Commerce

Two years ago, shortly after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Nike doubled down on what it refers to as its Consumer Direct Acceleration. Nike wasn’t simply weathering a storm, but taking COVID-19’s worldwide shakeup of consumer buying habits as an opportunity to rethink its business “by expanding our digital advantage, reshaping the marketplace of the future and creating deeper, more direct consumer relationships,” CFO Matthew Friend told investors.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Personalization Delusion The ability to dynamically scale creative and A/B test dozens – even hundreds – of ad campaign permutations, all potentially targeting specific audience types, has led marketers away from making a single piece of creative that stands alone and appeals to as […]

With more eyes on consumer privacy than ever before, data clean rooms have become one of the hottest technologies in marketing when it comes to secure, modern data collection. But as clean rooms come to the forefront, many brands are finding that building and working with this technology requires a little acumen and a lot of planning. St.Clair McLean, VP of infrastructure and security at Alliant, shares three clean room approaches to consider as brands look to align the right capabilities with their needs.

The grocery chain Albertsons in-housed its advertising services and tech business in February, and is still making big changes to the group. “It’s really about owning the tech stack and the product vision,” said Evan Hovorka, head of retail media products.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Shopify Is ‘Just Browsing’ Ads Shopify held its twice-annual road map update event this week. Shopify Editions, as the get-together is called, offered up a handful of tantalizing tidbits for industry observers awaiting news of a consolidated Shopify ad platform.  In May, there […]

Shopify seller turned ad tech CEO and entrepreneur Regina Ye founded her startup, Topsort, last year to help retailers launch auction-based ads on their sites through an API. Performance advertising shouldn’t be so hard for smaller brands, Ye says, on this week’s episode.

Sam’s Club, the membership-based retailer owned by Walmart, recently rebranded its advertising business as the Member Access Platform (MAP) as it charts its own course alongside other emerging retail media platforms. The notion of “member access” is what sets Sam’s Club apart from other retailers that are focused entirely on advertising as a way to monetize customers, said Lex Josephs, a VP at Sam’s Club and GM of the MAP business.

Marriott is one among a platoon of non-advertising companies that have launched programmatic ad platforms lately. Just don’t call Marriott’s new platform a retail media network. “I wouldn’t put us in that category,” said Elizabeth Donovan, global director and head of ad revenue for the Marriott Media Network. “We are a travel media network and I think more like a publisher, too.”

Two years of sweeping disruptions – supply-chain shortages, staffing challenges, fluctuating COVID regulations and looming inflation – were tough on consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers and retailers. But consumers are eager to shop in stores again. As data across touch points converge, marketers have the power to elevate customer experience and increase conversions, writes Gila Wilensky, president of Xaxis US.

Rising inflation, flagging consumer confidence and uncertainty due to ongoing supply-chain issues have economists predicting a recession. But, based on GroupM’s and Zenith’s mid-year forecasts of the global ad market, the recession fears may be unfounded. Still, after the record highs of 2021, ad spending will see a deceleration in 2022.

Mike Schott joined Volta, which makes electric car charging stations, almost six years ago to build out the company’s nascent advertising business. That makes Volta early to the everything-is-an-ad platform trend. But even back in 2016, Schott, a longtime EV owner himself with a background in ad tech – he’s the former VP of sales for DSP Viant – had the sense that “an advertising business would be a strong differentiator.”

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brick By Brick-And-Mortar The march of the retail media networks cannot be stopped.  Dollar General on Tuesday announced a rebrand of its advertising business, now DGMN (for Dollar General Media Network), to extend its data to ad-buying across the web. According to the […]

Retail media networks are coming out of the woodwork. And it may feel like everyone’s got one. But it’s time to stop using RMN as an umbrella term. The details matter, says Patrick Miller, co-president of commerce at Ascential, on this week’s episode.

Marketing typically depends on the thoughtful and strategic allocation of limited financial resources. Creative matters, but putting money behind the channels that will truly drive growth is the key to success, writes Cory Davis, VP of media and madtech at Infutor – which is why marketers will have to continue testing, learning and adjusting to new channels as they grow their businesses.

