Long term benefits over short term wins — sounds like a bit of a dream, doesn’t it? Think of being able to predict the future sales of your brand as if you could gaze into a crystal ball. And it turns out your creative dreams blossom with the most advanced measure of all: Long Term Sales (LTS) metrics and Long Term Sales Return on Advertising Spend (LTS ROAS). These numbers are about to change how you think and use ad campaign success!
Of course, getting immediate sales rocks, but what about those sneaky long-tail effects? The sneaky catalog views, perhaps, or the cursory search that down the line results in sales. With these new metrics, campaigns can no longer be measured in terms of who purchases the minute after an ad is seen but rather who may make a purchase months down the line. It’s a move away from counting beans today and towards planting an orchard to harvest tomorrow.
Let’s break down these metrics once and for all. Long Term Sales (LTS) are ad-attributed metrics created to predict the amount of your brand's sales you can depend on receiving over the following 12 months. Instead of just counting immediate post-click sales, LTS looks at post-click engagements further down the funnel such as those hard-to-reach website visitors who reappear a few weeks after their initial visit to make a purchase. It’s like following bread crumbs that lead us to a treasure chest we buried months ago.”
Like planting seeds, these metrics work to unlock potentials hidden below the surface – potentials born when ads reach new-to-brand shoppers. Think of tending a garden in which any given seed you may sow, is your material, purposeful thought.
After all, if you're going to measure your metrics, you should be aware of what drives them. It all becomes the soil that these metrics sow — old data, such as page views and searches, is posible as a factor. Now, however, those realignments exist not only in our heads, but in our campaign reports, as the folks at unBoxed Keller sharing their newfangled advances in October. This change in metrics is akin to going from crossing your fingers for rain to having a complex weather tracking station in your backyard.
So why should you actually have LTS and LTS ROAS on your radar? They simply fill a gaping hole in digital advertising: identifying the slow-burners. Historically, advertisers couldn’t credit campaigns that were not directly responsible for future sales.
Think about the average buying cycle: Someone stumbles upon your product, considers it and sometimes doesn’t even convert until months later. In the old days, a campaign would only be credited for loosening the lid on the purchasing jar. But with LTS, 100 tons is credited – with a lead value that begins from the first interaction and includes everyone who said “let’s sleep on it,” took a step back, and ultimately purchased.
This evolutionary process doesn’t just redefine ad success, but it also clarifies how strategies are executed. “It covers not from a snapshot to the end of the month but from a full feature to the full length feature,” Digiday recently quoted one media buyer as noting, arguing that the ads’ effects go on for longer and optimize spending on a per-dollar basis.
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Amazon dropped this metric magic in a unBoxed 2024 session, zeroing in on what many felt like the puzzle piece that had long been absent in advertising. Until now, techniques like last-click attribution provided an incomplete picture. But buyers — as we know them — are much more nimble.
Fast forward to today, metrics are no longer just about counting a single-touch interaction, but instead predicting the ripple effect of those campaigns. Taking into account information on page views, brand searches and even abandoned carts, these longer term sales metrics are indicative of a more complex picture of the shopper’s journey.
Quote Insight: “Getting behind the full effect of visual campaigns means focusing less on the short-term success of your ad and more so on understanding the long-term bridge between interest and action,” explains marketing strategist Alex Trent.
By surfacing LTS metrics in campaign reports you can take these insights from idea to action, quickly accessible right from the Advertising Console. It’s a thrilling age where brands can engineer campaigns based on learned foresights rather than graced hindsight. This is US based advertisers and is available already - this is a game changer.
Now try to imagine using this knowledge to optimise your campaigns and take your marketing dollar to his full potential. The game has truly changed.
Long Term Sales metrics are forecast analytics that predict long-term sales from ad exposure for new-to-brand shoppers over a 12 month time span.
Unlike traditional COIL measures, which measure immediate returns, LTS monitors forecasted sales maturations over time, indicating that (gradual) buyer conversions are preferred over immediate sales.
They offer an important viewpoint on the rest of what ad campaigns accomplish—acknowledging their longer-term effects, which tend to be missed by typical analysis.
These reports are available to brands in their campaign reports within the Advertising Console, for U.S advertisers at launch.
New to brand shoppers are those who haven’t bought from a brand in the last 12 months.
From using the crystal ball of forecasting, it’s apparent LTS metrics more than just a number, they are actionable insights leading brands towards better ad campaigns. With a long purchase cycle as an advantage to work with, brands can refine strategies that cater to more than just impulse buyers and also considers the thoughtful shopper.
Lean into the rock and roll of it all—let LTS lead you in the crazy waltz of digital ads.
Start your campaign optimizations today. Need more insights? See: Amazon’s updated campaign reports overview. Wondering about marketing tactics? Discover the text versions of our articles on implementing ad performance best practices and brand engagement best practices.