Did you know a pencil can draw a straight line up to 56 km long? That sharks go into a coma if turned upside down? That ‘anatidaephobia’ is the fear of being watched by a duck? Curious? Here’s another surprising fact: with smart Ads Share management, you can significantly boost your brand’s market share.
Simply put, Ads Share represents a brand’s share of promotional offers within the total ads in a category. For example: if Brand A has a 5% Ads Share in the yogurt category for a given period and region, it means 5% of all offers in that category were from Brand A.
What’s the relationship between Ads Share and Market Share? Multiple factors explain market share variations, and one of the key levers is promotional volume. This is particularly relevant in the FMCG or fast-moving consumer goods sector, such as food, beverages, hygiene, beauty, and cleaning products.
In this segment, on average, 30% to 35% of retail sales (supermarkets, hypermarkets, and wholesale stores) come from promotions. In other words, nearly 1/3 of sales in these channels are promoted products. In some chains, this can reach 50% or 60%! These are incredibly relevant numbers.
It’s known that effective promotions increase store traffic and drive additional sales in other categories. This is called ‘cross-elasticity,’ where demand for one item/category responds to price changes in another item/category.
From the retailer’s perspective, the gain is obvious. From the manufacturer’s perspective, this can have a positive impact, especially for those with multiple categories in their portfolio.
Typically, negotiations between retailers and suppliers regarding promotions are done category by category (and their respective SKUs). But what if you looked at the interrelation between the categories the manufacturer operates in?
With the right information, it’s possible to promote one category while linking it to another in your portfolio. In this case, you wouldn’t need to sacrifice the margin of both, as it’s highly likely that a shopper buying Category A will also buy Category B.
So why lower the price of both? But then you might ask: ‘Who’s to say the shopper won’t take my competitor’s Category B while I only sell what I promoted?’
Here’s another concept: ‘Every promotion is an offer, but not every offer has to be a promotion.’ How so? An offer doesn’t necessarily need to include a price or quantity advantage (while a promotion does). It just needs to be communicated effectively.
One tactic is to use promotional mechanics intelligently. For example, if I buy only Item A, the price is, say, R$10. If I also buy Item B, the price of Item A drops to R$6. Item B keeps its regular price (but shouldn’t be much more expensive than average). Obviously, both items are from the same manufacturer, as there’s already a strong cross-elasticity between Items A and B.
This way, the manufacturer boosts sales of two items, potentially increasing market share while protecting margins (for both manufacturer and retailer). All this is possible through collaboration between retail and industry, along with intensive data use.
Retailers’ internal data (such as CRM insights) to understand cross-elasticity, market price data (since the partner retailer’s promotional price shouldn’t be higher than direct competitors’), weather data (if your product is affected by temperature/climate), clear targeting, and audience knowledge to tailor messaging and media for the offer/promotion—these are all crucial.
As Peter Drucker said:‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. Ads Share thus becomes a strategic indicator of promotional performance. It helps brands understand their relative exposure and adjust strategies to compete more effectively.
Ultimately, promotions aren’t just sales triggers—they’re tools for brand-building and market share growth, when thoughtfully planned, intelligently executed, and rigorously measured.
