A Guide to Sponsored Products and Their Role in the Shopper Journey

Sponsored Products are one of the most widely used, highest margin formats in retail media, yet they are often misunderstood. This guide explains what Sponsored Products are designed to do, where they sit in the shopper journey, and how brands should think about measuring success, particularly in categories where most purchases happen in-store.

What Are Sponsored Products?

Sponsored Products place promoted SKUs directly within a retailer’s digital shopping environments, most commonly within search results and category browse pages.

These placements appear alongside organic product listings and are designed to mirror how shoppers naturally discover products. Rather than interrupting the experience, Sponsored Products integrate into it, helping shoppers find relevant products faster.

Zitcha’s Sponsored Products use AI-enriched product data to ensure ads are contextually and semantically relevant to shopper intent. Campaigns are currently priced on a fixed CPM, with CPC and auction-based buying planned, and support scalable campaign management and optimisation.

Where Sponsored Products Sit in the Shopper Journey

Sponsored Products operate in the consideration and decision phase of the shopper journey.

They reach shoppers when they are:

Searching for a specific product or solution
Browsing categories to compare options
Narrowing down brand and product choices

At this point, the shopper is not always ready to complete a transaction online. Instead, they are forming intent and preference, often in preparation for a later in-store purchase.

Because of this, Sponsored Products influence what is bought, not just where or when the purchase occurs.

The Primary Outcome: Intent and Preference

The core role of Sponsored Products is to:

Increase product visibility at high-intent moments
Influence brand and SKU consideration
Shape final purchase decisions before the shopper reaches the shelf

In many retail categories, digital touchpoints act as planning tools rather than checkout destinations. Sponsored Products support this behaviour by ensuring brands are present when shoppers are deciding which product to buy.

This makes Sponsored Products particularly effective as decision-driving media, rather than pure conversion media.

Why Last-Click ROAS Is Not Enough

Return on ad spend is often measured using online conversions alone. While this is a useful metric, it does not reflect the full impact of Sponsored Products in environments where a large proportion of sales occur offline.

Clicks without an immediate online purchase still represent meaningful engagement, including:

Product research and comparison
Brand evaluation
Price and pack-size consideration
Store visit planning

Sponsored Products should therefore be assessed as part of a broader measurement framework that recognises their role in influencing downstream purchases.

What Success Looks Like

Success with Sponsored Products is best evaluated using a combination of performance and behavioural signals, including:

Clicks and click-through rate (CTR)
Cost efficiency (CPM, CPC)
Online conversions and ROAS (where applicable)
Trends in search demand and product interest over time

Together, these metrics provide a clearer picture of how Sponsored Products contribute to shopper decision-making and brand performance.

What Sponsored Products Are Not Designed to Do

Why Sponsored Products Are a Core Retail Media Format

Sponsored Products are one of the fastest-growing retail media formats globally because they:

Scale easily across large product catalogues
Align naturally with shopper behaviour
Deliver measurable engagement at the point of decision
Create value for brands without disrupting the shopping experience

When used with the right expectations and measurement approach, Sponsored Products play a critical role in influencing purchase decisions, both online and in-store.