Updated, November 21, 2023
Retail Media is more than online media. 80% more!
Retail media is a hot topic, but there’s something lopsided about how it’s growing!
As Retail Media budgets head to the $100B mark, new budgets are going to online Retail Media channels like onsite (retailer’s own properties) and offsite (external properties). In other words, the Retail Media-led disruption of the media industry is happening online.
There’s no doubt online Retail Media presents an unmissable opportunity for retailers.
It offers an unprecedented combination of first-party shopper data, checkout data, and ad tech for real-time addressability and performance measurement — a value proposition that precisely meets the needs of today’s advertisers.
But we tend to forget that Retail Media is more than just online.
This oversight is causing retailers a massive missed opportunity for growth and revenue.
Shoppers are not just online.
In grocery retail, more than 80% of shoppers are and will remain in-store well into the next decade.
Concentrating Retail Media efforts, innovation, and investments only on online channels ignores the opportunity to monetize the 80%+ shoppers that still prefer to shop in-store.
Many brick-and-mortar retailers get this. They realize that more than 80% of their monetizable audience is literally walking out the door every day!
In response, retailers are trying to create a better Retail Media product. One with an equally compelling solution to reach and target both – online and in-store audiences.
But they are going about it wrong.
Having spoken to hundreds of Retail Media executives, I’ve identified where the real barriers to In-store Retail Media growth lie.
Here is how to address them.
Stop Calling it ‘DOOH’
Many retailers are still under the impression that ‘In-store Retail Media’ is simply a somewhat updated version of DOOH advertising.
After all, it’s just in-store digital screens. That’s basically DOOH, right?
This misconception needs to be corrected with urgency if retailers are to unlock the full revenue potential of In-store Retail Media.
The similarity between DOOH and In-store Retail Media ends at the device – digital screens – used to deliver messages.
In-store Retail Media is a different product altogether. Here’s why.
In-store Retail Media has a different value proposition
Just as online Retail Media is distinct from online display, In-store Retail Media is distinct from any other traditional offline or in-store advertising, including DOOH.
‘In-store Retail Media,’’, as the name suggests, is Retail Media in brick-and-mortar stores.
But this is not some workaround or upgrade of existing in-store or OOH media models.
To become as successful as its online counterpart, In-store Retail Media must bring the same success factors to the physical store environment. But unlike online Retail Media, it must do so using only non-personally identifiable information (PII). This is a necessity, not just because there is simply no PII accessible in real-time in a physical setting, but far more importantly, to protect shopper privacy.
In-store Retail Media must enable
- Real-time audience segmentation of individual shoppers at the edge
- Real-time shopper addressability based on unified omnichannel Retail Media segments
- Real-time targeting in a 1-to-some environment
- Real-time performance measurement and advanced analytics capabilities
- (Truly) real-time programmatic activation based on Retail Media audiences
- A more conclusive link between ad spend, ad exposure, in-store shopper, and sales
This is a boldly distinct value proposition from DOOH
DOOH – the use of digital screens to display ads in public places – can be effective at driving awareness, and even footfalls, as a one-to-many medium.
However, it does not leverage first-party or checkout data, or deliver success factors such as real-time targeting based on relevant segments, shopper behavior, and attribution like online Retail Media does.
No doubt DOOH as proximity media, plays an important role in full-funnel marketing.
But expecting it – even in some upgraded digital avatar – to deliver the same lower-funnel outcomes that Retail Media can is like expecting a pencil to do the job of a hammer.
And yet, several retailers still refer to their in-store media as ‘DOOH,’’, proving they have not understood the true potential of their In-store Retail Media.
In-store Retail Media demands a radical mindset shift
When retailers approach In-store Retail Media as DOOH, they tend to hire DOOH experts to build the product and create the relevant value proposition.
That is where the misery begins.
DOOH experts don’t have a Retail Media mindset. They have a DOOH mindset.
They have a wealth of DOOH knowledge and experience, but that’s not Retail Media.
