TOP ROW, from left: Sachinn J Laala, Chief Executive Officer, Liquid Havas Market; Chris Bishop, Ecommerce Director, SQUATWOLF; Siham Arif, Associate Director - Ecommerce MENA, WPP Media; Kareem Al Saady, Regional Director – Retail Media and Retail Partnerships, talabat; and V. Nandakumar, Director – Marketing and Communications, Lulu Group International.
BOTTOM ROW, from left: Waseem Afzal, Founder and CEO of Platformance; Gagandeep Singh, Head of Analytics & Machine Learning, StarzOn and Head of enfuse, e&life; Krinio Christaras, Head of Consumer Experience MENAP, Mondelez International; Rajesh Verma, General Manager – Middle East, Epsilon; and Subhan S. Ahmad, Senior Marketing, Growth and Digital Consultant.The scoreboard is being rewritten. Over the past few months, advertising conversations have distilled down to clicks and return on ad spend (ROAS) – a tidy ratio that promises clarity on marketing effectiveness. But tidy on the table, quite often, doesn’t reflect the clutter in closed cabinets.
As consumer journeys splinter across channels and commercial pressures mount, leaders are pushing for instruments that track not just motion, but momentum; tools that track profit, not just pace.
What’s emerging is a playbook that asks tougher questions. Metrics such as contribution margins, incrementality and platform lift get closer to the heart of value creation. They travel without the usual speed bumps from the CMO’s dashboard to the CFO’s table. They force teams to face trade‑offs, to harmonise media and marketing, and to plan for what happens after the click.
In conversation with Campaign Middle East, leaders across brand, agency and adtech reach a consensus: measure what matters, align what you control and let data connect the dots from attention to earnings. Think of it as upgrading from a car’s dashboard to a fully functional cockpit that displays altitude, attitude and acceleration within advertising.
The measurement moves: from clicks and ROAS to profitability
Marketers are increasingly weighing up whether focusing on ROAS alone is too narrow a metric of success. Board members are repeatedly demanding numbers that translate to earnings, and the only way to get there is to connect media performance to commercial growth.
“The age of optimising purely for ROAS is over. It’s a narrow, channel-centric view that ignores the broader realities of profitability,” says Krinio Christaras, Head of Consumer Experience – Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP), Mondelēz International.
Christaras adds, “Today’s fragmented consumer journeys and rising media costs demand a shift toward contribution margins, incrementality and platform lift. These metrics speak the language of the boardroom –proving not just efficiency, but profitable growth.”
V. Nandakumar, Director – Marketing and Communications, LuLu Group International, says, “As a retailer, I don’t present ROAS at board meetings; I present profitability. At LuLu, with omnichannel operations, we’ve learned that profitability sits at the intersection of marketing efficiency, supply chain discipline and customer experience. Contribution margins and incrementality tell us whether campaigns truly lift the business. ROAS is useful, but it’s not the final word.”
If in doubt, judge marketing by the standards that govern the rest of the business, marketers state, adding that until now, ROAS has been a helpful entry point because it is simple to read and compare. However, there’s a difference between what’s easy – and what generates value.
Waseem Afzal, Founder and CEO of Platformance, says, “The problem is that ROAS only tells you about revenue, not profit, and it gives no view of long-term health. The shift now is to measure outcomes that matter to a business. That means looking at incrementality and lift, asking if the sale would have happened without the campaign. Marketing earns real value when it is judged like finance is, against margins, sustainability and contribution.”
Platforms with stock-keeping unit (SKU)-level insights can further illuminate conversations on contribution margins. Such insight not only makes it easier for brands to optimise for quality of revenue, but also to build a measurement stack that serves multiple outcomes.
Kareem Al Saady, Regional Director – Retail Media and Retail Partnerships, talabat, says, “ROAS is a very important health metric, but that’s what it is – a health metric that lets you confirm at a high level that an ad is performing on the most fundamental level. What it doesn’t do is tell you the quality of revenue that’s coming in or its impact on the bottom-line results.”
