Sponsorcart tech now available on CitrusAd platform

Shoppable video platform Sponsorcart.io is building new inroads with retailers by growing its client base through integration with retail media network and marketing technology company CitrusAd.  

The new partnership opens CitrusAd clients to Sponsorcart.io’s shoppable video campaign technology directly through the CitrusAd platform. “So you don't have to log into a separate platform in order to be able to execute these types of [video] activations,” Jason Cutter, vice president of retail media at New York-based Sponsorcart.io, told Winsight Grocery Business.  

Grocery retailers have been slow to adopt video as an marketing strategy, even though advertisers spend $50 billion annually on video ads, Cutter explained. Sponsorcar.io's video ads typically run in the same positions as banner ads or display ads, he said.  

“One of the reasons they haven’t been putting video on the site—especially through traditional ad servers, like Google Adwords, for instance—is those ad servers are built for publisher environments that are centered around content and not necessarily optimized for the retail experience,” Cutter said, noting that Sponsorcart.io’s servers are built to experience little, if any, lag time. “So, if you slow down the retail side, it can cost billions of dollars in transactions.” 

The reluctance to move into video also stems from retailers’ aversion to taking up valuable real estate on their apps and internet portals, according to Cutter. He noted that Amazon showed in a September 2020 report that ad campaigns with video content experience a 1.5-times increase in sales compared with standard campaigns. 

Adam Skinner, managing director of retail media networks for CitrusAd, said the integration with Sponsorcart.io will allow its clients to scale the dynamic video formats and enable brands to “align commercial video assets with SKUs directly within the path-to-purchase in a shopper-relevant manner.”  

“These enhanced shopper experiences deliver tremendous storytelling power and an attractive way for retailers to expand their media offering,” Skinner said in a statement. The marketing firm’s clients include major grocers and grocery-related tech companies such as Albertsons, Cub Foods, Gopuff, Shipt, Groupon, Hy-Vee and Wakefern Food Corp. 

Cutter said Sponsorcart.io also creates opportunities for cross-selling products, particularly brands with a wide variety of products. Retailers can include ads for similar products on product detail pages. For example, he explained, vendors using Sponsorcart.io could include similar Coca-Cola products on a product detail page for a six-pack of regular Coke, allowing them to see ads for Coke Zero.

“Our format gives an opportunity in the platform to connect multiple SKUs to a video,” he said. “Coca-Cola does over-arching brand videos. So, with our format, you can connect multiple SKUs, and then it will target and dynamically optimize which SKU appears next to the video, based on factors like keywords, search placement, the context of the page or even audience characteristics.”