What the Data Actually Says About Branded Merchandise — Part 1 of 3

Are Promotional Products Worth the Budget? What the Data Actually Says

Every marketing budget has a line item for digital. Most have one for social. Some have one for paid search, display, video, events, and out-of-home. And then, somewhere near the bottom, there is usually a smaller, less defended number for branded merchandise — the one that gets questioned first when budgets tighten and justified last when they grow.

That is not because merch does not work. It is because the people buying it have not always had the right numbers in front of them.

The 2026 Global Ad Impressions Study, published by the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) and based on thousands of consumer surveys across the United States, gives us those numbers. What they show is that branded merchandise is not a nice-to-have addition to your marketing mix. It is a channel with measurable reach, trackable impressions, and a cost per impression that competes with formats that most marketers treat as non-negotiable.

This is the first in a three-part series where we break down what that research actually means for the marketers buying branded merch and the companies they represent. We are starting with the number that tends to stop people mid-sentence: cost per impression. If you have not already read our piece on why branded merch ROI is worth talking about, that is a good place to start.

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What Is Cost Per Impression, and Why Does It Matter for Merch?

If you have run a digital campaign, you know CPM — cost per thousand impressions. It is one of the most common metrics used to evaluate whether an ad placement is worth the spend. The lower the cost to reach a thousand people, the more efficient the channel.

Branded merchandise has its own version of this equation, and it holds up well. ASI calculates the cost per impression for promotional products by taking the price of a given item and dividing it across the total number of brand impressions that item generates over its usable lifetime. That lifetime accounts for how long people keep the item, how often they use it, and how many other people see it while they do.

The result is a cost per impression that, for most product categories, lands well under one cent. Several land under a tenth of a cent. Here is what that looks like in practice.

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Lifetime Impressions by Product Category

The 2026 ASI data tracks lifetime impressions across every major product category. These are not estimated reach numbers based on media buys. They are calculated from how long real consumers keep these items, how often they use them, and how many people see them in use.

Fleece and jackets generate an average of 9,000 impressions over their lifetime, more than any other product category tracked in the study. At a retail-quality branded jacket priced around $65 to $85, that works out to less than one cent per impression. The item gets worn an average of once per week and kept for more than a year by most recipients. Every time someone wears it, your brand is in the room.

Bags generate approximately 4,900 lifetime impressions, with 92% of recipients using their promotional bag at least once per month and 84% keeping it for at least a year. A quality branded tote or bag in the $20 to $40 range lands at roughly 1/10 of a cent per impression.

Caps and hats come in at around 4,000 lifetime impressions. At a $20 to $30 price point, the math is similarly strong, and headwear carries a visibility advantage because it is worn at eye level in public settings.

Writing instruments generate approximately 1,900 impressions and are used daily by 64% of recipients. A branded pen in the $3 to $8 range comes out to 1/10 of a cent per impression or less. It is one of the lowest cost per impression options in the entire study.

Drinkware generates around 1,300 impressions, with 77% of recipients using it at least weekly and 80% keeping it for more than a year. A premium branded tumbler in the $25 to $40 range runs about one cent per impression, and it is a product that shows up daily in offices, cars, and gyms.

Compare those figures to the average CPM for digital display advertising, which typically runs between $2 and $5 per thousand impressions. Promotional products are not far off on a per impression basis, and unlike a display ad, a well-chosen piece of merch is not skipped, blocked, or scrolled past. The person chose to keep it. They are using it on purpose.

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What the Consumer Data Adds to the Story

Cost per impression tells you how efficiently your brand is being seen. But the ASI data goes further than that, and the additional findings are worth sitting with.

Those are not click-through rates. They are brand perception shifts that happen over weeks, months, and in many cases years of continued use. That distinction matters when you are making the case for merch internally, because the value is not just in how many times your logo is seen. It is in how the person seeing it feels about your brand each time.

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Why Merch Belongs in the Mix, Not Outside of It

Here is the conversation most marketing teams are not having: branded merchandise and other advertising channels are not competing for the same job. They are doing different things, and budgets that treat them as interchangeable are leaving real value on the table.

Digital advertising is excellent at driving immediate action. Someone sees an ad, clicks, converts, and you have a record of it. That channel is built for response, and it does that job well.

Branded merchandise works on a longer timeline and builds a different kind of brand relationship. It shows up in someone's daily life long after the campaign that funded it has ended. A well-made piece of merch is not an interruption. It is something the recipient chose to keep and use, which means every impression it generates comes with a level of goodwill that paid placements cannot manufacture.

The strongest marketing strategies treat merch as a complement to the rest of the budget, not a line item that competes with it.

A campaign that puts your brand in front of someone through paid channels and then reinforces it with a thoughtful branded product at the right moment in the relationship creates a brand experience no single channel can replicate on its own.

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What This Means When You Are Building a Budget Case

If you are trying to justify a merch line item internally, here is a side-by-side look at how the numbers compare.

	Branded Fleece / Jacket	Digital Display (avg)
Lifetime impressions	9,000	1 per ad served
Approx. item cost	$65 to $85	$2 to $5 per 1,000 impressions
Cost per impression	~$0.008	$0.002 to $0.005
Impression longevity	1+ years of active use	Seconds
Recipient chose it	Yes	No
Brand perception impact	85% more favorable impression	Not measured in same way

Branded merch figures from 2026 ASI Global Ad Impressions Study. Digital display CPM reflects general industry averages.

You do not have to abandon the metrics your team already uses. You just have to apply them to a channel that has not always been asked to prove itself the same way.

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Research referenced: 2026 Global Ad Impressions Study, Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI). Research provided by the Advertising Specialty Institute, ©2026, All Rights Reserved.