Walmart Media Group (WMG), the retailer’s data-driven advertising business, took another step forward with its in-house advertising program on Thursday with the acquisition of Polymorph Labs, a San Francisco-based ad tech startup. Walmart did not disclose terms of the deal or how many employees it will add with Polymorph. Polymorph, formerly AdsNative, raised a total […]
“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is written by Madelyn Mills, director of marketing platforms and analytics at Providence St. Joseph Health. Having worked in the healthcare industry for several years, it’s fair to say we’re facing turbulent times, with regulatory uncertainties, rising costs, declining […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Ryan Christiansen, co-founder and CEO at Ntooitive Digital. The ability to track and effectively target consumer actions has never been more essential to marketers seeking to unleash the power of cross-platform digital advertising. With […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Video Stars Video ad spend in the United States will grow to $27.8 billion, about 25% of all digital ad spend, by 2020, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. That’s a 30% growth spurt from 2017. Facebook will emerge as the big winner in the […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Direct Control Direct-to-consumer upstarts are giving established brands a run for their money, and are also wreaking some havoc in the agency world. That’s because DTC brands are for the most part digitally native and do their advertising in-house. Despite its $1 billion acquisition […]
July is historically a slow month for the US retail industry. It splits Memorial Day and Labor Day shopping spikes, and foot traffic dwindles as consumers travel or hit the beach. But this year, ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers are pouncing with mid-July promotional events, hoping to seize the shopping energy stirred up by Amazon Prime […]
by Allison Schiff, Alison Weissbrot, Sarah Sluis, James Hercher and Ryan Joe Getting a big brand to shift its marketing approach is about as easy as moving a planet out of orbit. Yet, many see the writing on the wall: If they don’t change, consumers will leave them behind. As such, big marketers have to […]
Shopper marketing, a longtime favorite of CPGs typically used for in-store signage or to get products on eye-level shelves, is undergoing a massive transformation thanks to the spread of ecommerce and online shops. Of the $178 billion marketers spend annually on in-store marketing, $55 billion could shift from traditional retail trade marketing to online ads, […]
Albertsons has unleashed shopper data from its network of 2,300 stores to help CPG advertisers determine whether their digital ad spend drove sales. When the grocery chain, whose numerous brands include Safeway, launched Albertsons Performance Media last week, it joined retailers like Target, Kroger and Walmart, which have each invested in building an audience activation […]
Beginning Monday, Walmart’s streaming video service Vudu will monetize inventory programmatically through an exclusive deal with the video ad server SpotX. Vudu’s ad-supported offering – an on-demand video library called Vudu Movies On Us – launched a year ago. Ad sales, however, were mostly handled on a reserved basis through conventional I/Os by the video […]
Jet.com has been quietly pitching publishers on changes to its payment structure related to affiliate commissions. The message is clear: Work with Jet and it’s prepared to pay you for the privilege. Affiliate bucks often go to the more established players like Amazon or eBay. But in order to incentivize publishers to send traffic its […]
The convergence of retail and ecommerce accelerated with a blockbuster Friday when it was announced that Amazon would buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and Wal-Mart is snapping up ecommerce men’s clothing company Bonobos for $310 million. The market response to the deals was clear, particularly to Amazon’s 11-digit investment in a brick-and-mortar footprint. The […]
America’s most data-driven retailers and product manufacturers increasingly use mobile channels to drive shoppers to a store. Take the big kahuna. Walmart two weeks ago began offering discounts for products selected online and then picked up at a store. Walmart clears the margin on those discounts because the retailer can push products through its stores […]
A year ago Pinterest was in the process of winding down its sales and marketing services for all but two partner categories: retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG). But after a year spent working on ad tech product releases – like a CRM match program and an expansion of interest-based targeting – it’s throttling up […]
Two former Cablevision execs – former COO Kristin Dolan and former media sales President Ben Tatta – are bringing their experience in local TV advertising to the national level. The two formed an audience measurement and analytics firm called 605 earlier this month through an acquisition of Analytics Media Group (AMG), the data and analytics […]