The real value of In-store Retail Media lies in combining historical retailer data with real-time data from within the store and leveraging it for audience segmentation, activation, and performance measurement.
DOOH practitioners, used to operating at the awareness stages of the shopper journey, have never had to deal with this. Since they haven’t built lower-funnel advertising solutions, they are unfamiliar with the real-time audience-based targeting and measurement success factors of Retail Media.
From my experience, most of them are even unaware that targeting multiple in-store shoppers simultaneously is technologically possible, commercially scalable, and reasonable.
The in-store environment is not the classical “1-to-many” but a “1-to-some” environment that not only allows but even demands a new, more targeted approach.
Expecting pure DOOH specialists to deliver disruptive Retail Media outcomes is wishful but unrealistic thinking.
And in an increasingly crowded and competitive Retail Media landscape, it’s doomed to fail.
If you want to unlock those incremental Retail Media revenues, keep reading.
The secret to growing In-store Retail Media value and revenues is clear.
Retailers must deliver the same success factors for in-store channels that they do online.
This ambitious goal needs a complete rethink of what In-store Retail Media should deliver.
The only way forward is for the Retail Media team – already managing online channels – to take ownership and create a complete omnichannel Retail Media solution that follows the shopper journey.
The existing Retail Media team, comprised of digital media experts, is best placed to approach Retail Media as a unified, full-funnel offering to deliver comparable outcomes online and offline.
This will help Retailers accomplish multiple things.
First, it will help retailers focus their investments and efforts on building a single, streamlined Retail Media Network solution, from the start.
Such a network offers advertisers a consistent and connected value proposition that follows the shopper’s journey online (onsite + offsite) and offline (in-store + out-of-store).
Next, it will avoid slotting online and In-store Retail Media offerings into artificial silos.
Product and people silos fragment both – the value proposition and the advertiser experience, creating complexities and operational inefficiencies.
This approach will create multiple fragmented products, create complexity, and set your Retail Media journey (and budgets) back by years!
Instead, the unified Retail Media Network should be manned by a single Retail Media team, made up of digital media experts who understand how to leverage technology and sell full-funnel performance media at scale, on all channels.
Finally, a unified approach will help create a robust Retail Media ecosystem.
Many retailers believe that programmatic use of real-time audience data is impossible with a 1-to-many medium like in-store digital signage. Wrong!
Real-time audience addressability based on unified segments across online and physical channels enables a streamlined, channel-agnostic, scalable media buying experience for advertisers.
Such a connected ecosystem is possible, and it can support automated planning, scheduling, and buying across all channels, via the existing programmatic ecosystem of SSPs and DSPs.
As a bonus, a full-funnel Retail Media approach will help retailers give DOOH its rightful place in the mix.
For example, proximity marketing at parking lots and other high-traffic areas like metro stations will drive awareness and increase both – footfalls and clicks. You could also fortify omnichannel Retail Media performance with geography-specific retailer data to improve out-of-store targeting in the vicinity.
Such an approach is laser-focused on effectively connecting each component to the unified Retail Media Network and faithfully following the shopper journey.
Components and Metrics of a Full Funnel, Omnichannel Retail Media Network
Towards a unified Retail Media Network
The challenge of reaching addressable audiences at the POS is not new.
Luckily, advanced AI-powered ad tech offers a radical new approach to solve it.
Ultimately, shoppers don’t care about channels. They care about convenience, context, and relevance. Unsurprisingly, advertisers care about shoppers.
That’s why Retail Media solutions that seamlessly follow the shopper journey, irrespective of channels, will win. Fragmented, siloed offerings will become irrelevant.
Retailers with specialist Retail Media teams, working with technology partners like Advertima, will not only succeed in bringing online success factors in-store but also create a unified, full-funnel, and connected Retail Media Network.
One that will accelerate the disruption of the media space even more.
Get your free step-by-step guide to In-Store Retail Media
Make the right move to unlock the full revenue potential of In-store Retail Media with our step-by-step guide to transform in-store shoppers into monetizable media audiences and grow the value of In-store Retail Media inventory.
