Commerce Accelerated Newsletter Issue #1!

Hello and welcome to the inaugural issue of Commerce Accelerated! I'm Melissa Burdick , President of Pacvue , and I'm thrilled to launch this newsletter as a new way of connecting with my network and amplifying the thought leaders helping brands and agencies thrive across the intersection of commerce & retail media.?

???Q1 Statistics Are In – Pacvue's CPC Report + Webinar?

The first quarter of 2023 kicked off with widespread financial conservatism & highly purposeful spending behaviors for companies & consumers. Steadily rising inflation weighed over the 1st 2 mos of Q1, directly resulting in brands tightening their ad budgets to maximize every dollar spent. Key findings from our report:

• Amazon Cost-per-click (CPC) for Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brands ads fell quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and year-over-year (YoY).
• Walmart Connect Sponsored Ads click-through-rates (CTR) increased by nearly 30% QoQ and surged approximately 172% YoY.
• Instacart Sponsored Ads ROAS increased by 11.91% QoQ, showing a YoY increase of 6.45%.

Read the full report here. And don’t miss the replay of our CPC Webinar, where our experts detail not only the key findings, but break down the category and performance trends, as well as commerce strategies for brands and agencies to deploy.?

From my network: Check out great coverage of Q1 Earnings from:

Aisha Khan – in her post, she takes a deep dive into what Amazon Q1 Earnings means for sellers

CPG Guys – My #fresh4 co-hosts Andrea K. Leigh & Bryan Gildenberg did a great recap – you can listen to here

The Jason & Scot Show – one of my favorite ecommerce podcasts, and you can always rely on for stellar coverage of earnings & conferences – check out episode 305 Amazon & Shopify Q1 2023 Earnings

??? Acadia 's Kiri Masters Discusses "DSP Metrics That Matter"?

Pacvue recently launched a video interview series, Profitability Unleashed, and we were thrilled to have Kiri Masters , Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy for Acadia, as one of our first guests. ?

She discussed her team’s research into the next-gen DSP metrics that measure what matters, how to identify metrics that are tailored to every stage of your buyer’s purchase journey, and 10 brand-new metrics she believes should be on every DSP dashboard. ?Check out the full video.

??? Retailer Roundup?

Amazon:??

Amazon Advertising has launched a new feature called AMC Audiences (beta) that allows advertisers to create custom audiences for use in Amazon DSP campaigns directly from their AMC accounts.?Follow Jack Lindberg who wins the AMC Encyclopedia Award (do Encyclopedias exist anymore?) for latest and greatest AMC news & tips.

Amazon also announced their partnership with Pinterest to open up third-party ad demand to the visual discovery platform. With over 463 million monthly sessions from users engaging with across a variety of shoppable content, Amazon and Pinterest aim to help advertisers connect with high-intent buyers and deliver a seamless on-Amazon buying experience. The partnership will begin rolling out later in 2023.?

As the marketing world still faces the uncertainty of a cookie-less future, Amazon has released a new beta called Amazon Ads Contextual Targeting that allows advertisers to use Amazon DSP to reach audiences based on active relevancy signals of third-party content.??·???????

Prime Day – while no official date has been released, the rumor is it will be sometime July 10-11 or 11-12 - stay tuned for actionable insights & tips! Amazon's tentpole events can be make or break for many brands. Pacvue wants to help you hit your goals! So, ask me anything. Submit a question on the challenges or strategies, you’re curious about for Prime Day 2023. ?

Instacart:?

Instacart has made the first and most public announcements about their integration of ChatGPT.? In March, Instacart announced their new search engine integrating ChatGPT that enables customers to ask for recipe ideas or healthy meal options – a potential game changer to make busy people’s lives easier.?

Instacart has introduced new “inflation-fighting” tools to help its customers save money on their grocery orders, including:?

• "Stores to Help You Save" section, which allows customers to browse retailers offering in-store or loyalty pricing?
• AI-driven recommendations for items that a consumer previously purchased that are now on sale, as well as savings opportunities highlighted in yellow to make them easier to recognize for shoppers.?

With regards to advertising, Instacart recently announced Shoppable Video and Display Advertising to help brands drive visibility and sales throughout the customer journey, by creating engaging experiences on the Instacart platform. At Pacvue, we’re working to integrate the Video and Display APIs with our platform in the coming weeks. Advertisers will be able to manage their Instacart Shoppable Video and Display ads through Pacvue for seamless optimization, budget management, and consolidated reporting with their other sponsored advertising campaigns.???

Walmart:?

Walmart Q1 Earnings are out: Ad revenue +30%, Ecommerce +26% globally.?Walmart beat its quarterly earnings & revenue expectations, raising its full year guidance.?The grocery business helped offset weaker sales of clothing & electronics.?Walmart is ramping up its investment in automation and robotics to speed up its operations, cut costs, and boost efficiency. ??

With regards to advertising, earlier this year, Walmart Connect launched Variant Bidding, allowing advertisers to promote various product variants, such as different colors or sizes, alongside the primary product.?

?? AI Content: "The Evolution of Search: AI's Impact on eCommerce"??

Like most leaders, I am riding the wave of artificial intelligence innovation and separating signal from noise. I want to help drive the same conversations we’re having internally with brands and agencies within my network.? AI is revolutionizing the way we search and shop online, from personalized recommendations to improved search functionality. Here are some of my thoughts on how AI will change eCommerce search.?No doubt, change is coming quickly to Amazon.?Recent job listings indicate Amazon will be transforming search.? I thought this quote was a bit funny….

“This will be a once in a generation transformation for Search, just like the Mosaic browser made the Internet easier to engage with three decades ago,” Amazon wrote. “If you missed the 90s—WWW, Mosaic, and the founding of Amazon and Google—you don’t want to miss this opportunity.”?

With Google launching more than 20 new advertising products with AI integration this week at their conference Marketing Live, we'll be sure to see more AI innovation coming from others too.

?? Upcoming Events?

Come visit Pacvue at these upcoming events.?

• 6/6 – 6/8: NielsenIQ Commerce360
• 6/19 – 6/22: Cannes
• 6/13 – 6/15: Rice
• 6/27-6/30 P2P Retail Media Summit
• 7/26-7/28 Commerce Week
• 8/24 – 8/26 Walmart Conference
• 9/13 IAB Connected Commerce Summit
• 9/18 – 9/21 GroceryShop
• 9/26 – 9/27: Programmatic I/O NYC?

?? Podcast of the Week:

I love podcasts - to me, they are the new business book with most up to date & actionable information. Here are my recommendations for you to listen to this week:

• I was recently interviewed on Joie Roberts The Fearless Sellers Podcast Episode #31 The Amazon All Star – The Secret to Scale Sales where I share my experience working for Amazon for a decade 2005-2015, insights into the growth of the platform and development of Amazon PPC to building my own company.?I get a bit personal on this one – check it out!
• Allison Ellsworth of Poppi: Speak from the Heart I love the story of Poppi.?Kind of like Pacvue – Poppi was a right time, place, market-fit business.?It capitalized on the prebiotic healthy soda trend + Covid accelerated their business.?Another thing I love – how Allison didn’t listen to her expert Shark Tank investor, but trusted her gut instinct (no pun intended) to leverage a new platform (Tik Tok) to gain traction.?This is one of my favorite brand stories – have a listen!?

If you’ve found this newsletter informative, please share or comment to help spread the word.??

Happy selling!?

-Melissa?