On behalf of the team at Pervasive Mind, we’d like to welcome you back to The Brand Data Revolution, where we provide best practices, insights, and thought-provoking topics for brands to help navigate the world of e-commerce. This week, we’ll be exploring common phrases used by providers and brands alike that sound great on the surface but mask the efficacy of a MAP program and ultimately hinder your team’s enforcement efforts.
Whether your team is embarking on a journey to identify a MAP provider for the first time or you’ve tried one of the many providers out there only to cancel and look elsewhere, shopping for a MAP monitoring and enforcement partner is not an easy task.
Even though brands and providers are both working toward the same goal of MAP compliance, buying teams and sellers often use different terminology to mean the same thing.
It’s this lack of clarity of language that can hurt your MAP program before it even gets off the ground.
One example of this is the phrase “complete coverage,” which – understandably – sounds like a fantasy for a brand; every SKU, every site, every violation, everywhere. Who wouldn’t sign up for that?
But here’s the reality most brands aren’t told: complete coverage, everywhere, isn’t actually possible. And chasing that illusion can do more harm than good.
Today, we’re digging into why the idea of total MAP coverage is often a mirage, how shady sales tactics exploit it, and what savvy brands are doing instead.
The Myth of Monitoring the “Entire Internet”
Perform a Google Search (or ChatGPT query) for MAP providers, and you will find no shortage of options for brands. Scan the sites of these providers, and you’ll see a common tactic used to sell brands on the dream. With promises like “we can monitor the entire web,” or “real-time monitoring,” or “everything consumers see online,” it sounds incredible, right? Who wouldn’t want to be everywhere the customer might land?
But many brands aren’t ready for (or don’t want to hear) the truth:
- The internet is dynamic. It changes by the second. New listings appear, sellers adjust prices, and marketplaces update rankings.
- Retailer blocking technology is advancing fast. Even the best extractors encounter sites that fight back, and the digital warfare is very real.
- Real-time is not an option. Think of the game “doorbell ditch” or “ding-dong ditch” that you may have played (or been pranked by) when you were a child. The goal of the game was to not be on the front step when the victim opened the door. Online price/data extraction works the same way. Just as the game wouldn’t have worked if the “ringer” stayed on the porch, so goes the best practice that providers use to avoid being blocked…the goal is to not be there when the proverbial door opens.
No solution, not even the best ones, can scan every inch of the internet at once, all the time. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect your brand. It just sets you up for disappointment.
The Trap of Search Result Pages
One of the biggest shortcuts used by providers claiming “complete coverage” is pulling listings from search results pages.
We totally get it and understand the allure. After all, that’s where consumers often look first, right?
But here’s the problem:
- Search results are driven by very specific algorithms that are most commonly tailored to a user’s implied stage of the buying cycle. They are not static and are intended to vary by frequency/recency of searches performed.
- As such, listings in search often change every few hours based on sales velocity, seller ranking, and dozens of other factors.
- Two people searching for the same product will very likely get completely different results.
- Paid ads and promotions heavily influence visibility.
If your monitoring strategy relies heavily on search results, you’re not seeing the whole market. You’re seeing a constantly shifting sample and we’re willing to be that if you track a specific product over a long enough time span, you’ll see significant gaps in the data. It would be like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle if the pieces were constantly being swapped out or removed.
Getting Some Data Isn’t the Same as Getting All Data
MAP data is not just about knowing you’re pulling data from a specific site. This is where brands often fall into another trap: confusing site reach with site depth.
Just because a provider says, “We monitor Amazon,” doesn’t mean they’re pulling:
- All seller listings
- All product variants
- All bundle or promotional listings
- All unauthorized third-party sellers hiding below the top search results
Sometimes MAP providers are capturing only a fraction of what’s happening on that marketplace. Sure, it’s enough to show you a report, but not enough to protect your brand at scale.
💡 Pro Tip: Press your provider to really help you understand the level of completeness you’re receiving from your marketplace monitoring. If you’re not getting full marketplace depth, you’re missing violations and compromising the integrity of your enforcement efforts and violators know it.
The False Confidence That Hurts Brands Most
Recently our team spoke to a consumer electronics brand in the laptop and personal computer space. They were not happy with the “checking the box” mentality that their team had been using for the last 3 years.
When internal stakeholders would ask about the MAP program, their team would respond with something akin to “yep, we have a MAP provider and we’re looking at all necessary sites.“
Does that sound familiar? For the customer, there wasn’t a conversation about listings, accuracy, completeness, screenshot validation, or even the financial impact to the company.
This went on for years until the VP of Sales started pusing the team for specifics, at which point the story started to crumble and confidence dropped dramatically.
The saddest part? Brands often feel good about their monitoring because they don’t know what’s missing.
Some sales teams intentionally lean into this misunderstanding:
- They highlight big numbers (“We’re monitoring 10 million listings!”).
- They show visually impressive dashboards, sometimes known as the “Times Square Effect” or “Shock and Awe” demos.
- They promise “everywhere monitoring” without explaining the shortcuts, the downfalls, discussing their methodology or – even worse – they don’t know the implications themselves.
Similar to the computer brand mentioned above, the sad part is that – in many cases – it’s only months (or years) later, after pricing pressure builds, retailer trust erodes, and margin leaks uncontrollably, that brands realize their “complete coverage” wasn’t complete at all.
What Smart Brands Are Doing Instead
At Pervasive Mind, we don’t promise magic and we don’t promise the world. We promise clarity, accuracy, honesty and transparency.
- We target the sites or marketplaces that matter most, where your brand is actually at risk.
- We capture full listing information, not just surface-level snapshots.
- We prioritize site depth over flashy numbers so you’re monitoring full exposure, not partial guesses.
- We educate our clients and lead with education because transparency and accountability wins every time.
Final Thought: Chase Truth, Not Illusion
MAP monitoring isn’t about covering “everything.” It’s about trusting what you’re seeing, having the confidence in the data and knowing what’s actionable.
The brands that win aren’t the ones who are simply checking the “we have a MAP provider” box. They’re the ones with the clearest, most reliable view of their market.
If you’re tired of chasing mirages and want a partner who values truth over theatrics, we’re here to help.
📩 Let’s start the conversation.
