Fospha Masterclass Recap: Bridging the Gap Between Brand Investment and Business Impact

After years of chasing short-term performance, marketers are facing a new challenge: how to measure and justify brand spend in a world built for last-click attribution. The Fospha Glow Masterclass at SXSW tackled this head-on, revealing how brands can use advanced measurement to prove the ROI of upper-funnel activity—and why ignoring brand spend could be holding businesses back.

Over 50 industry leaders attended the session, representing brands from tech, retail, and CPG. The lively roundtable discussion surfaced shared frustrations about the lack of actionable brand metrics and the pressure from finance teams to justify brand spend. Fospha’s team introduced their new advanced measurement product, which aims to provide the missing link between brand investment and business outcomes.

🎯 🚀 5 Key Takeaways from the Glow Masterclass

1. The Bottom-of-Funnel Trap is Real—And It’s Holding Brands Back

Many brands remain locked in a cycle of performance-driven spending because last-click attribution makes it easier to justify. This creates a “doom loop” where brands overspend on lower-funnel activity and underinvest in brand.

"The problem isn’t just that brands don’t know how to measure brand impact—it’s that last-click reporting actively pushes them toward short-termism,” said Jamie, Fospha’s VP of Growth.

Fospha’s research shows that brands investing more than 10% of their media budgets in brand outperform the market by 30%. The key is understanding how upper-funnel activity influences downstream revenue.

2. 42% of Amazon Sales Come from Off-Site Media—But Most Brands Can’t See It

Jamie highlighted that 42% of Amazon sales are driven by ads on TikTok, Meta, YouTube, and other platforms—but Amazon’s closed-loop reporting doesn’t reflect this.

“Most brands are blind to the true drivers of their Amazon sales because that data sits outside of Amazon's reporting,” Jamie explained. “That’s why brands keep cutting brand spend—it looks like it’s not working when it actually is.”

Fospha’s platform reveals these hidden connections, helping brands better allocate spend across platforms and channels.

3. Brands Need to Think Beyond Just Conversion—Engaged Visits Are the Hidden Metric

Fospha’s early Glow research showed that awareness impressions directly drive engaged visits, and engaged visits are highly predictive of new customer acquisition and revenue.

"We discovered that for 70% of brands, engaged visits were the strongest predictor of new customer revenue,” said Dom, Fospha’s Head of Product.

Fospha advised brands to stop focusing solely on conversion metrics and start tracking engaged visits as a leading indicator of brand health.

• Engaged visits = Time on site + pages visited + bounce rate

• High engaged visit rates predict better long-term ROI

4. Brand Investment Increases Average Order Value (AOV)—Even Outside of Promotional Periods

Fospha’s research found that brands investing in awareness saw higher AOV, even when they weren’t running promotions.

“Stronger brands don’t have to discount as much to drive sales,” Dom explained. “When you invest in brand, you build trust and recognition, which means customers are willing to pay full price.”

AOV lift from brand spend was seen in 60% of cases studied across Fospha’s client base.

5. New Machine Learning Model Maps the True Brand-to-Revenue Journey

Fospha uses a Bayesian Network Model to map the causal relationships between brand spend, impressions, engaged visits, and revenue.

“We used to think it was just correlation—but now we have proof it’s causation,” said Dom. “The model shows that investing in awareness directly influences downstream revenue—and we can measure it.”

The model allows Fospha to forecast ROAS, CAC, and headroom at a 90%+ confidence interval, helping brands build a business case for brand spend that finance teams can understand.

🎯 Real-World Case Study: Underoutfit’s $3M Revenue Lift

• Fospha helped Underoutfit shift spend back to TikTok and YouTube

• Result: $3M annual increase in blended revenue

• Lower customer acquisition cost despite increased spend

💬 What Attendees Said

• 🔥 "This is exactly the data we need to have meaningful conversations with finance.”

• 🔥 "Engaged visits are the missing metric—tracking them will change how we evaluate performance.”

• 🔥 "Finally—a way to prove that brand investment works!"

📈 Why This Matters

Fospha gives brands the data to measure and justify brand spend with confidence. For the first time, marketers can:

• ✅ Connect brand spend to downstream revenue

• ✅ Understand which awareness channels are driving business outcomes

• ✅ Forecast the impact of scaling brand spend on CAC and ROAS

🎉 Join Us at Shoptalk Spring in Vegas

Fospha will be hosting a series of exclusive masterclasses at Shoptalk Spring in Las Vegas from March 25–27, 2025. Learn more about full-funnel measurement, cross-platform impact, and the latest TikTok strategies.

👉 Explore Fospha’s Shoptalk Spring events → See the Schedule

✨ Final Thought

Stay tuned for more insights from Fospha’s SXSW Masterclass Series,
The Unofficially SXSW Team

📢 Unofficially SXSW is an independent publication and is not affiliated with SXSW.

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