How to Optimize eCommerce Advertising Spend with Automation

No matter how targeted and creative your ad campaign is, factors beyond your control can significantly influence the payoff potential. For example, your ads might be driving shoppers to the Amazon Buy Box, but you’ll be lining the pockets of a third-party (3P) seller if they’ve beaten you on price. Operational issues or shipping delays can also cost you sales. With so many factors to keep an eye on, advertisers need smarter ways to spot commerce problems and adjust advertising budgets when things don’t go to plan. In this article, we’ll set out five of the smartest hacks that combine commerce signals with retail media automation to optimize your ad spend and improve ROAS. 

How to Leverage Automation to Drive Higher Performance on Retail Media Campaigns

#1.  The Amazon Buy Box battle: drivers and drainers

No matter how much traffic your Amazon ad campaign drives, it’s likely to drain budgets if a competitor has gained ownership of the Amazon Buy Box. You can lose the first choice listing for several reasons including price, low inventory, shipping delays, negative customer feedback, or even poor content. If you’ve lost the Buy Box, you might be paying for traffic but losing the sale.  

But what if you could automatically pause spending on products that have lost the Buy Box until they’ve regained control? 

Use Case #1: Don’t lead shoppers into the hands of your competitors

One brand’s promotion was so successful it sold out 80% of its inventory, allowing a 3P seller to take over the Buy Box. Instead of continuing to spend on advertising, the brand set up a retail media automation rule in their Pacvue advertising platform that paused ads on ASINs that had lost Amazon Buy Box ownership. 

This stopped them from wasting ad spend on traffic when a competitor was poised to make the sale, and ROAS instantly improved. 

How they did it: Combining commerce data and retail media automation

Pacvue’s Commerce insights alerted the brand that stock was low and the Amazon Buy Box had been lost. With Pacvue’s integrated commerce and advertising solution, these commerce signals triggered a predefined, customized rule in their Pacvue advertising platform that paused spend until the brand regained control. 

#2. Managing delivery problems with retail media automation

If your conversions take a sudden dip, it could indicate a delivery problem.  For example, you might lose Amazon Prime Shipping eligibility if you don’t meet fulfillment standards. 

Knowing when you’ve got an operational problem allows you to adjust your ad campaign while you put things right. Retail media automation allows the campaign to automatically resume when certain conditions are met—in this next use case, when Prime Shipping status resumed. 

Use Case #2: Stop advertising when you can’t deliver

One brand temporarily lost Prime Shipping eligibility when a fulfillment error occurred (inventory wasn’t correctly processed). As a result, sales on a top-selling ASIN dropped sharply. The team quickly paused ads to minimize wasted spend. 

How they did it: Using commerce signals to inform their campaign timing

Although the issue wasn’t preventable, a sudden dip in conversions prompted an investigation.  Using commerce signals and insights from Pacvue Commerce, the team quickly established the loss of Prime Shipping status as the root cause. They created a rule in Pacvue’s Advertising console to automatically pause campaigns until eligibility was restored. 

#3. Delighting holiday shoppers using commerce signals

When shoppers are looking for gifts that need to arrive on time, like for a holiday or special occasion, it’s important that you don’t disappoint. Even if you’ve created the perfect beauty box, if it won’t arrive on time for Mother’s Day, you won’t sell it.   

Use Case #3: Optimizing seasonal opportunities 

A popular skincare brand focuses heavily on Mother’s Day promotions each year. Making sure their ad budget goes as far as possible, the team focused ad spend on products that will meet the “Deliver By Mother’s Day” window. Automatically focusing on ASINs that will meet delivery expectations reduces wasted ad spend, increases conversion rates, and delights shoppers (and their moms)! 

How they did it: Building smart retail media automations around seasonal delivery windows

The brand used data from their Pacvue Commerce platform to trigger a customized automation rule in the Pacvue Advertising console. This rule allocated budget only to those products that met the delivery criteria.  With more seasonal events each year, automated processes using commerce signals ensure your ad dollars are spent on products most likely to sell and delight your shoppers. 

#4. Shielding your retail media budget when your PDP content is hijacked

If your Product Detail Page (PDP) content on any of your retailer sites is not compliant or is sub-optimal, your product will lose visibility. Brands usually do a great job of maintaining their PDP content—knowing that it plays a highly influential role in both traffic and conversion rates—but their content can be hijacked, putting the brand at risk. When this happens, you will need to take action quickly and pause ad spend until you repair the problematic content. Retail media automation based on commerce signals provides an easy solution. 

Use Case #4: Defending your brand 

An ecommerce manager discovered a 3P seller had changed the product title and bullets on a product detail page. The content score was at rock bottom and conversions were tanking. Pacvue’s Commerce tool alerted the team to the problem, enabling them to pause ad spend to protect their brand and sales.  

How they did it: Using commerce signals and automation to protect the brand 

Monitoring PDP content with Pacvue Commerce, they created an automated ad rule: when a page’s content score dropped below a set threshold, ad spend was automatically lowered until the page was fixed. Once corrected, spend returned to normal levels. 

#5. Smarter competitive moves using commerce signals and automation

Monitoring your competitors’ moves, particularly on price, helps you continuously refine your marketing effectiveness. When the competitor’s price drops, how should you respond? Should you increase spend to increase your visibility, or reserve your budget for when competition eases off?  It’s rarely a simple decision – factors like Buy Box status, stock levels, or shipping constraints also matter. Commerce signals help you make informed moves based on real-time conditions. 

Use Case #5: Choosing the competitive battles you’re likely to win 

A brand’s nearest competitor slashed prices. Although ad impressions were still high, conversions plummeted. In response, they created a retail media automation process that paused spend until their competitor’s sale ended. Seems like a neat but obvious move, right? But they were able to get even smarter by automatically resuming campaigns when opportunities to capture new-to-brand customers arose, even during the competitor’s sale. 

How they did it: Using commerce data to win new-to-brand customers 

Tracking their competitor’s commerce signals via Pacvue Commerce, the marketing team knew when the competitor sold out or lost Amazon Buy Box control. Using Pacvue’s retail media automation, they were able to automatically resume their campaign and target new-to-brand shoppers who were reconsidering their options when their usual brand was unavailable. 

How to gain an edge in advertising campaigns using commerce signals and automation 

Commerce signals have the power to transform your retail media performance if you know how to use them. From pausing spend on products that have lost the Amazon Buy Box to responding to competitor price drops, top performing brands are combining retail media automation with real-time commerce insights to stretch every ad dollar further. 

Want to see it in action? Book a demo with Pacvue and discover how integrated commerce and advertising solutions can help you make sharper, faster decisions that protect performance and boost ROAS.