My company is part branded merch agency and part marketing agency. It’s always interesting to reflect on how the momentum of each side of the business compares each year.
In a year when budgets were slashed with economic woes abound, the promotional products side didn’t fare as well as the marketing services. It’s very telling that in a year when spend becomes more cautious, yet customers need to drive business, they lean into and even increase the digital and social ad spend, but withdraw from promo products.
That tells me we have a long road ahead of us to prove our worth, promo, or at least communicate it more effectively.
Our belief is that promo products can be just as powerful as other marketing channels when positioned correctly, when selected intentionally and when designed with the recipient in mind. It feels like that all goes out the window when examining price per item vs. cost per click.
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That leads me to where we’re stuck, and the questions I keep coming back to.
What’s Our CPC?
In our world, what is the cost per impression of a gifted item? I love a good CPI measure in social and digital, but I love engagement even more. What is the measure for our medium’s effectiveness? Because it’s so vast and use case-dependent, we end up not measuring at all (in most cases) and we certainly don’t communicate it.
Part of our problem is that while “it’s complicated,” we also don’t have measures as part of our swag vocab. We have great industry studies that are very interesting and helpful in guiding suggestions, but they aren’t actionable for the marketer comparing where spend should go when examining the effectiveness of branded item A over branded item B.
Sarah Whitaker
Owner, The Branded Things
Whatever it is, branded merch has a much lower CPI than anything digital due to the longevity of merch. Where we get stuck in the effectiveness conversation is our measures must be client-led, and that’s asking a lot more of them than digital is asking them to do.
That alone puts us at a disadvantage compared to digital, which hands marketers ready-made reporting with no additional effort required. Because it’s so complicated, the conversation shifts from effectiveness and back to cost per item… the exact thing that diminishes our value.
What Other Mediums Measure
Billboards’ effectiveness is widely measured off traffic count, and the cost of the placement goes up based on that measure of effectiveness. The cost of the pen remains the same no matter how many people it goes in front of, which depends on the client.
In theory, that makes our CPI much better. Billboards wish they had the longevity of a hoodie.
Traditional print runs based on circulation and radio listener count. All of these measures are inexact yet communicated confidently and accepted by marketers. These traditional mediums are also experiencing a lack of confidence when compared to social and digital, yet they do rely on the impressions measures to promote their value.
Where I Have Questions
You remember the brand that gifts you something tangible. That’s been studied, we have the research!
Are we leading with this enough? In our agency’s case, we’re leading with creativity of placement in a lot of cases, and then it comes down to budget. Shame on us for not dropping more stats in when we share merch ideas… that’s something we can work on in 2026.
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Are we asking about employee retention or other internal culture metrics down the road some time when we’ve successfully launched appreciation gifts across a company? Our clients may think we’re crazy if we suggest employee retention has increased due to an order of quarter zips.
And while we know that wouldn’t be causation, there must be a correlation between the company that invests in good merch and appreciation of their team. How do we draw that connection more clearly? It’s a conversation we’re not initiating often enough here.
Where Do We Stand?
All of that to say, we simply can’t compete in one key area. Digital can prove its value instantly with reporting, and we can’t magically prove the value of a tote bag on a show floor in the same way an ad can show direct influence on website visits. The analytical side of me hates that.
What we can tout for our industry’s medium is longevity, emotional impact, identity alignment and brand endorsement. These things can’t be replicated in the digital world, and we’d better take strong hold of our strengths.
A social media ad is a fleeting impression; the T-shirt that remains in the closet year over year may very well deliver on the above value measures all within one item. That’s a remarkable measure of success for a $15 investment, when framed correctly.
Instead of trying to compete, we should be trying to stand out with our unique differences. We should be intentional about how we communicate. If we are, we stand to really make waves with how our industry is viewed.
When measurement is possible (think engagement measures like QR codes, adding trackable links, giving unique calls to action), let’s suggest it. When it’s not possible? Articulate the emotional and behavioral value that is completely our unique differentiator.
Whitaker is the owner of The Branded Things, the promotional products division of Williams Advertising.
