How brands can stop chasing noise and start measuring business impact
Welcome back to The Brand Data Revolution, where – every week – we explore the world of retail and brand data in an effort to help our readers navigate the rapidly changing world of eCommerce.
For brands enforcing a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policy, there’s no shortage of dashboards, reports, and metrics to measure. But having access to data doesn’t mean you’re measuring the right things. In fact, many brands are buried under numbers that sound useful but don’t actually help them enforce more effectively or protect revenue.
Executing a world-class MAP program starts with tracking the metrics that matter most. Metrics that tell you where your problems really are…that show whether your enforcement efforts are working – or if you’re just spinning your wheels.
This week, we’re highlighting five key metrics that help brands move beyond surface-level reporting and toward MAP programs that deliver results.
Violation Rate (%)
While it may seem obvious to some, you may be shocked by how many brands we speak to every month that don’t track this number. When looking at your MAP program’s effectiveness, this is your most basic performance indicator and the absolute best place to start: What percentage of monitored listings are out of compliance at any given time?
In a recent conversation with a consumer electronics brand in the computer peripheral space, we were shocked to learn that they were monitoring pricing violations daily but had no idea what their actual violation/compliance rate was. While it was shocking to our team, it was easy to understand why after a quick conversation. For years, their enforcement team and pricing analysts were so focused on reacting to market conditions that they rarely had a chance to come up for air and take a step back.
To make matters worse, the team was bonused each quarter on the number of violation notices that went out compared to the violation count, not the overall compliance rate of the program. So, while the team was doing all they could to satisfy goals set forth by company leadership, this was really a top-down compensation problem where quarterly pay was tied to the wrong metric.
If your violation rate is high and holding steady, that’s a sign of systemic issues in distribution or inconsistent enforcement. If it’s trending downward, that’s usually a good sign – provided your data set is accurate, stable, and comprehensive.
But beware: if your provider’s coverage is inconsistent or based on unreliable sources (like search result scraping), this number might not mean what you think it does. Good site coverage + consistent monitoring = a violation rate you can trust.
Time to Resolution
Second to your overall Compliance/Violation Rate is TTR or Time-to-Resolution. TTR is valuable for brands because it measures how quickly your team acts on violations once they’ve been discovered. Brands with strong MAP enforcement workflows tend to resolve violations in hours or days – not weeks.
Savvy brands use TTR as both an internal and external metric, measuring not only the time it takes for their internal team to respond but also considering any inefficiencies in the platform or provider they are using to send violations and resolve issues.
If resolution times are long, it usually means:
- The data isn’t trusted, and violations need to be double-checked
- Your internal process isn’t well-defined or repeatable
- You’re relying on sales teams to chase down violators (which rarely ends well)
Tracking and improving this metric shows your team is taking control of pricing violations instead of letting them linger – a huge signal to retailers that your policy – and your team – means business.
Repeat Offender Rate
Once you’ve gotten your Violation Rate under control and have reduced your TTR as much as you possibly can, only then can you start to get tactical. Even the best MAP programs have problems, and they are not always reduced to unauthorized sellersor leaks in distribution.
As you dig into violations to look for trends, pay special attention to the retailers or sellers who violated your MAP policy, asking, “How many have done it more than once in the last 90 days?”
High repeat offender rates usually point to either:
- A lack of consequences (violators don’t believe you’ll follow through)
- Inconsistent enforcement (some sellers get warnings, others get ignored)
- Distribution issues (unauthorized sellers keep getting product)
Use this metric to identify which sellers require more than a templated email – and which ones need a bigger conversation or executive involvement.
Retailer Compliance Score
While it seems like it’s just simply the other side of the coin of Violation Rate, Retailer Compliance Score helps to identify those partners that are fully aligned and committed to being successful with you. Rather than just focusing on violators, this metric highlights which of your authorized partners are consistently compliant.
Tracking this helps your team:
- Recognize and reward your top-performing retail partners
- Flag retailers who are trending in the wrong direction
- Add more transparency and objectivity to account-level conversations
We’ve seen brands with strong MAP culture use this score as part of their quarterly partner reviews – and it often changes the tone of the conversation for the better. Retailers appreciate knowing that your enforcement is data-driven and equitable, and – believe it or not – a little bit of recognition goes a long way.
Revenue at Risk or Retained
When you think about why you first put a MAP program in place, it probably came down to dollars and cents, so this last metric is the big one. It’s easy to focus on enforcement activity, screenshots, templates, and product tracking, but the world’s best brands are constantly asking themselves one key question: “How much money are we protecting or losing as a result of our MAP efforts?“
There are a variety of ways to track this metric, so it’s going to be unique to your organization, but here are some great places to start.
Some brands track this by:
- Estimating potential margin loss per day for top SKUs when violations occur
- Tracking order frequency and value from compliant vs. non-compliant accounts
- Comparing overall sell-through and velocity when violations are trending high vs. low
At Pervasive Mind, we recommend examining these points not only at the wholesale level but also at the retailer level. When retailers lose money, your products are not as desirable or valuableto them as you would like.
This is where good data makes a big difference. If your provider isn’t delivering accurate, consistent, and complete coverage, you’ll never get a true picture of what MAP enforcement is worth – or how much you’re losing by missing violations or – even worse – letting them slide due to inefficient workflow or complacency.
The Metrics Are Only as Good as the Data Behind Them
Measuring success in MAP compliance isn’t just about building fancy dashboards or having the newest bells and whistles that can distract from your program’s effectiveness – it’s about making sure your underlying data is accurate, consistent, predictable, and trustworthy.
That’s where many providers fall short.
- If your data is pulled from search results, your violation rate is going to jump around and make it hard to see the bigger picture.
- If your provider can’t adapt quickly to blocking measures, your violation identification and resolution times suffer.
- If your reports are incomplete or can’t track sellers across marketplaces, you’ll never track repeat offenders or quantify the real financial impact to your business.
At Pervasive Mind, we help brands monitor the metrics that matter – powered by a reliable, AI-powered data engine that ensures accuracy, complete coverage, and consistency across marketplaces and retailers.
Whether you’re tracking trends across 100 products or managing pricing across thousands of SKUs and seller listings, we’re here to provide the data you need to make your life easier.
Need help building a MAP scorecard that reflects your actual performance? 📩 Let’s talk.
