The Power of Retailer Data for Building A Retail Media Network

The world of advertising is an ever-growing industry with a revenue of ~1 trillion USD (GroupM 2024 Global Midyear Forecast) and if one area is slowing down, like linear TV advertising, another one grows instead.?

The current spotlight is on retail media which in 2024 will receive 16% of total advertising budgets. Thanks to Amazon’s monetization playbook, ads served on retailers and ecommerce companies’ owned and operated properties are booming in demand and growth.?

By: Niklas Nikolaidis on June 11, 2024 | Reading time: 15 minutes

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None of the growth happening to retail media could have happened without the strength and quality of the underlying retailer data. This article outlines what this data is and why it’s so important for sellers and buyers of retail media advertising.

Retail media (the second most commonly used phrase is commerce media) are advertising programs where brands and advertisers can buy ads on a retailer’s website, app or in physical stores. Apart from those touchpoints, offsite campaigns can also be run on social media platforms and on other publisher websites and apps through programmatic intermediaries.

Some of you that’s been in retail for some time might say “Hey, this is just a fancy new name for trade marketing”, but there are a couple of differences and today we’ll dive deeper into why retailer data is the key differentiator for a successful retail media program.

Trade marketing, where suppliers and retailers negotiate and agree on specific campaigns and promotions across a retailer’s touchpoints, has now been amplified with adtech platforms and programmatic and social partnerships to extend campaign reach and combine transactional, loyalty and demographic data throughout the advertising value chain.

The incredible growth of retail media as an advertising channel

Why is retail media growing more than any other advertising channel right now? For a couple of reasons, but the data available is one of the most important ones:

• The targeting signals (mostly from third parties and advertising cookies) brands have been using for ad campaign targeting has been decreasing since 2017 due to the introduction of new privacy legislation (GDPR, CCPA, ePrivacy and more), technological restrictions from hardware and software vendors like Apple and Google (ITP, ATT, IDFA restrictions, Chrome cookie deprecation).
• What has proven to compensate for this signal loss is using owned, first-party data in campaigns and one particularly strong first-party data set is purchasing data and history. What better way of showing my personal preferences and needs than showing where and how I spend my money??
• And who has this purchasing data more than anyone else?

Correct – retail, ecommerce and financial services companies where we make daily, weekly or monthly purchases. Amazon’s ad revenue hasn’t skipped a beat during Covid, market recessions and Apple’s ATT (App Tracking Transparency) launch.?

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Types of retailer data

Retailers hold all types of valuable data for marketers and as omnichannel becomes a key part of retailer offerings, physical store data can now be merged with ecommerce and digital data points for the same customer online and offline.

Some of the most common and valuable retailer and ecommerce data are:

• Transaction/Shopper data (purchasing history, shopping basket analysis, propensity to buy certain items)
• Customer data (demographics, search queries, keywords, category share of wallet, website visits, browsing history)
• Loyalty data (preferences, loyalty program information)
• In-store data (foot flow, heat maps, dwell time, attention)

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As you can see, 3 out of the 4 bullet points can also be leveraged and used by an ecommerce company without physical store presence. This is commonly called commerce media and is the same thing as retail media except for the physical store component.

Leveraging commerce and retailer data for setting up a retail media advertising program

(If you are a retailer or ecommerce company and want to monetize the commerce data you already have and start a retail media network)

• Size of ecommerce traffic to your website or app: Do you have considerate ecommerce traffic to your website or app where you can add advertising surfaces?
• Purchasing history and segments: Do you have enough visibility and control over the types of customers you have so you can group and present them as target audiences for a brand to buy? The best in the business carries +5 000 segments and more available for targeting for advertisers. Remember, more granular segments create niche advertising pockets that brands are looking for.
• New-to-brand or product: Brands love this metric – imagine if your advertisers can target people who are in their target audience but have never bought their products? Well, that is exactly what this is and your retail media advertisers will love you for it, as this can prove incremental sales from ad campaigns. ??
• Loyalty program data: If you’re running a rich and active loyalty program you can amplify your targeting data capabilities by combining the loyalty program data with sales data for the same customers. Want to offer “People who buy Pringles chips but also like to go on skiing holidays with their family” as a target audience? Combining loyalty program data with shopping basket history will do just that.
• Average order value: Brands can target shoppers who are spending higher amounts than the average customer to reach more affluent consumers.
• Competitive conquesting: A hot potato. 60% of US retailers offer the targeting feature of running ads targeting competitors’ customers. For the brand buying the campaign, this is an amazing feature, but for the competitor that just had their customers being targeted and possibly convinced to try a competing brand, not so much.

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Leveraging retailer data for buying retail media across different ad networks

(If you are a supplier or advertiser wanting to buy ads on retail media networks)

• Are we already working or selling at this retailer and can we deepen our relationship since we know our customers are here? If your favorite retailer is starting to sell ads then double down on it and see if there’s more sales (remember New-to-brand?) to get or if your market share is saturated and you’ve plateaued already. You won’t know this unless you try.
• Are you after additional short-term sales or longer-term awareness? Understand the ad placements available in the retail media network and the type of ad content you can promote to understand if this will achieve your marketing campaign goals or not. So evaluate media strategies across the funnel according to the ability to achieve your marketing objectives per retailer. There’s no point in buying Sponsored Listing ads if you are spending brand awareness budget.
• New-to-brand or product: Brands love this metric – imagine if your advertisers can target people who are in their target audience but have never bought their products? Well, that is exactly what this is and your retail media advertisers will love you for it as this can prove incremental sales from ad campaigns. ??
• Don’t be too focused on RoAS (Return on Ad Spend) or ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) to measure incrementality. You can have KPI’s like incremental reach, product views, brand searches, new to brand, LTV, organic sales and more. Look at data holistically to compare and contrast where the best bang for your buck lies.?

Challenges and Considerations

Retail media has been so successful since it’s enabled by relevant first-party data and the brands buying ads are relevant advertisers on the retail media platform. If the available customer data is used for selling and showing relevant products and services then it will continue to be a fast-growing advertising channel. The key factor for retail media efficiency is relevant data.?

Let’s make sure data privacy and consumer integrity is respected and leveraged since that will guarantee a sustainable and long-term revenue opportunity for both sellers and buyers of retail media.