade promotion itself. Its proprietary trade promotions database ingests over 200,000 active in-store deals each month, refreshed weekly from 300-plus U.S. retailers, and uses that data to build dynamic creative that automatically reflects the actual deal, price, and store nearest each shopper, served via programmatic digital display, video and DOOH ads.
One platform activates those ads seamlessly across every retail banner simultaneously – no network lock-in, no duplicate builds, no walled gardens. Creative is dynamically localized by retailer, geography, and current promotional period. ShopLiftr is retail-agnostic by design, not bolted on after the fact.
That execution extends to the ad format itself. The dynamic display and video formats surface the live deal and drive the shopper directly to the nearest store at the moment of consideration. ShopLiftr’s L-Bar video unit pairs brand storytelling with a live promotion in a single impression, converging upper-funnel and lower-funnel objectives in one ad. Together, they give CPG brands something standard display and video formats aren’t built to deliver: brand story and a live promotional signal in one impression, across every screen.
New Campaign Results
QSR-Licensed CPG Brand: Programmatic Display and Store-Entry DOOH
A QSR brand with a retail packaged goods extension needed to convert restaurant affinity into in-store purchase during a key seasonal window, challenged by fast-shifting promotions and the difficulty of surfacing the right value message before shoppers entered the store.
ShopLiftr activated programmatic display for pre-shop discovery and store-entry DOOH, with both formats dynamically updated using retailer-verified deal data, availability, and location in real time.
On $96,150 in total media investment, the campaign delivered:
- 7.1% overall sales lift
- 12.3% lift on the advertised hero SKU
- $5.11 iROAS
- $491,000 in measured incremental sales
Measured via Nielsen Sales Data and Pathformance xAOC, matched test and control markets, 52-week pre-campaign baseline, five-week in-flight period.
Executive Perspective
“Brands are investing heavily in off-site programmatic advertising, but that investment has become fragmented across retailer-owned platforms – each confined to its own retail footprint. When the ad isn’t showing the live promotion at the store where the shopper is, spend doesn’t convert to sales. CPG brands need retail-agnostic, promotion-aware execution that follows the shopper, not the platform.” – Gord Crowson, President & COO.
Where Off-Site Advertising Is Headed
Off-site digital advertising is projected to account for one in four retail media dollars by 2027. For CPG brands selling across multiple retailers, a platform that activates across every banner without being locked into any single retailer’s network is no longer a preference. It’s a strategic necessity.
ShopLiftr gives brands the infrastructure to do that now – turning live trade promotions into localized off-site creative with programmatic execution at scale, measuring incremental lift across retailers, screens, and markets.
