Did you know that a pencil can write a straight line up to 56 km? That sharks go into a coma if they’re upside down? That “anatidaephobia” is the fear of a duck watching you? Curious? Well, here’s another surprising fact: with smart Ads Share management, you can significantly boost your brand’s market share.
Simply put, Ads Share represents the share of a brand’s promotional offers within the total ads in the category. For example: if brand A has a 5% Ads Share in the yogurt category in a given period and region, this means that 5% of all offers run in that category were from brand A.
What is the relationship between Ads Share and Market Share? Several factors explain market share variations, and one of the main drivers is the volume of promotions. This is particularly relevant in the FMCG market, or fast-moving consumer goods, such as food, beverages, and hygiene, beauty, and cleaning products.
In this segment, on average, 30% to 35% of retail sales (supermarkets, hypermarkets, and wholesalers) are through special offers. In other words, nearly one-third of sales in these channels are promotional products. In some chains, this percentage can reach 50% and 60%! These are incredibly significant numbers.
It’s known that efficient offers generate greater store traffic, as well as more additional sales in other categories. This is called “cross-elasticity,” where the demand for one item/category reacts to a price change in another item/category.
From a retailer’s perspective, the benefits are obvious. From a manufacturer’s perspective, this can have a positive impact, especially for those with multiple categories in their portfolio.
Typically, negotiations between retailers and suppliers on promotional issues take place from a category-by-category perspective (and their respective SKUs). But what if you looked at the interrelationships between the categories the manufacturer serves?
With the right information, you can promote a given category by linking it to another in your portfolio. In this case, you wouldn’t need to sacrifice margins for both, as when a shopper buys category A, they’ll likely also buy category B.
So why lower the price of both? Well, then you might ask, “Who’s to say the shopper won’t buy my competitor’s category B product while I only sell what I’ve promoted?”
Here’s another concept: “Every promotion is an offer, but not every offer needs to be a promotion.” But how so? An offer doesn’t necessarily need to deliver a price or quantity advantage (a promotion does). It just needs to be communicated effectively.
One of the tools is to use promotional mechanics intelligently. If I buy, for example, 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 maintains its regular price (but can’t be much more expensive than the average). Obviously, both items are from the same manufacturer. It’s already known that there’s a very strong cross-elasticity between items A and B.
This allows the manufacturer to leverage the sale of two items, potentially increasing market share while protecting margins (for both the manufacturer and the retailer). All of this is possible through collaboration between retail and industry, as well as through intensive use of data.
Internal data from retailers (through their CRMs, for example) to understand cross-elasticity, market price data (after all, the partner retailer’s promotional price cannot be higher than that of its direct competitors), meteorology (whether your product is affected by the weather/temperature variable), clear definition and knowledge of your target audience to adapt the language and media to be used to publicize the offer/promotion, among other information, are essential.
As Peter Drucker said: “What is not measured, cannot be managed”. Ads Share, therefore, becomes a strategic indicator of promotional performance. It helps brands understand their relative exposure and adjust actions to gain ground against competitors.
Ultimately, promotion isn’t just a sales trigger—it’s a tool for building a brand and gaining market share when well thought out, executed intelligently, and measured rigorously.
