IPG Mediabrands initiative towards standardisation in retail media space: a great move!

Published: July 27, 2023

min read

With Retail media becoming a critical component of digital marketing, the retail media industry has seen tremendous growth over the past few years. Statistics show it accounted for 11% of total global advertising in 2021, and that figure is expected to increase to $160 billion by 2027.

The prime players in the space, like Amazon and Walmart, are ramping up their ability to sell digital ads to brands. However, according to a report from the Association of National Advertisers, many marketers are "reluctant buyers" of retail media, and over fifty percent of marketers mentioned lack of standardisation across retail media platforms as the biggest issue, and 44% stated the secluded approach was its second biggest difficulty.

And there has been a rising voice from the marketers’ side in recent months for standards as more retailers develop digital media networks for selling ads.

In an effort to close the gap, IPG Mediabrands just introduced Unified Retail Media Solution, an all-new division that assists its customers in overseeing investments across the increasing channel of retail media networks.

According to IPG Mediabrands, its Unified Retail Media Solution can determine which retailers deliver the most effective outcomes and automatically modify spending on the basis of that data to optimise retail media campaigns.

Their clients from the CPG, gaming, and OTC industries have already beta-tested the platform. It currently has hundreds of audiences, with a goal of having 10,000 by the end of the year.

How big is the news for CAOs?

The number of retail media networks is rising at a rapid pace, while existing networks are upgrading. As retail media plays a pivotal role in today’s marketing arena, brands, particularly CPG brands, are spending a significant amount of their ad dollars in this space.

But due to the lack of any universal consistency in the retail media space and as each retailer uses their own data approach, metrics, and ROI methods, brands are already scrambling to manage and measure their advertising dollars.

Considering all in the retail media ecosystem, we believe IPG Mediabrands has made a remarkable and much-needed move at the right time for the benefit of brands and marketing teams.

With the new solution, which paves the way for unified Audience, measurement, optimisation, and Intelligence, brands will be able to organise, execute, and track their advertising campaigns across various Retail Media Networks from a single interface. This way, it can primarily minimise the hassle of dealing with multiple platforms and their measurement approaches separately. Consequently, it will enable efficient campaign setup and reduce the administrative burden for brands.
This centralised solution will help brands gain a holistic view of their advertising performance. As a result of this, brands can quickly identify trends, outcomes, and places for improvement, which in turn will enable them to plan a comprehensive advertising strategy. In addition, it will make it simple for brands to present a cohesive brand identity to audiences as they can easily align messaging and creatives across various Retail Media networks and boost conversions.
As the Unified Retail Media Solution will process massive volumes of customer data from various Retail Media Networks, it will help brands come up with detailed customer profiles. So that it can pave the way for brands to discover new audience segments that they have not identified previously. As a result, brands will be able to precisely target specific audience segments with more personalised and relevant ads. It can, in turn, brand them to improve engagement and conversion rates.
As this holistic approach allows brands to improve performance tracking, they will be able to spot campaigns that don’t deliver the intended results so as to optimise them and identify high-performing channels and campaigns to increase ad dollars on them. Thus, we believe this all-new solution can significantly help brands prioritise investments, effectively allocate their advertising budgets, and improve ROI.

In a nutshell, IPG Mediabrands’ new Unified Retail Media Solution is all about streamlining the cracks in the retail media space for brands and making the marketing teams efforts meaningful.

Author

Sarah Johnson

Sarah is an analytical marketing expert with a passion for data-driven insights. She has a keen eye for detail and a talent for turning complex information into actionable strategies. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, travel, and trying out new recipes in the kitchen.