How Will Tariffs Affect My Brand? Stay Profitable in Economic Uncertainty

The impact of tariffs on eCommerce is no longer a distant concern, or a waiting game that brands have to play. With some looming and others currently imposed, brands need to work quickly to strategize.

Tariffs actively raise the cost of importing raw materials, finished goods, and packaging. For eCommerce brands, this cost increase results in tighter margins, increased retail prices, and added pressure to ensure every dollar spent drives brand profitability.

The economic environment is shifting every day. Brand leaders are asking these big questions: How will tariffs affect my brand? And what do I do to drive profitable growth in the face of these new challenges? 

The answer lies in a brand’s ability to adapt through smarter product strategies, tighter operations, and clearer performance measurement.

Tariffs Have Not Impacted Consumers’ Purchase Intent (...Yet) 

To grow profitably despite economic pressure, brands must stay close to performance while continuing to invest in brand equity. In a tighter economy, every marketing dollar must deliver measurable business outcomes. Vanity metrics have no place in this economic client, brands must instead focus on data that connects media to actual conversion.

To make this shift effectively, brands should:

• Invest in tools that unify media and commerce, making every campaign shoppable and trackable across all digital touchpoints
• Use real-time shopper insights to adapt quickly to changing behavior, defend market share, and uncover profitable growth opportunities
• Simplify their tech stack by working with proven partners that reduce costs and improve efficiency across teams, regions, and retail channels

Use First-Party Data to Uncover Opportunities and Protect Market Share

Understanding how shoppers move through the funnel is more important than ever. When margins are tight, guesswork is expensive. The ability to see what is driving actual conversions is crucial for making informed, revenue-positive decisions.

Utilizing MikMak as your preferred platform for commerce enablement and  eCommerce analytics, your brand can:

• Turn shopper insights into revenue:  Use real-time, omnichannel data to understand where, how, and why consumers are shopping. This visibility helps ensure that every decision you make is tied to measurable growth.
• Drive results, not just reach:  Connect your media campaigns to actual purchase behavior. Understanding what drives conversion allows you to prove return on ad spend and eliminate inefficiencies in your marketing strategy.
• Get ahead of changing habits: As consumers become more selective, having access to detailed behavioral insights helps you protect share of basket and stay relevant on key platforms like TikTok and Meta.
• Make smarter global decisions faster: Standardize your KPIs across retailers, markets, and media partners to give your teams a unified view of performance and the ability to act quickly.

Adapt Your Media and Commerce Strategies to Align With Changing Shopper Behaviors

The tariffs' impact on eCommerce is happening alongside a change in how consumers shop. With the economy shifting, consumers are more willing to adjust what brands and products they buy to save money. As such, brand loyalty is under pressure. The brands that win will be those that evolve quickly and respond to actual shopper behavior.

To respond effectively, brands should:

• Monitor channel-level performance and shopper drop-off
• Make every campaign shoppable
• Customize messaging and promotions to meet consumers where they are in their journey

Real-time insights help brands maintain visibility, relevance, and conversion during periods of economic stress. Adapting media and commerce strategies to reflect these behavioral shifts ensures that brands remain competitive and profitable even as the broader economic landscape evolves.

Consolidate your tools to operate more efficiently while cutting costs 

Another way to save money as your brand navigates how to maintain eCommerce performance during tariffs is to eliminate inefficiencies within your tech stack. Using separate vendors for media measurement, commerce enablement, and analytics increases the cost and complexity you may not be able to afford in the wake of tariffs.

Consolidating behind a unified solution like MikMak allows brands to:

• Standardize performance reporting across retailers, campaigns, and regions
• Eliminate duplicate systems that drain budgets
• Give cross-functional teams shared visibility into what is working

Reducing vendor overhead by consolidating behind a single, comprehensive platform partner frees up budget and resources that can be reinvested into additional growth-driving strategies.

Smart investments lead to stronger outcomes during economic uncertainty

Brands that continue to invest in their presence and shopper experience tend to outperform those that pull back. We’ve seen it before. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as brands faced sudden economic uncertainty, Procter & Gamble increased marketing spend and gained market share. This investment proved successful for them, underscoring a major lesson brands must implement in the face of tariffs: even with rising costs, brands cannot afford to go quiet. 

Likewise, brands like Coca-Cola continued to invest in advertising when facing supply chain issues. This strategy aimed to justify price increases and strengthen brand positioning, underscoring the role of consistent marketing investment even during operational challenges.

The right investment, backed by data, is a competitive advantage.

Navigating tariffs will impact eCommerce requires clear visibility into what works and what does not. Staying close to your data will help your brand optimize campaigns, allocate budget effectively, and respond faster to changing market conditions. Schedule a demo with MikMak today to see how you can come out on top in spite of tariffs.