Al Saady adds, “ROAS, like all metrics, needs to be looked at in conjunction with other metrics, and you should continuously tweak the settings until you find the optimal mix that supports the objectives of your business, be it profitability, growth or both. At talabat, because we can attribute ads to specific SKUs, this helps brands clearly link the impact of their ads to their contribution margin.”
Leaders add that for direct-to-consumer (D2C) players, the money map begins with allowable acquisition economics that factor in repeat behaviour and real costs before stretching to the long-term view. They also advise avoiding channel silos and measuring real lift, while highlighting how high scores in one lane can often mask leakage in another.
Chris Bishop, E-commerce Director, SQUATWOLF, says, “ROAS is dashboard theatre; your allowable customer acquisition cost (CAC) is your growth rocket fuel. The real test is whether you know that allowable CAC – not just on the first order, but on the revenue within the first month. Look further: zero-to-12-month repeat rates – or even 24-month repeat rates – and customer revenue can push new customer spend by more than 100 per cent. Push your team and agencies on that figure – that’s how you scale to your potential, profitably.”
Siham Arif, Associate Director – E-commerce MENA, WPP Media, adds, “Today, marketers in MENA are often siloed, focused on channel-specific metrics such as ROAS without a holistic view of the business. However, a high ROAS on one platform can be misleading if it cannibalises sales from another or doesn’t account for true customer acquisition costs and brand-building efforts. Moving towards contribution margins and incrementality metrics allows D2C marketers to connect their spending directly to bottom-line profitability.”
Several leaders stress that the broader shift in the marketing industry is structural as much as tactical. They call for marketers to take a people-focused approach, and leverage developments in first-party data that enable incrementality and contributor margins.
Gagandeep Singh, Head of Analytics & Machine Learning, StarzOn and Head of enfuse, e&life, says, “Shifts in the global and tech landscape, as well as supply chain disruptions are pushing businesses to shift focus on margins. This is necessitating a move away from ROAS and the current key performance indicators (KPIs) such as clicks and completion rates to real return on investment (ROI). Breakthroughs in first-party addressability solutions now allow brands and direct advertisers to operate like a D2C business, positioning them as the largest data custodians in the long run.”
Rajesh Verma, General Manager – Middle East, Epsilon, adds, “ROAS encourages advertisers to focus on channels, not people. Campaigns are often optimised towards where there’s engagement and response, but that also means the same audience is repeatedly exposed. That over-frequency inflates perceived success. Focusing on audiences identified with basic or incomplete signals can mean you’re crediting purchases that would have happened anyway.”
Verma adds, “Verified first-party data makes incrementality and contribution margins possible, letting marketers map journeys accurately, optimise spend where it counts, and ensure each touchpoint contributes meaningfully.”
However, while stepping beyond ROAS, leaders also caution against treating any single KPI or metric as a silver bullet. The art is to string these together across the funnel and review it in context so that both the short-term goals and long-term growth are realised.
“Every KPI has its place across the customer-product funnel,” says Subhan S. Ahmad, a senior marketing, growth and digital consultant, with more than 14 years of multi-industry tech experience across the MENA, APAC and EU regions. “The challenge isn’t only what to measure, but where on the funnel to measure it and, most importantly, how to connect these KPIs. Effective measurement balances nuance, strategy and practical realities, ensuring both short-term wins and sustainable growth.”
Omnichannel strategies: turning engagement and footfall into sales
What’s the harsh truth within marketing? Many brands see cheerful dashboards with great performance metrics while products linger on shelves. They see online wish lists and e-commerce carts fill up, while warehouses fail to show the movement they want.
Leaders describe this as a coordination problem first, an advertising problem second.
“The most dangerous gap in e-commerce is the one between intent and conversion,” says Mondelēz International’s Christaras. “This disconnect is rarely about media performance – it’s about orchestration. Marketing, trade and retail must plan as one ecosystem, synchronising campaigns with stock, promotions and retail media. When data flows freely across these functions, every impression and footfall becomes part of a closed loop, translating interest into movement, and movement into measurable value.”
