Kroger is building its in-house advertising platform to “accelerate the ability for retail data to improve shopping experiences while also making it easier for advertisers to activate, measure, and optimize campaigns,” the company said in a release.
The new self-service platform will include the retail media service portfolio of the company’s current retail media arm, Kroger Precision Marketing, with Kroger’s existing product listing ads and on-site display advertising to start.
Later it will run Kroger Precision Marketing’s entire retail media service portfolio.
The potential Kroger merger with Albertsons is still pending regulatory approval, however, if it moves forward, could create a major retail media player — complete with industry standardization, as recently announced by Albertsons.
Kristi Argyilan, SVP of Retail Media at Albertsons, told SN that the strategy behind the move is to help with the optimization of retail media investments overall.
Within the proposed framework are four priority areas: product specifications, performance measurement, third-party verification, and capabilities. “Our goal is that these efforts work to reset the current guidelines implemented by retail media stakeholders and ultimately create a more efficient, effective, and prosperous industry for decades to come,” Argyilan said.
Echoing the same sentiment, Cara Pratt, senior vice president of Kroger Precision Marketing, said in the release, “We know we need to remove friction from the retail media buying process. Building a new foundation of integrated technology empowers brands and agencies to maximize retail media's potential. Together, we will deliver a more convenient, personalized, and inspirational shopping experience.”
By moving its retail media to an in-house advertising platform, Kroger said it’s aiming to offer a more unified marketing strategy between on-site and offsite media channels.
The company said that as a self-service advertising platform, initial capabilities will allow clients to:
- Reach relevant audiences using search-based insights and custom ad groups
- Design, iterate, and activate creative messages within the platform
- Customize and save multiple creative templates by brand and product
- Optimize all campaign elements including budgets, messaging, and flighting
- Build reports and boost performance against deterministic retail data — including sales lift, household penetration, and unit lift
Kroger said all advertisers will be able to transition to the new platform before the end of the year. Advertisers using third-party management tools can still manage inventory through those platforms and additional integrations will be announced in the future.
In addition, the company has been adding to its talent in order to build the new advertising platform. New roles have included product, engineering, data science, compliance, media operations, and client success teams.
Kroger said its on-site advertising has already proven to be effective at product discovery for consumer packaged goods brands. In its study of thousands of campaigns:
- 75% of targeted on-site display impressions and clicks were from new-to-brand households
- 1 in 4 of those new shoppers become repeat purchasers
