In-store Retail Media Fundamentals

In-store Retail Media is brand or product advertising and promotional marketing strategies implemented within a physical retail setting. The primary objective is to influence the consumer (shopper) at or near the point of purchase. 

This form of media can be categorized as either static (traditional) or digital (connected). Both offer unique opportunities for impact and in-store shopper engagement.

What channels, formats, and technologies apply to In-store Retail Media?

In-store Retail Media includes all channels or methods and locations within a physical retail environment that give brands ways to directly inform and engage their target shopper audience. 

Channels use a range of formats and technologies, including:

• Static Formats: Branded bays, sampling activations, PoS media (barkers, aisle flags, floor stickers, etc), branded gondola ends, and magazines. 
• Digital Formats: Digital screens, digital signage screens, hand scanners, DOOH screens, digital SELs, smart cart platforms, retailtainment, retailer apps, and radio.
• Advanced Digital Formats: Evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence, edge computing, sensors and beacons can be used to augment existing digital formats and deliver a more immersive and targeted in-store shopper experience.

How is In-store Retail Media measured?

Understanding in-store media’s impact through analytics and actionable insights is crucial to help:

• retailers maximize their return on investment (ROI) 
• brands optimize campaign strategies and justify their return on ad spend (ROAS) 

Marketing teams can apply and analyze a series of metrics to quantify a campaign’s success in effectively and efficiently meeting brand strategy and sales performance objectives.

Static and Digital Media typically rely on historical data and static multipliers to analyze outcomes such as ROAS, ROI, brand uplift, and sales conversions. 

Advanced digital technologies, particularly those using AI and real-time capabilities, are revolutionizing the way retailers engage and measure their shopper audiences. These technologies enable precise audience activation and access to more granular analytics such as audience traffic, impressions, content playouts, qualified views, dwell time, and sales transactions.

What are In-store Retail Media’s main benefits or limitations?

While In-store Retail Media gives benefits to retailers and advertisers, some media is more advantageous than others.

Static media is designed to help direct shoppers through a store and promote products; its drawbacks include the following:

• One-size-fits-all approach
• Single-use case 
• High production costs with long lead times
• Limited innovation opportunities
• Materials wear and tear and disposal
• Poor internal compliance and coverage 
• In-store space constraints and possible overcrowding
  

Digital and Next Generation media can require hardware installation investments or allocating internal data management and analytics resources. However, the overarching benefits include increased brand visibility, enhanced shopper engagement, improved sales conversions, and new omnichannel marketing opportunities driven by:

• Access to real-time capabilities
• Dynamic and versatile content options with continuous optimization opportunities
• More in-depth data enabling customer behavior insights and improved decision-making
• Improved inventory and campaign efficiencies
• Access to new or incremental advertiser budgets
• Better internal resourcing and wastage elimination
• Seamless integrations across the retail media ecosystem

How can In-Store Retail Media leverage first-party data?

As In-store Retail Media evolves, retailers and brands also expect increased access to more sophisticated data sets that will help them improve decision-making processes and create efficiencies across their businesses.

Retailer-owned first-party data sourced from loyalty programs, checkout data, and analytics, including manual counting and attribution studies, can offer rich insights that advertisers expect before investing valuable marketing budgets. Likewise, advertisers have their own first-party data gathered from customer engagement initiatives, which help them better understand and deliver what their customers want.

Advanced technology such as data clean rooms can bring together this wealth of anonymized first-party data in privacy-preserving and secure retailer and brand collaborations. 

The result is a greater opportunity to build higher quality relevant content and achieve more meaningful audience targeting and engagement. The case for an In-store Retail Media data clean room can rest on:

• First-party data monetization
• Expanded and enriched audience segments
• Improved campaign and targeting decisions
• Streamlined integrations and data-sharing processes

For Retailers

In-store Retail Media’s current evolution will continue as advanced digital technologies continue to offer better targeting and performance measurement, which will, in turn, revolutionize campaign planning and execution. 

To better target and engage in-store shopper journeys and maximize their in-store media, retailers must consider:

• where to strategically place media formats and technologies throughout their store, such as the entrance, main aisle, and checkout zones. 
• how to combine online, off-site, in-store and out-of-store media opportunities to extend audience addressability
• how to offer brand advertisers seamless and cohesive audience connections
• how to embrace advanced technologies to unlock omnichannel marketing opportunities

For Brands

In-store Retail Media is an important tool for brands to connect with shopper audiences and drive sales. To harness its power effectively, brands must consider how to:

• use data insights to develop targeted strategies tailored to specific retail environments and shopper audiences
• maximize a retailer’s channels, formats and technologies
• create more relevant and memorable shopping experiences with tangible results

How can retailers better commercialize their in-store media?

With Advertima’s real-time technology, that’s how! 

Retailers need effective ways to boost their activation and measurement capabilities to improve shopper addressability and increase in-store media profitability.

Advertima’s audience-based programmatic activation is a powerful tool, enhancing existing systems and augmenting in-store media monetization strategies.

Would brands book static ad playouts in the online world?

Only if there were no alternatives.
Advertima Audience AI is cutting-edge technology revolutionizing in-store shopper activation and measurement, same as online. Retailers now have the tools to help brands create more meaningful audience connections and access clearer insights.

Advertima Audience AI operates in real-time to capture anonymized in-store shopper attributes such as age and gender. Layered with contextual and affinity attributes, Advertima’s advanced solution creates addressable segments for real-time targeting while shoppers are in-store, cruising aisles and making purchase decisions. Advertima makes real-time audience segments accessible to CMS, direct I/O booking, and programmatic systems.