Ahmad adds, “The disconnect between online and offline sales isn’t inevitable, but in the MENA region it often surfaces because the retail-to-online funnel isn’t fully integrated. Many companies overemphasise one or both – without considering customer psychology: intent, emotion and purchase type. This misalignment drives abandoned carts and unsold inventory despite high engagement.”
Agencies see the same pattern in the split between brand-building and conversion tactics. The fix lies in leaning into a true omnichannel plan, using each touchpoint to propel the next, and letting offline and online data inform each other.
WPP Media’s Arif says, “It’s the classic struggle between brand marketing and performance marketing, with the former creating awareness and engagement, and the latter converting only part of it into sales.”
When asked why this exists, she explains, “I believe it is because of the lack of a cohesive omnichannel strategy. Brands are often not properly leveraging online engagement to drive offline traffic through creatives, personalised offers or in-store pickup options. Similarly, they are not using offline data such as in-store traffic or in-store browsing behaviour to personalise the online experience and re-engage customers. The result is a fractured customer journey with abandoned carts and mismatched inventory.”
The solution? Marketers must develop strategic clarity on channel impact combined with real-time data integration across retail, e-commerce and CRM, ensuring campaigns convert attention into true sales velocity and bridge the gap between brand-building and commercial performance.
Although the disconnect is a reality across the industry, LuLu Group International addresses it through such integration.
V. Nandakumar explains, “We connect e-commerce platforms to store-level stock, use dynamic promotions to move slower inventory, and trigger CRM nudges to recover abandoned carts. Omnichannel isn’t just about having multiple touchpoints; it’s about making them work together as one system. When channels talk to each other, the customer doesn’t feel the gap – and neither does the business.”
Specialists in unified retail also recommend erasing the imagined boundary between digital and physical. Serve the same shopper with one brain, and both stock and sales improve, they suggest.
“The reality is that despite significant progress, true omni-commerce remains rare,” says Sachinn J. Laala, Chief Executive Officer, Liquid Havas Market. “Most brands still treat e-commerce and offline retail as separate channels, when in fact they are deeply interconnected. Both serve the same customer, offer the same products and fulfil the same needs, just in different environments.”
Laala adds, “The fundamentals of creating a seamless data flow between online and offline will help solve slow moving inventory offline and abandoned carts online. Ultimately, we must stop thinking in terms of digital vs. physical and instead treat both as one unified retail ecosystem. That’s how brands can bridge the gap between engagement and conversion and turn disconnected signals into meaningful business outcomes.”
Patience also matters. Adding a new perspective, some leaders state that the growing culture of speed and instant measurement can tempt people to judge too soon when the commercial impact requires more time.
Al Saady explains, “I believe that sometimes the disconnect occurs because the expectations of digital marketing and spending are too high. The fundamentals of marketing still apply, and just because you can measure everything immediately doesn’t mean that the results will be immediate too. Marketers need to zoom out and look at broader windows of time to understand the impact of their ads and then use the data to extract and test insights.”
Conversely, leaders also discuss the opposite problem: In hospitality, for example, a hotel might be seeing low online conversions, yet walk-ins are strong. Similarly, a restaurant could be bustling every evening, but if the number of covers and revenue isn’t measured, digital campaigns won’t know what’s really working.
Epsilon’s Verma says, “The solution isn’t complicated: connect bookings, loyalty and transaction systems so every interaction is captured. But this does take time and resources. When you do it, the insight is invaluable, letting you optimise spend and letting you reach the right people effectively.”
Visibility and clarity over clicks
The time has come for the industry to move beyond its current fixation on clicks as a success metric and pivot to using it as a diagnostic signal. Instead of pursuing clicks, leaders suggest that the industry must enhance visibility and clarity. Visibility means knowing where the customer is, what they need and how fast marketers can deliver beyond pushing for clicks. Clarity means helping consumers connect a click with the right product and experience.
“An over-reliance on clicks can lead to a narrow, short-term view that neglects the full customer journey,” says WPP Media’s Arif. “Visibility and clarity are essential for building brand awareness and trust, which are critical for long-term growth and customer loyalty.”
