In a fast-moving a lucrative category like consumer electronics, Best Buy is mixing its own technology with that of others in a mission to become a major advertising player.
In January 2022, the company launched Best Buy Ads, its own retail media network, as the company became the latest retailer to enter the new retail media space.
In this video interview with Mike Shields for Beet.TV, Jen Jensen, VP, Partner & Category Marketing, Best Buy Ads, explains how the company’s offering is evolving.
Integrated Offerings and Expansion
Increasingly, shoppable media is not just about ad inventory on an ecommerce site. Some players are reaching a level of scale and competence such that they can also identify users elsewhere.
“We’ve been doing quite a bit with our partners offsite,” says Jensen. “We have this robust customer data and we want to be able to be wherever our customer is.”
That is even allowing Best Buy to go outside of its core electronics proposition.
Looking beyond their existing partners, Jensen says the company is exploring the “near-endemic” space, considering services and products that aren’t necessarily sold in their stores.
“We know non-endemic is going to be a big area of growth for us at some point,” she asserts.
Retail Revs Up
Retail or ecommerce media – in which ecommerce operators carve out ad inventory in their store to sell to brands – is growing fast.
To capitalise, Best Buy is both building its own technology and bringing in tools from other companies.
“We have built some things in-house, specifically our My Ads capability… We’re also looking at ways to partner with different technology companies to ensure that we have the best offerings,” Jensen reveals.
My Ads is a self-serve platform offering purchase, planning, viewing and managing for ad campaigns within the Best Buy Ads footprint.
Launched in March as a pilot, it started by supporting on-site display ads and sponsored product campaigns. But it is seen as a complement to, not a replacement for, high-touch personalized services.
The Incrementality Challenge
One of the ongoing challenges in digital advertising is proving incrementality — demonstrating that an ad campaign is producing results over and above what would have happened without it.
Jensen acknowledges this, saying “that incrementality conversation is always really challenging”. Best Buy Ads, however, claims to have made substantial strides in this area.
“We’ve really looked at our closed-loop reporting and gotten to this place where we can really match our data differently and we can then really start to understand what is resonating with customers, where are they engaging?,” Jensen explains.
You’re watching “Next in Shoppable Media,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series presented by Best Buy Ads and Roku. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
