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PPAI Research's April 2026 dual-report found that roughly one-third of PPAI 100 suppliers say branded merchandise is still treated as an event add-on rather than a strategic marketing channel. This post makes the data-backed case for where merch belongs in the mix — and what planning earlier in the campaign cycle actually changes.
PPAI Research's April 2026 dual-report on supplier and distributor views of merch's marketing role found a consistent gap. Roughly one-third of PPAI 100 suppliers say branded merchandise is still treated as an add-on — primarily associated with events and one-time activations rather than recurring brand strategy. That framing costs brands real money. A channel that generates measurable cost-per-impression advantages over digital advertising doesn't belong in the "leftover budget" line. This post makes the data-backed case for where merch actually belongs in a modern marketing mix.
A marketing channel is any medium a brand uses to reach its audience with a repeatable, measurable message. Branded merchandise qualifies on that definition. It's a physical medium with documented recall rates, cost-per-impression data comparable to or better than most digital alternatives, and real audience segmentation capability — you control exactly who receives the item.
Treating merch as swag (a budget afterthought ordered the week before an event) versus treating it as a channel (planned, designed to reinforce campaign messaging, distributed as a deliberate touchpoint) produces measurably different outcomes. The item is the same. The strategic posture is not.
The distinction matters because it determines where merch sits in the campaign brief, who owns the budget line, and whether the product has enough lead time to actually do its job. A branded tumbler ordered two weeks after a campaign launches can't reinforce that campaign's creative. One ordered at the brief stage can.
PPAI Research's April 2026 "Repositioning Merch: How Suppliers Can Drive Industry Growth" report — drawn from a survey of PPAI 100 supplier firms — found that branded merchandise is gaining strategic relevance but isn't yet consistently positioned as a marketing channel. Roughly one-third of suppliers say merch is still treated as an event add-on or short-term activation item rather than an integrated brand touchpoint. The companion "Merch In The Marketing Mix: Opportunities And Gaps For Distributors" distributor report found similar gaps on the buyer side, identifying persistent underutilization of merch's potential as a consistent brand presence across marketing strategies.
That one-third figure is striking because PPAI 100 companies are the industry's largest, most sophisticated firms. If the add-on framing persists at that level, it's pervasive in the broader market.
The U.S. promotional products industry generated $27.1 billion in distributor sales in 2025, with online sales alone reaching $7.1 billion — 26.3% of total revenue — indicating that branded merchandise demand is substantial and growing as a planned purchase, not an impulse add-on. That volume doesn't come from event-budget leftovers. It comes from organizations treating merch as a recurring expenditure.
Cost-per-impression (CPI) is the standard metric for comparing advertising channels at scale. It normalizes for the fact that a TV spot and a branded mug reach people in fundamentally different ways, on fundamentally different timelines. On that metric, branded merchandise — particularly wearables and drinkware — performs well.
A custom tumbler used daily for 18 months generates thousands of impressions at a per-impression cost measured in fractions of a cent. A programmatic display ad generates one impression per server call, with that impression lasting roughly 1–2 seconds. The lifetime reach of a physical item is structurally different from a single media buy, and CPI data from PPAI's own research captures that difference.
The carbon footprint vs digital ads post covers the environmental dimension of this same channel comparison — relevant for ESG-committed marketing teams evaluating where branded merchandise fits on both budget and sustainability grounds.
Retail-branded promotional products — items from recognized consumer brands offered through the promo channel — grew 15.9% among large distributors in 2025, reaching $6 billion in combined sales. That growth reflects buyers making a deliberate brand-equity decision, not a commodity purchase. The item's perceived value transfers to the brand distributing it. That's channel thinking, not budget-leftover thinking. PPAI Research's January 2026 Distributor Sales Volume report characterized the retail-branded growth as a demand shift: "Buyers are choosing better products, not just cheaper ones."
PPAI Research's April 2026 "Merch In The Marketing Mix" distributor report identified the planning gap clearly: most end buyers engage their promo distributor after the campaign brief is finalized. That timing problem limits what the merchandise can accomplish. Items ordered as an afterthought can't align with campaign creative, meet tight event timelines, or serve a deliberate audience segmentation purpose.
The fix is simple, but it requires changing procurement behavior. Include merch as a line item in the initial campaign brief — alongside digital, out-of-home, and social allocations. That means the item gets designed to reinforce campaign messaging, the decoration matches visual identity, and the distribution plan is deliberate rather than incidental.
Here's what that actually changes in practice:
Promolistic's 16,000+ SKU catalog sees the highest repeat-order rates in drinkware and branded apparel — categories where buyers return to reorder the same item year over year. In Q1 2026, 38% of orders by revenue came from repeat customers reordering a specific product, suggesting that branded merchandise, once integrated into a marketing routine, becomes a planned annual spend rather than a one-time purchase.
Silicone Key Ring Tumbler Shaped - 3 in
Promotional 40 oz Neoprene Tumbler Sling
Custom 32 oz Borosilicate Glass Tumbler
Insulated Tumbler Recycled AS Double Wall with Straw - 40 oz
BruMate Togosa Insulated Tumbler Dual Lid System - 50 oz
Every channel has real constraints. Here's where merch earns its place — and where it doesn't.
The case for merch as a channel:
The real cautions:
The promotional products market trends 2026 post covers the category-level data behind which item types generate the highest retention rates — directly relevant to making the right product selection for a channel-level merch strategy.
Want the full picture?
Read the complete Industry Research guide →
Industry Research82% recall, $0.002 CPM, 2,500+ lifetime impressions — the data for treating branded merch as a marketing medium, not a procurement expense.
Industry Research82% of branded merch recipients recall the advertiser vs ~9% for digital display. ASI 2026 data on recall, impressions, and CPM compared.
Industry ResearchBranded merch vs email vs social — ranked by recall, CPM, and longevity. Merch wins recall and lifespan. Email wins CPM at scale. Social wins raw reach.
Industry Strategy & AI Editor · 11+ years experience
Jordan covers the structural shifts reshaping the promotional products industry — supplier consolidation, AI adoption, and federal AI policy. Before Promolistic, Jordan wrote on B2B operations + technology for two trade publications and built a research practice analyzing how mid-market operations teams adopt new tools. Their reporting lives at the intersection of supplier strategy and emerging technology.
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