It has also become imperative for marketers to gain visibility and clarity on the size of the prize, the addressable audience and what share of the audience they hold.
“Reach, awareness and credibility in your category is key – if people don’t know you exist, no amount of optimising clicks will save you,” says SQUATWOLF’s Bishop. “But the problem isn’t the checkout flow; it’s salience. Visibility builds growth. If you don’t know your market share, you don’t know your ceiling. I’ve worked with founders and CEOs who blame website conversion when their market share is less than 1 per cent.”
Similarly, in retail, clarity isn’t abstract; it’s a promise kept – from seeing the right item to having it available at pace. Despite playing different parts in the same orchestra, operations and media must keep time together.
“In retail, clicks that don’t connect with the right product or shelf is wasted,” says LuLu Group International’s Nandakumar. “We focus on aligning promotions, inventory, and systems so that the online promise matches the offline reality.”
Leaders also suggest a shift: Instead of constantly chasing more traffic, marketers need to ask whether they can serve current consumers better with what the data and tools they already have on hand.
After all, marketing is not just about driving acquisition; it’s also about ensuring the customer journey is seamless, trustworthy and ultimately profitable.
But tying activity to such meaningful outcomes also requires a shared language and a single measurement spine across teams.
“Clicks are a relic of the old performance playbook,” says Mondelēz International’s Christaras. “Real growth comes from visibility, clarity and the ability to connect exposure with tangible outcomes – incremental sales, inventory movement and consumer lifetime value. That requires uniting marketing, commerce, and operational teams under one measurement framework.”
She adds, “At Mondelēz, we look beyond chasing cheap acquisition and instead focus on optimising the entire consumer experience. Every touchpoint is engineered to create value, building not just conversion but brand equity and business resilience in an increasingly competitive e-commerce environment.”
Marketers also recommend aligning success metrics to strategy, while ensuring that these metrics are interpreted correctly and in context. Comparisons based solely on surface interaction can be deceiving.
“Clicks, without additional data, are a vanity metric that can tell you if your ad has appeal, but without any real context about why the person clicked. Marketers need to find a way to understand the impact of their ads through experimentation, and the right measurement frameworks,” says talabat’s Al Saady. “For some campaigns, it’s about conversion clicks on a landing or lead page; for others, it’s about brand lift and brand awareness. Comparing clicks is easy and simple, but sometimes misleading, because each campaign has different objectives and benchmarks.”
Subhan Ahmad agrees, saying, “Without a cohesive strategy, ad spend risks becoming a vanity-driven cash burn, chasing temporary growth instead of building sustainable customer engagement and long-term brand impact.
Not a single dollar should be spent on performance campaigns without a digital strategy grounded in core customer-led marketing strategy: value creation, capture and delivery across product, growth, technology and experience. When alignment exists, clicks, conversions and loyalty metrics all become more efficient.”
Leaders raise hands in unanimity, stating: clicks are signals, not results.
Platformance’s Afzal says, “For upper-funnel work, clicks can help diagnose movement. For sales or repeat customers, clicks matter far less than incrementality, lift, and profitability. Marketing is not about being seen; it is about turning attention into measurable action. Strategy and systems need to align to make that link clear, so teams optimise for business outcomes, not activity.”
Parting advice on targeting and segmentation
For brands new to advanced segmentation, leaders suggest starting broad with wider audiences and refining gradually with each iteration.
Al Saady says, “Beginning with the wider audiences allows you to gather insights and then slowly improve them over time. Too often, audiences turn into cliches and prejudices, where it’s intended to solve for relevance and waste. Any segmentation can drive tons more insights and learning opportunities, and not every segmentation will yield positive results. However, it will reveal additional information that is useful.”
Marketers must also remember that, quite often, mastery of the basics often outperforms flashy tooling. Real groups, reachable at scale, with clear value, will always be the foundation.