Walmart’s streaming movie and TV-on-demand service Vudu is rolling out free, ad-supported video. Vudu, which has been priced on a per-transaction, subscription-free basis (like iTunes), has debuted a video-on-demand service called Vudu Movies On Us. Vudu is using Telstra’s video platform subsidiary, Ooyala, to manage video ad delivery and monetization for the service, which has […]
Cardlytics, which, in its first iteration, fueled card-linked offers for banks and financial services firms, is opening up new ways to monetize around the private bank channel. The company, which sits on transactional data spanning 109 million accounts in the US alone, is eyeing longer-term deals with agency holding groups. It’s also beefing up demand […]
With turkeys almost in the oven, retailers and ecommerce companies are hoping the investments they’ve made all year long in audience segmentation, mobile tech and cross-channel measurement will pay off in the make-or-break holiday season. Ecommerce in particular is looking to benefit from the maturation of ongoing retail and ecommerce trends – such as offline […]
Linking up internal data assets is a great start – but while this can lead to nifty business results, it also has the potential to disrupt numerous employees and departments within a company. Brand marketers from Macy’s, Sephora and Walmart told their stories about combining customer and marketing data sets during a panel at LiveRamp’s […]
It’s become generally accepted wisdom that brands aren’t dedicating dollars to mobile at a rate commensurate with consumer time spent. That said, certain big brands like Walmart and Heineken are embracing mobile as a key part of their advertising initiatives. “Going forward, we will always view campaigns as mobile-first,” said Ron Amram, senior media director […]
Walmart, one of the last bastions of big box retail, is investing for a digital future – one with considerably less square footage. Walmart recently revealed plans to invest between $1.2 to $1.5 billion in its ecommerce and digital operations for fiscal year 2016. Subsequently, its in-store investments are taking a temporary hit. In its […]
Walmart’s widely revered as a retail maven, but media buyer? It’s a brand-new capability for the $473-billion company, which on Friday revealed more details about the digital marketing platform it’s developed, the Walmart Exchange (WMX). Like Amazon, which has turned massive amounts of shopper data into monetization opportunities for brands via Amazon Media Group’s demand-side […]
Big box retailer Walmart’s software and technology accelerator @WalmartLabs has acquired Adchemy, the developer of a SaaS platform that essentially makes retail product search smarter. Silicon Valley-based @WalmartLabs, which employs 2,100 people, was founded three years ago as a way to develop and scale technology to tap into online buying patterns of the store’s 245 […]
Walmart.com VP of Marketing Brian Monahan provided a glimpse into the retail giant’s strategy for bridging online and offline commerce Tuesday at Ad Age’s Digital Conference. More than 240 million people in the United States visit Walmart’s stores, clubs, sites and apps on a weekly basis, Monahan said. And as consumers increasingly move across digital […]
The retail industry, unlike verticals where data compliance is a major issue, appear more in the thought-leadership phase of advanced data analysis than actual execution, despite isolated gains by some their progressive counterparts in building their own marketing-tech stacks. Eighty-three percent of retailers profiled in EKN Research’s “Big Data in Retail” study said they are […]
Breaking: The sizzle reel still has legs. Two thousand attendees at the Association of National Advertisers’ annual Masters of Marketing conference were treated to numerous examples of the genre Friday, as senior marketers from Chrysler, Walmart, MARS and Coca-Cola showed off their favorite TV spots. Repeatedly. But while the raw storytelling power of television remains […]
Following its spring acquisition of recommendations engine Avail, ecommerce personalization and shopping media company RichRelevance has acquired the assets of data analytics startup Precog, for an undisclosed sum. Founded by former Amazon exec David Selinger in 2006, San Francisco-based RichRelevance currently has close to 200 customers including Walmart, Target and Marks & Spencer. Precog CEO […]
Offered without comment, here are two recent quotes about Walmart’s approach to digital innovation: “We are uniquely positioned to give customers anytime, anywhere access to Walmart by combining the smartphone, online, and the physical stores. Ultimately, that will give us an edge over any competitor. …We’ve hired hundreds of incredibly talented people, in Silicon Valley […]
The Black Friday holiday shopping tradition has been turned on its head, thanks to social media and Facebook. While retailers continue to encourage customers to rise before the sun on the day after Thanksgiving, they are adding ever more Facebook deals and apps, as well as mobile tools, that can be used throughout Thanksgiving week. […]
