From first-party data to omnichannel RMN: The big opportunity for retailers
Why using first-party data can be hard for retail media networks — and why it doesn’t have to be
Too many retailers are struggling to make the most of the retail media network opportunity.
It’s not that first-party data is in short supply. Many retailers find it relatively easy to collect a ton of direct information about their customers: everything from their email to the contents of their basket, to information captured through loyalty programs. The challenge comes with putting that data to work on an intelligent, effective, compliant ad-selling platform.
Amid the slow and spluttering demise of third-party identifiers, first-party data is enjoying its moment in the sun. But retailers can only fully realize the value of first-party data if they can help brands to leverage it within an omnichannel media campaign.
To create an ethical, profitable ad-selling operation, there are a number of steps for retailers to orchestrate — from permissioning and cleaning first-party data, through to activating and measuring it. This can be complicated and time-consuming — especially for retailers new to the world of retail media.
So what’s the answer?
Using first-party data in retail media campaigns shouldn’t be a game of low margins and high resources
Imagine you’re a retailer with a repeat buyer of cat litter. You can artfully deduce this customer has a cat, but how best to expose their first-party data to a cat food company that might want to advertise to them?
One option is to do it on your own. You can bundle first-party data into cat litter buyers or multiple data sets that would indicate cat owner, then operate your website for sponsored display product listings. The advertiser will pay for the media you own, so you get the full gross amount they’re going to spend on it.
But now let's go offsite. This is a cat food advertiser that wants to run online video. Not only can this be a huge investment if you’re selling a managed service with media and data audience layered in, as you’re out of pocket while buying the media upfront. But there are all the relationships to set up, organize, activate, and orchestrate with video suppliers, CTV, and video streaming platforms like YouTube.
So omnichannel ad selling can be a mammoth undertaking if you don't have the technology, orchestration, partnerships, and alignment with advertisers that want to activate against your first-party data.
Retailers lack a solution to orchestrate first-party data for effective omnichannel media
Retailers are often legacy businesses, so they lack the omnichannel media technology and orchestration as an in-house competence.
They might have a marketing department that’s outsourced it to an agency. Or they might have some combination of Salesforce instance, customer data platform (CDP), or demand side platform (DSP) where they activate some of the media themselves. But trying to do so many things with so few resources, without a solid, stable foundation, often makes it infeasible to get an omnichannel ad campaign up and running, orchestrate it, and let it flourish at its greatest potential.
A single source of truth is the only way to achieve scalability. Without it, retailers can’t evidence that ads are working for brands, and therefore encourage them to increase spending.
Instead of one or two lanes of the twelve-lane omnichannel media highway, retailers need full orchestration from media proposal and inventory availability, all the way through to booking and invoicing an advertiser.
How to unlock effective omnichannel media selling with first-party data
Putting in place an operating system for ad sales can be transformational for retail media players. It can provide a comprehensive foundation for selling advertising to retail brands, simplifying the work involved in setting up an omnichannel media network with first-party data.
Take AdSalesOS by Placements.io — a solution that powers retail media operations for some of the world’s most successful retail media players.
Firstly, AdSalesOS shows you the transparent cost of placing media offsite, as any identity, tracking, validation or visibility tool is factored into the cost of goods. Off-site partnerships and procurement are API-connected into the solution, making it a single source of truth that centralizes every ad placement you have available to go to market. You can then see all of your media opportunities, which you can share with any affiliate brand that wants to know what they're buying and how it’s performing – in a scalable, measurable, and transparent way.
AdSalesOS seamlessly allows retailers (and their brand customers) to see the number of impressions against target audience segments, so they can manage pricing and yield against that availability, then organize inventory. CFOs, meanwhile, can easily see sellout levels, total revenue, and create a forecast.
AdSalesOS also uses machine-learning and AI to apply end-to-end intelligence to ad selling. AdSalesOS includes AI-driven tools for price and yield optimization, as well as for activating and measuring first-party data across channels without having to cobble together a whole bunch of different dashboards and spreadsheets. More AI ad-selling tools are in development to allow retailers to see the gap between the price they’re bidding and could be bidding instead.
First-party data has long been important for effective omnichannel retail media operations. What has changed is how seamless it can be with a powerful, consolidated platform like AdSalesOS by Placements.io. By making digital advertising more intelligent, efficient, transparent, and profitable — for buyers and sellers — Placements.io is making the industry better for everyone.
To find out more about executing a scalable ad-selling operation that drives growth, drop us a line.
