Return on Marketing Objective – Orange Apron Media’s Holistic Framework
By Zach Darkow, Sr. Director of Marketing Activation & Measurement
In today’s rapidly evolving retail media landscape, advertisers need more than just a snapshot of performance—they need a complete picture. That’s why Orange Apron Media is proud to introduce ROMO: Return on Marketing Objective, a measurement framework designed to go beyond traditional ROAS by aligning with full-funnel marketing goals and long-term business impact.
Retail Media Measurement Isn’t Easy
With a projected market size of $179.5B (criteo), retail media has become a core pillar of digital advertising. Retail-specific insights are incredibly valuable for driving advertising outcomes, yet there’s still ongoing debate about the most effective way to demonstrate their impact. With so many customer touchpoints and differing attribution models, understanding campaign performance is complicated. The lack of measurement standardization in the industry to date makes it that much harder for brands and advertisers to optimize campaigns and fully understand performance across retail partners.
Why ROAS Falls Short
Advertisers need a holistic view of the customer journey and the full impact of their media investments—but ROAS falls short. It focuses on short-term conversions, missing the bigger picture of long-term brand growth, brand awareness, customer acquisition, and loyalty.
Three key limitations of ROAS:
- Short-term focus: Prioritizes quick wins over lasting impact and only captures immediate conversions, missing those that happen later on or through other channels.
- Lack of benchmarks: What counts as “good” varies too widely.
- Easily skewed: Can be manipulated by pricing tactics or narrow targeting.
To truly understand performance, advertisers need a measurement framework that reflects the full picture—capturing both immediate outcomes and long-term impact aligned with their marketing objectives.
Enter ROMO: Return on Marketing Objective
At Orange Apron Media, we believe marketing success goes beyond immediate sales. That’s why we developed ROMO—Return on Marketing Objective—a framework that measures both short-term wins and long-term brand growth. While ROAS has its place, ROMO offers a more holistic view of campaign effectiveness and a more strategic, forward-thinking way to measure success.
ROMO helps evaluate success based on a brand’s specific marketing goals, like:
- Brand awareness
- Customer engagement
- Customer retention
- Market share growth
What ROMO Delivers for Advertisers
Imagine a product campaign of mostly video and display ads with a -5% quarter over quarter ROAS. Seems like it’s time to pull back on spending.
But not so fast. What if that same campaign also showed an increase in brand searches or a stronger sales pipeline for Q2? Not everyone bought right away, sure, but the campaign still drove substantial business impact. By taking a more holistic view of campaign performance, the ROMO framework ensures long-term strategic decision making.
With ROMO, advertisers unlock:
- Deeper insights that reflect the full customer journey
- Smarter investments guided by strategic goals
- Stronger alignment between media spend and business outcomes
- A competitive edge in a crowded retail media space
Frameworks like ROMO empower advertisers to make smarter, more strategic decisions by aligning short-term performance with long-term business goals, playing a key role in shaping the future of retail media as the industry continues to grow in complexity and scale.
