Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
Walmart Connect México has launched brand lift studies in its DSP. Learn how experiential marketers can use these attitudinal metrics to measure event impact.
A shopper stands in aisle five staring at a wall of premium sports drinks without clicking a digital link. They rely entirely on memory, brand preference, and physical product interaction. Myth: Retail media platforms only measure clicks and last-touch attribution. Truth: New demand-side platform tools, like those recently launched by Walmart Connect México, are pushing into attitudinal measurement to connect brand awareness directly to the point of purchase.
Field marketing operators and digital buyers often treat awareness as a secondary metric. They focus heavily on lower-funnel sales data because leadership demands immediate Return on Investment. When budgets tighten, marketers naturally lean on direct response tools rather than attitudinal tracking. This creates a gap where campaigns building long-term familiarity get penalized for lacking instant conversions.
Agencies and platforms have historically trained brands to look only at final transactions. A media buyer might see a high click rate and declare victory for the quarter. A field marketer might count the number of samples distributed and call the weekend a total success. Neither metric proves that the target consumer actually developed a preference for the product.
This fragmented approach leaves marketing executives guessing about which touchpoint actually influenced the final purchase decision. When brand managers cannot validate their attitudinal impact, they risk losing budget to bottom-funnel tactics. They struggle to justify trade show sponsorships, sampling roadshows, and top-of-funnel media investments. Without integrated measurement tools, it becomes nearly impossible to defend multi-channel experiential campaigns during annual budget reviews.
According to Adweek, Walmart Connect México has launched self-service brand lift studies directly within its DSP. The platform is powered by Infillion’s composable advertising platform. Advertisers can now measure campaign impact in the very same environment where they plan and manage their media. This capability adds a critical attitudinal layer to their existing sales and conversion reporting.
The mechanics of the new measurement program are highly specific. The studies compare an exposed audience against a non-exposed control group. These surveys are delivered by email using Walmart’s own audience data.
Marketers can configure the survey questions around brand awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. They can also measure ad recall, brand preference, and brand familiarity. This structural integration allows media buyers to understand consumer perception well before a transaction occurs.
Research cited by eMarketer and reported by Adweek identifies brand awareness as the leading stated reason retail media buyers invest in the channel. Jonatan Fasano, Head of Product at Walmart Connect México and Central America, noted that advertisers are bringing broader objectives to retail media. They want to understand whether their campaigns successfully build awareness, strengthen consideration, and influence purchases. Gabriel Paton, Infillion’s SVP of Sales Engineering, characterized this capability as a natural extension of standard reporting.
Adweek reports that eligible campaigns meeting a pre-established minimum investment can use the studies at no incremental cost. The launch extends the measurement offering beyond basic click metrics to include broader attribution connecting digital media to in-store sales. This integration points toward a future where brand building and performance marketing share the exact same measurement framework.
It is vital to recognize that brand lift is not the same as sales lift. The new studies measure attitudes and reported responses rather than verified checkout data. A campaign could produce positive brand lift without generating immediate sales, particularly for products with longer consideration cycles. Conversely, a campaign could drive direct purchases without producing a massive measurable change in survey responses.
A perfectly executed digital ad might generate massive ad recall without ever moving a single unit off the shelf. Retail marketers must accept that attitudinal metrics are leading indicators rather than final outcomes. They signal that a consumer is ready to buy, but they do not guarantee the final transaction. Your live activations bridge this gap by converting that latent awareness into physical action.
This distinction is exactly why Gartner has advised CMOs to prioritize strategically important platforms, use additional platforms selectively, and direct more investment toward platforms that enable meaningful measurement and independent evaluation. A survey can indicate that exposed consumers report stronger awareness or intent. However, it does not by itself prove incremental retail sales or causation across every single stage of the customer journey.
Experiential and trade show teams must pay close attention to this shift in retail media capabilities. When retail networks start measuring familiarity and purchase intent systematically, live activations will face the exact same expectations. A product sampling event is not just about the number of cups handed out on a Saturday afternoon. It is a live channel that must definitively prove it changes consumer perception.
Teams should define their desired attitudinal outcomes before a single brand ambassador steps onto the event floor. This requires a highly disciplined approach to building your field measurement stack. Brands must document exactly how their campaign audience is defined across all physical and digital channels. If a digital campaign and a live roadshow target completely different demographics, combining their attitudinal results will produce highly misleading data.
Marketers should consistently pair brand lift surveys with first-party lead data, offer redemptions, and point-of-sale reporting wherever possible. You must establish a clear operational protocol for connecting live events to retail sell-through using verified sales logic. Your measurement plan should seamlessly connect five critical stages to ensure accuracy. Begin by tracking exposure by identifying who encountered the media or physical activation.
Second, measure engagement by tracking who actually interacted with the product. You should also record who sampled the item, scanned a digital code, or registered for information. Third, evaluate attitude to see whether brand awareness, familiarity, consideration, or preference changed. Fourth, monitor behavior to see if those people visited a retailer or searched for the product online.
Finally, measure the commercial outcome to confirm whether there was actual incremental sales impact. Before presenting any brand lift results to company leadership, operators must ask rigorous methodological questions. You need to know what counts as an exposed consumer and exactly how the control group was constructed. You also need to understand the minimum detectable lift and whether the survey outcomes connect to in-store purchase data.
Knowing the survey response rate and the nonresponse methodology is critically important. A poorly designed study might skew results by only capturing feedback from your most loyal existing customers. Operators must verify that the control group assignment is scientifically sound before altering their campaign strategy. Without these technical details, a positive lift percentage might just be statistical noise rather than a meaningful change.
Adopting this analytical rigor ensures you are actively proving trade show performance to real-world sales rather than just reporting on raw booth traffic. The core goal is to use attitudinal data as an optimization signal rather than a passive post-campaign scorecard. If brand awareness is high but purchase intent remains entirely flat, you likely have a retail execution problem. Strong consideration metrics combined with weak sales could easily point to friction around product pricing, retail availability, or package design.
Your physical brand activations should systematically isolate these variables to diagnose why a target consumer hesitates at the store shelf. We apply this exact operator mindset when executing high-volume experiential programs for premium consumer brands.
One of our clients, a Brand Manager in the alcohol beverage space, shared their experience: 'Working with Makai was a game-changer. The activation blew past all our KPIs and created a lasting emotional connection with our customers. Simply outstanding work.' This level of commercial impact happens when you treat live consumer experiences with strict operational discipline.
It requires utilizing modern tools like AI event analytics instead of vanity metrics to measure actual human behavior.
Attitudinal measurement is now a baseline operational requirement for physical retail success.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
Since 1995, Makai has been connecting brands with people through live experiences, retail programs, and national activations.