In order to gain access to performance advertising budgets (and prove out the power of publisher first-party data), Vox Media is relaunching Group Nine’s G9 Direct performance marketing solution under the new name VM Connect. The relaunch is also a milestone in Vox Media’s integration of Group Nine’s digital properties and tech stack following its […]

Vibenomics announced a $12.3 million Series B round on Tuesday, led by Panoramic Ventures, bringing its total funding to just over $30 million. Vibenomics expects to grow its roster of 6,000 retail locations (just over half of which are grocery stores like Hy-Vee, QuikTrip, Kroger and GetGo) to more than 20,000 locations by the end of 2023.

In the affiliate marketing world, publishers pursued the same goal retailers are pursuing today: to convert online intent into a shopper journey. Affiliate nets work with performance marketers, so retailers should branch out to digital-native marketers, writes Michael Jacobi, co-founder and CEO of Button.

Google announced the latest updates to its shopping ad products at Google Marketing Live on Tuesday, with changes on the backend to how advertisers use its tech and on the consumer side. These changes are becoming more necessary as the mobile Google Search feed evolves from primarily text-based responses to more visual elements on the […]

The IAB’s Podcast Upfronts in May touted advancements in dynamic ad insertion, measurement and attribution and brand safety and suitability, as well as the rise of podcast networks. But ad agencies say the technology powering podcast-based marketing is not sufficiently developed to deliver what advertisers need to effectively target impressions and measure campaign effectiveness. And they believe the industry should do more to address brand safety concerns around podcast content.

We evaluate the new crop of attribution and analytics companies rising from the ashes of multitouch attribution. Plus, is Marriott’s entrance into the ads business a sign that we’ve reached peak media network – or is it just the beginning?

In today’s hybrid retail environment, customers can window shop in person or comparison shop online before completing their purchase in a store or on the internet. Or they partake in “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS). The need to capture the customer’s journey between online and offline behavior was the seed for Foursquare’s new Closed Loop feature, the location data platform’s latest addition to its attribution product

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Titans Are Tired So many entertainment hubs – Netflix, Amazon Prime and Freevee, Paramount+ and sister app Pluto TV, Apple TV+, HBO Max, Discovery+ and the Disney triumvirate of Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ – so little time. Which means there just isn’t […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Shipshape Shop Late last year, Shopify began testing a prospecting product called Shopify Audiences, and it just graduated to a general release.  The product uses Shopify’s “unique perspective on purchasing intent from supporting merchants and their buyers,” according to a release. That’s hardly […]

It’s chilly out there, but PubMatic had a decent quarter. Organic revenue for Q1 totaled $54.6 million, up 25% year-over-year, representing PubMatic’s seventh consecutive quarter of 20% revenue growth or more. PubMatic’s stock was up a smidge, about .5%, in after-hours trading.

Retail media is the hottest thing in online advertising and one of the most important categories for the future of programmatic growth. And the most important thing about retail media 2.0, a catchall for retailers using first-party data to target and monetize their audiences, is that the real value doesn’t come from the inventory or even who’s making the buy. It’s all about the data.

Ad tech companies are looking to expand beyond the content recommendation box to run display ads across the open web. Taboola and Outbrain have been closing acquisitions to make it happen – but other public companies like Google, Apple and Amazon are financially poised to compete, writes Alon Rosenthal, CEO & Founder of WhizzCo.

Amazon disappointed investors with a $3.8 billion net loss in Q1 this year, its first quarterly loss in the past six years, plus online sales ticked down 1%. Amazon Advertising, however, did not disappoint. “Advertising revenue was up 25% year over year, and that’s a strong run rate compared to the revenue growth rate,” CFO Brian Olsavsky told investors.

There’s no time to stop and shop when there’s so much to test and learn. Unless, of course, you’re Stop & Shop. The northeastern US grocery chain is four years into a program to expand its ecommerce marketing and first-party data capabilities. But it still feels like early innings, considering how much change has happened […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. An Influx Of In-Ear Influencer Inventory Outside of hard news and true crime, podcasting has come to be dominated by influencers. Advertisers are increasingly trying to capitalize on internet celebrities’ and reality TV stars’ massive followings through the tried-and-true podcast marketing method of […]

Walmart has The Trade Desk. Target’s Roundel uses Index Exchange as an SSP and taps Criteo and CitrusAds on the demand side. Quotient lost the grocery chain Albertson’s but signed exclusive contracts with AutoZone and Hy-Vee. CitrusAds picked up part of the Albertson’s ad tech business. The new varieties of retailer walled gardens are built on a foundation of open ad tech.