Retail Media

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Consumer habits and changes among retailers themselves have reshaped the agency landscape around a new form of commerce media. The trend wasn’t as obvious a few years ago, when online retail media opportunity looked scattered with an emphasis on discounting: think cash-back apps and the heady days of Groupon sales, or CPGs on Amazon Fresh. Now, a brand that sells online faces a different landscape and an entirely different team of partners helping them.

Retail media is reaching the C-suite, with advertising (and first-party data projects) coming up in retailer earnings. Then, we talk about the $16 billion deal to buy Nielsen. 

Walmart uses its “growth algorithm” – adding high-margin advertising and its third-party marketplace businesses as it simultaneously invests in low-margin businesses (namely, groceries and ecommerce fulfillment). Macy’s is pursuing its Polaris plan, an overhaul built around its new customer lifetime value measurements. The mall-based fashion brand EXPRESS has an EXPRESSway Forward plan. Across categories and shopping channels, US retailers have reshaped their businesses.

If you know the brand Ibotta, you’re likely thinking of the popular cash-back app. Users upload receipts of in-store purchases and redeem credit for products listed for promotion in the app. But while that business still exists – and still represents the majority of Ibotta’s revenue – the company is shifting from DTC app to B2B2C performance marketing network.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Working Their Retails Off Retail media is in growth-stage limbo. Retailers have flooded the category with no guarantee advertising will pay off.  The latest is the craft store Michaels, which launched a retail media platform on Wednesday in partnership with Criteo. Amazon sets the […]

On its Q4 earning call this week, Criteo announced the start of a three-year global partnership with GroupM, shared an update on the IPONWEB deal, got frank about the privacy impacts of ATT and made the case for moving away from a focus on take rate.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Paul Childs, VP of business development, Moloco.  Ever since the advent of the printing press, advertisers have looked to content publishers – from newspapers and TV shows to websites and mobile apps – to hawk […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Let’s See, LG Smart TV manufacturer LG is on board with the outcomes-based buying trend, but with a twist – advertisers that don’t hit performance goals don’t have to pay. On Wednesday, LG Ads Solutions launched Guaranteed Outcomes, which promises brands they’ll only pay […]

The retail media craze kicked into hyperdrive in the past year. Because of the pandemic, the number of people ordering groceries online for the first time skyrocketed, but the trend was already underway. The rush of retailers into the programmatic platform business meant they tended to follow the playbook laid out by the by the […]

Is Criteo building an “anti-Google machine” with its proposed $380 million acquisition of IPONWEB? Criteo CEO Megan Clarken and Todd Parsons, chief product officer, weigh in and explain the vision. In short: the open web needs a hero.

Bolt From The Blue Twitter Blue, Twitter’s $3-per-month subscription service, was met with applause this month by digital media and news publishers thrilled to see a tech platform cut them a rev share. Participating publishers offer ad-free articles on Twitter’s in-app browser and earn a share of the Twitter Blue subscription pool in return. The […]

The Poisoned Apple Apple has been secretly buying app download ads on behalf of apps as a way to secure iOS subscription fees in perpetuity, according to a Forbes report. Google won’t delete the ads, though they’re placed without the knowledge or consent of the app developers, including Bumble, Tinder, HBO, Masterclass and Babbel, the […]

The Location Equation Location data companies have seen an uptick in inquiries from government officials and public health groups, The Washington Post reports. It’s no surprise – health officials and local governments had to track the effects of quarantine measures as well as next-order impacts on public services, such as transportation. Though the applications are […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Rakuten Rewards, formerly Ebates, is an 800-pound gorilla in the affiliate marketing business. But what’s the point of being biggest if nobody wants to be in the affiliate business? Since its acquisition by the Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten and […]

From Instacart to Uber, a wide variety of digital businesses are realizing that they can spin up advertising businesses. Their inspiration? Amazon’s “other” revenue category. Composed mostly of advertising revenue, it’s proven to a slew of digital companies that they can gain profitability by pursuing the sky-high margins in advertising. On this week’s Big Story, […]

The country’s largest grocers are adapting to new shopping habits with a hybrid model that combines their brick-and-mortar footprint with online advertising platforms. Although Amazon paved the way with its ad platform and 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods, grocery giants, including Kroger and Walmart, are also investing heavily in sponsored search and programmatic. And now […]

There is a distinct Amazon approach to advertising, and it’s taking over the rest of retail media. To be successful within the walled garden platform, brands must be sharply focused on search. They also become accustomed to seeing ad costs factored as an incremental part of overall sales. Spectrum Brands honed its advertising approach on […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s Q&A is with Michael Schuh, VP of media strategy Kroger Precision Marketing’s 84.51°. Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the United States, is capitalizing on major swings in shopping patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic as it expands its retail […]

Driscoll’s, the century-old fresh fruit company, is no stranger to change. But the transition to online ordering is a tricky one for the brand. Driscoll’s works with geneticists and fruit growers to hone the tastiest berry varieties, and its sales and marketing arm brings the fruit to market. But its marketing and seed-editing machine is […]

More and more ecommerce sales are preceded by paid product listings. The advance of ecommerce advertising in the past year and a half can be seen in the revenue growth in Amazon earnings reports and the promulgation of retail media platforms such as Walmart Connect, Target’s Roundel and Google Shopping. Marketers, too, are getting used […]

Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. Amazon’s search algorithm uses a bunch of different signals to rank products on its landing pages, including depth of product inventory, product page richness and paid media effectiveness. It’s not unlike Google, except that all those signals result […]

Publicis Groupe will acquire CitrusAd, an Australian retail media company, and place it within the Epsilon data business, the company announced on Thursday. CitrusAd’s direct connections to retailers – and the first-party data partnerships that come along with those connections – were a draw. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CitrusAd is a competitor […]

Amazon’s advertising business has exploded in the past five years. Its DSP footprint now rivals Google and it has the second most-used SSP. The online retailer earned more than $22 billion in ad revenue just in the past year. But Amazon’s advertising business is also a sprawling, mysterious empire, even for advertisers that spend heavily […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Andrea Leigh, VP of strategy and insights at Ideoclick. Brands reimagined their media plans during the pandemic, and many must now reconcile their previous approach with emerging digital ad opportunities […]

What if you saw TV ads inspired by what you recently shopped for at Walgreens? To bring its shopper data to a new channel – advanced TV – Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG), the retail chain’s ad tech subsidiary, will integrate Walgreens’ first-party identity data set with OpenID, an advertising ID backed by linear broadcast networks […]

The CPMs better be $1. On Thursday, Dollar Tree became the latest retailer to launch its own retail media network for its subsidiary, Family Dollar. The network, called Chesapeake Media Group, (Dollar Tree’s headquarters are located in Chesapeake, Virginia) joins the ranks of Walgreens, Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Target/Roundel, Kroger, Best Buy and The Home Depot, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Andrea Leigh, VP of strategy at Ideoclick We are witnessing the rise of retail media networks designed by major retailers to deliver a targeted, personalized experience to shoppers. Walmart, CVS, […]

Walmart is building infrastructure to support its fast-growing retail media business. After more than a year of testing, it settled on a custom-built version of the Trade Desk DSP. AdExchanger first reported last January that Walmart was testing two rival DSPs, the Trade Desk and Xandr. Walmart’s DSP is a separate, walled-off version of the […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Bryan Wiener, CEO at Profitero. Hardly a material line item a year ago, retail media is the new black – capturing the attention of brand marketers, and getting them to open […]