AMENIA, NY — The retail media landscape is rapidly expanding beyond its traditional focus on driving sales through onsite search and display advertising.
As retailers launch new media networks on a weekly basis, the space is becoming increasingly complex, says Christa Klausner, SVP of Media: Commerce at Digitas North America, in this video interview with Beet.TV’s Rob Williams.
“Historically, retail media has been known to help drive purchase, help drive sales, and it’s expanding much beyond that,” Klausner says. Retail media is now moving into offsite programmatic advertising, including video and display, as well as the in-store experience.
Retail Media Umbrella Expands to New Categories
The term “retail media” is becoming a catch-all for not just retailers, but also emerging media networks in categories like finance, entertainment, and travel.
Klausner points to recent launches like Chase in finance and United Airlines’ connective media network in travel. “It’s a way for them to monetize the inventory that they have and also the power of their data,” she says.
When advising clients on how to allocate media spend across retailers and within each retailer’s network, Digitas looks for unique inventory and data, or “what makes them different from everybody else that we can find addressable through different data sources,” Klausner explained.
Behavioral Data Powers Retail Media Targeting
Retail media networks offer value to advertisers beyond just endemic brands that sell physical products on their platforms, she says. The power of retail data goes beyond demographics to focus on consumer buying behavior and intent.
“It’s much more behavioral as opposed to grouping them in affinities or demographics,” Klausner said. This makes retail media applicable to a wide range of advertisers looking to reach consumers based on their actions and interests.
Klausner is excited about the potential for simplification in the retail media landscape, even if the path forward is not yet clear. She highlights the challenge of finding commerce talent in the industry and the importance of training to develop the necessary skill sets. “There’s only so many experts to go around,” Klausner said.
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