“Segmentation should be about creating outcomes that move the business, not dashboards that look clever,” says Bishop. “Start with the basics – what are you trying to achieve? Is the daily email really that bad if it keeps you front of mind? What measure will you lean into – short-term revenue, or the lifetime value (LTV) loss from unsubscribes? Define the outcomes that matter, then build segmentation to deliver against them.”
That said, for many brands a basic step is to unify data, then work up from simple behavioural clusters to predictive models and live triggers.
Leaders share that such an approach allows for the creation of predictive segments – such as potential churners or high-value customers – and real-time retargeting.
“Basic segmentation, done well, is advanced,” Afzal says. “The basics matter most: clean data, clear objectives and a true understanding of the market and your core customers. Segmentation is powerful when the groups you define are real, reachable and commercially valuable at scale. That is what creates outcomes a business can measure and build on. Effective segmentation is about clarity and execution, not complexity.”
Arif agrees, “Before tapping into AI, you need a clean, unified source of first-party data. My advice is to start with a simple behavioural segmentation – for instance, based on purchase frequency or cart abandonment – and build from there. Once this foundation is solid, you can use AI to analyse more complex behavioural patterns.”
Building on this conversation, Christaras says, “Advanced segmentation is only as powerful as the foundation it stands on. That starts with clean, compliant, unified zero-party data. From there, define high-value consumer segments and activate them with predictive models, real-time triggers, and dynamic creative. At Mondelēz, we’ve seen micro-segmentation lift both conversion and loyalty when it’s paired with adaptive offers and remarketing that reflect each consumer’s unique stage in the journey.”
Marketers must also consider creating centralised data rooms that integrate CRM, email platforms, POS systems and other key tools.
Laala explains that these centralised data rooms “will enable systems to talk to each other and support real time, unified customer segmentation. They will also help with retargeting abandoned carts using real-time behavioural data to identify high-intent users and trigger timely, personalised retargeting.”
He adds that data rooms “will help you run effective A/B tests real-time segments, let you quickly test and learn what messaging or offers work best, and lastly enable predictive insights that leverage AI to forecast customer behaviour, improving segmentation, marketing, and even inventory decisions. This approach shifts your marketing from being reactive to being data-driven and proactive, improving performance across the board.”
Calling on brands to get their fundamentals in order, Ahmad advises precise, scalable personalisation that drives performance while building long-term customer trust. But leaders warn that without a consistent view of the customer, even sophisticated models can misfire. They reiterate that identity sits at the core of effective personalisation.
Verma agrees: “If you can’t recognise the same person across web, app and store, even the smartest predictive models will fail. Make sure your first-party data is clean, complete and connected, so every action feeds into a single view. Then AI can personalise properly, showing the right message to the right person at the right time.”
He adds, “Begin with small, controlled tests, iterate based on results and gradually expand. When identity and data are solid, you can create segments that respond predictably, reduce wasted impressions and unlock campaigns that influence behaviour.”
Leaders also share that segmentation goes beyond communication – it involves aligning the entire business to anticipate, serve and grow alongside evolving customer behaviour.
“My advice is to start practical,” says V. Nandakumar. “Don’t over-engineer segmentation with endless dashboards. Focus on a few high-impact segments – loyalists, discount-seekers, or cart abandoners – and build clear journeys around them.”
He sums it up, saying, “AI helps us anticipate churn, forecast demand, and personalise offers. But the real unlock happens when marketing, merchandising and operations act together. Real-time behavioural targeting works only if stock and delivery back it up.”
All in all, the key messages from experienced marketers are clear: If marketing were a flight deck, ROAS would be just one gauge.
It’s time to develop a more nuanced understanding of the fuller instrument panel in the cockpit: contribution margins, incrementality, lift and lifetime value; visibility that builds market memory; systems that knit online and offline into one journey; and segmentation that starts with clean data and ends with usable, scalable outcomes. This is less about chasing clicks and more about orchestrating commerce.
The through-line is stewardship. When teams align measurement to profit, tie signals to sell‑through, and use data to inform both promise and delivery, marketing graduates from a cost centre to a growth engine – steady, intentional and pointed firmly at value.
