# Academy Sports Links Brand Ads to In-Store Sales, Creating Attribution Loop Retail Media Networks Couldn't Close

*The sporting goods chain now tracks whether a sponsored product ad drove a store purchase, not just a click.*

By **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA, Principal** — The Stash Edge, Hako Shikin LLC.
Published 2026-08-05.

Canonical: https://www.pops4.com/stash/articles/academy-ad-network-2026-08-05t15-7
Subject: Academy Ad Network
Tags: retail media, attribution, omnichannel, in-store sales, trade spend

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Academy Sports launched an ad network that connects brand campaigns to both online and in-store sales, according to Stock Titan. The move closes a measurement gap that has limited retail media networks since their inception: proving whether a digital ad actually drove a customer into a physical store to buy.

The network allows brands advertising on Academy's platform to see whether their campaigns generated purchases across both channels. A customer who clicks a sponsored listing for running shoes online, then buys them in-store three days later, now shows up in the brand's attribution report as a conversion. Previously, that in-store sale would appear as organic traffic with no connection to the digital spend.

This works because Academy controls the full loop. The retailer owns the ad platform, the e-commerce checkout, the loyalty program that tracks in-store purchases, and the point-of-sale system. When a customer uses a loyalty card or logs into their account, Academy can tie their digital browsing and ad exposure to their physical basket. The brand running the ad gets a report showing total conversions, not just online conversions, and can calculate true return on ad spend across both environments.

The mechanism matters for any brand selling through brick-and-mortar retail. Most digital advertising platforms—Google, Meta, Amazon—report online conversions cleanly but treat in-store sales as a black box. A brand spending **$50,000** on sponsored product ads sees the clicks and the e-commerce orders, but the **60%** of customers who research online and buy in-store vanish from the data. Academy's system surfaces that majority and assigns it back to the campaign that influenced it.

For a small physical-product brand, the play is to prioritize retailers that offer closed-loop attribution when allocating co-op or trade spend. Before committing budget to a retailer's ad network, ask whether they track in-store conversions tied to digital campaigns. If they do, request a sample attribution report showing the online-to-store conversion rate for a comparable brand. If they cannot provide it, the network is measuring half the funnel.

Then structure your campaigns to exploit the full loop. Run a **$2,000** test campaign on the retailer's platform with a product that has strong in-store distribution. Use the attribution data to calculate blended conversion rate (online plus in-store) and compare it to your Amazon Sponsored Products benchmark. If the blended rate is higher and the retailer's audience skews toward your customer, shift incremental budget from pure online platforms to the retail media network. Track monthly: if in-store conversions consistently represent **50%** or more of total attributed sales, the retailer's network is unlocking customers digital-only platforms miss.

Academy's approach also creates a negotiation lever. Brands can now compare retail media networks on total attributed sales, not just online metrics. A network that tracks in-store conversions will show higher return on ad spend than one that doesn't, even if the underlying customer behavior is identical. That data becomes the basis for renewing or expanding buys, and for pushing retailers without attribution to build it.

The broader pattern: retail media is moving from impressions and clicks to closed-loop commerce. Retailers with physical stores and loyalty programs can now offer what Amazon has always had—proof that an ad drove a purchase—but across a channel mix Amazon cannot match. Brands selling in both environments should audit which retail partners can report the full picture and weight their budgets accordingly.

## The takeaway

Prioritize retail media networks that track in-store conversions, then compare blended return on ad spend to online-only platforms before renewing.

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## Publisher

**Hako Shikin LLC** — Virginia Beach, Virginia. Founded 1997. ASI 217876 · DUNS 18-204-6339.
Principal and author: **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA**.

- Author: https://www.huanggoodman.com/about
- LLM context: https://www.pops4.com/stash/llms.txt
- MCP endpoint, for AI agents: https://mcp.pops4.com/mcp
- Client dashboard: https://dashboard.pops4.com/
- Catalogue: 70,000+ products, 200+ brands