Our multi-retailer model breaks down RMN “walled gardens”
There are no walled gardens, from a consumer’s perspective. Consumers don’t care about the attribution of their purchase. They don’t change their behavior to make it easier for advertisers to close the loop. They buy when they want to buy and where they want to buy.
A consumer who consistently buys a premium vitamin brand might see an ad on their favorite YouTube channel reminding them that they need to restock. Eager to return to watching their content, they don’t click through the ad to Amazon. Instead, they buy the vitamins when they walk past the drugstore down the street later that day.
Despite this fluidity in how consumers buy things, measurement in retail media today operates within the “walled gardens” of each retail media network (RMNs). Retailers can measure the impact on their own sales, but are completely blind into how it drives sales through outside channels.
This blindspot will only grow as retail media moves offsite and up the funnel. “We are watching offsite investments drive sales to a broader set of retailers, but they have no mechanism for taking credit for it. They can only take credit today for what they drive to themselves and have no way to get credit for what they drive to the broader set of other retail channels,” says Incremental’s co-founder Jesse Leikin. In a practical sense, this could mean that your Amazon DSP investments are driving in-person sales at Target.
Our latest product release breaks down these walls, capturing the halo impact one retail media network has on outside sales channels. Throughout 2024, some brands and agencies had preliminary access to this capability, and we’re thrilled to make it now widely available. This new release will enable:
- Advertisers to track the halo impact of investments across sales channels, providing the first truly omni-channel measure of ROI.
- Brands to more effectively allocate dollars based on the total impact it has to their business rather than channel specific returns.
- Retail media networks to get full credit for their impact on other sales channels.
- A more comprehensive view of ROI to inform joint business plan (JBP) discussions with retailers.
“We’ve changed how advertisers can understand the omnichannel nature of the consumer’s purchase habits,” says executive vice president Skye Frontier, “to better allocate their media to influence that consumer behavior and optimize it towards growth more effectively.”
This enhancement also unlocks a more robust way for both retailers and advertisers to justify their investments. “If the only sales I count are those that happen on Amazon, I'm probably under-crediting the ROI [return on investment] of the Amazon advertising. For every additional retailer I fold into our model, I'm only getting more credit in my ROI for sales I drive across outside retailers,” Frontier says.
And it’s not just giving credit for past investments. This multi-retailer model allows advertisers to plan future advertising investments better and more holistically. Siloed measurement has historically forced advertisers to plan their investment in each RMN separately from each other and from their broader investments in brand media. This capability enables advertisers to build and simulate media plans across multiple retailers simultaneously, providing a far more complete sales forecast that captures the interactions between each RMN and broader media investments.
“This allows advertisers—whose consumers are omnichannel —to plan their investments across them better as if those walls didn't exist,” Frontier says.
This capability will help bring greater transparency and trust to the entire industry. Retailers and RMNs will get credit for the true value of their investment, and advertisers will be able to better plan that investment holistically.
Interested in seeing this multi-retailer model in action? Book a demo with our team.
