Inventory-aware competitive conquesting: Proven growth with The Trade Desk + Pear

Overview

A leading Fortune 500 cereal brand partnered with Pear Commerce and The Trade Desk to use live shelf signals to power a smarter conquesting strategy.

Instead of bidding evenly across all markets, the brand dynamically shifted spend toward zip codes where its products were in stock and competitors were out of stock, capturing high-intent demand when shoppers were most likely to switch.

The result: stronger efficiency, measurable incrementality, and meaningful household penetration gains at scale.

The Challenge

Most CPG media strategies optimize against audience signals, but overlook one of the most powerful variables in commerce: product availability.

This often leads to:

• Budget wasted in low-opportunity markets
• Missed opportunities when competitor products go out of stock
• Static bidding strategies disconnected from real shelf conditions
• Limited visibility into where media can drive the greatest incremental return

This brand needed a smarter way to align media spend with real purchase opportunity.

The Solution

Using The Trade Desk + Pear Commerce, the campaign activated a geo-allocation strategy powered by live retail signals that:

• Monitored daily availability for both owned and competitor SKUs
• Refreshed market-level data nightly through Snowflake
• Increased bids in zip codes where the brand was available and competitors were not
• Shifted budget toward the highest-conversion markets automatically
• Scaled nationally across thousands of retailers and stores

Results

Campaign Performance

Executive Validation

The campaign’s +14% household penetration lift was later cited by the company’s CEO during a major investor event as an example of measurable growth impact.

Performance in Context

Traditional conquesting strategies often rely on broad audience assumptions or historical behavior.

This campaign introduced a more powerful signal: where demand could be won today.

Instead of asking only who might buy, the strategy identified:

• Where the brand was available now
• Where competitors were unavailable now
• Where budget should shift now for the highest probability of conversion

That transformed conquesting from static targeting into real-time demand capture.

Why It Worked

• Budget followed opportunity
  Spend automatically prioritized markets with the highest likelihood to convert.

• Competitor outages became acquisition windows
  The campaign capitalized on moments when shoppers were most open to switching brands.

• Shelf conditions informed smarter media decisions
  ‍Daily signals ensured bidding reflected changing market realities.

• Independent measurement validated incrementality
  ‍Circana confirmed strong ROI and meaningful household penetration impact.

• National scale, local precision
  ‍The strategy executed across thousands of retailers while optimizing at the zip-code level.

Key Takeaway

This campaign demonstrates that when media buying reflects real shelf conditions, brands can:

• Improve ROI without increasing spend
• Acquire new households more efficiently
• Capture market share in real time
• Reduce wasted impressions
• Turn retail data into a lasting competitive advantage