How Brands Can Maximize Value and Capitalize on the Retail Media Boom

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By 2023, we predict that retail media will exceed $50 billion and receive nearly 20% of all digital ad spend.

With the rise of e-commerce, retailers have been able to create more personal connections with consumers by appealing at their point of purchase. Nowadays retail media is everywhere, and there's no escaping its popularity within e-commerce, plus it has been crucial to the success of online shopping in recent years. With this sudden increase, I can't help but wonder what will happen next for retail advertising as a whole; after all, there are many possibilities with such an exciting trend right now on our hands.

Retail media is rapidly growing and it's a great way for e-commerce retailers and brands to reach consumers right when they're about ready to make their purchase decision.

According to eMarketer, retail media advertising is becoming one of the digital ad segments with the highest growth — it is estimated to jump by 31.4% in 2022 to $41.37 billion.

Let's drill down to see the snapshot of the current marketplace.

• Amazon dominates with 77.7% of US digital retail media spend.
• eMarketer forecasts that Walmart’s US digital advertising revenue will increase 53.5% this year and reach $1.55 billion.
• Nearly every major retailer now has a retail media network, including Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, eBay, The Home Depot, Instacart, Kroger, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, and Wayfair 
• New entrants are coming every year — in 2021, Albertsons, Dollar Tree, and Lowe's launched retail media networks

So, it's clear that we need a multichannel strategy here. But we might have a little problem, as consumer demand grows, so does the competition. 

So, the question is

What are the best ways to get our listings seen by customers, and how can we maximize value?

One of the most powerful weapons we have in the arsenal is, yes, you guessed it right - retail media advertising. But how can we be competitive on these increasingly crowded channels when others are doing it too?" The execution might be complicated but the answer is we need to be extremely strategic.

The right retail media strategic plan can boost your business opportunities and increase revenue by as much as 422%. Many brands and retailers have managed it by following sound strategies.

In an ever-changing retail media landscape, here are five key points that retailers must consider as they build out their offerings.

1. Retail media’s core value prop is the data, so deep, integrated data measurement and insight capabilities are an absolute must.
2. The most successful retail media networks will be those that look beyond the website.
3. Retail media is transforming the brand-retailer relationship as brands become not just suppliers but clients. (My personal favorite!)
4. At the same time, retailers can’t forget their first client, the end consumer.
5. Introducing an entirely new business model within organizations that have operated the same way for decades requires flexibility and boldness.

Running media operations at that scale might be new to retailers, but not to the brands with the larger budgets, who expect to be able to plan, place, optimize and attribute their media investment the way they do with every other marketing channel that’s digitally based.

Retailers and CPG brands have always had a buyer-supplier relationship, now that digital transformation is happening in retail media teams across the country; retailers are no longer just working with their clients—they also depend on them! All this new tech means there's more of an opportunity for collaboration between retailers/CPGs than ever before...with its own unique challenges, as always.

What to expect in 2022 and 2023

Third-party cookies are set to disappear next year, which means advertisers will turn more heavily into retail media networks for insights into consumer behavior. This might be the perfect opportunity for Walmart and Instacart to establish themselves as the next top retail media networks, while Amazon's stranglehold on spending loosens up!

1. The retailer pile-on will continue.
2. Amazon’s share will shrink in the coming years, but not by much.
3. Diversification of ad formats will be key to future growth.
4. It's anticipated that digital retail media advertising will jump by 31.4% in 2022 to $41.37 billion, marking it out as one of the digital ad segments with the highest growth.
5. On the other hand, retailers will need to come up with new ad formats and advanced capabilities to prove to brands they are effective at bringing in new customers.

Resources: Forrester, eMarketer, Retail touchpoints, ChannelAdvisor.

Retail media advertising is becoming one of the digital ad segments with the highest growth — it is estimated to jump by 31.4% in 2022 to $41.37 billion.

Source: eMarketer

by MIT Sloan School of Management and J-WEL

The Human Skills Matrix is being released by J-WEL Workforce Learning to encourage companies to build on this framework for developing skills training.

How does education prepare workers for the digital economy? How do individuals keep up with the pace of change? How will firms remain competitive?

The answer to all three of these questions requires careful examination of the skills and attributes needed by all workforce participants. Focusing on STEM skills is not enough. Every employee, whether technical or not, needs a set of essential non-technical skills to thrive in today's digitally-powered organizations. The Human Skills Matrix (HSX) captures these nontechnical skills that make rapid learning and adaptability possible across all industries. 

MIT researchers were able to identify the most sought-after skills across all. This list was then reviewed and ranked by a panel of experts drawn from the human resources, post-secondary education, workforce, public policy, and research fields. The resulting 24 top skills have been further organized into a matrix of categories focused on

1) how we think, 2) how we manage ourselves, 3) how we interact, and 4) how we lead.

Shoptalk Europe – European retail and grocery | June 6-8, 2022 | London (UK)

Shopify Unite - June/July, 2022 TBD | eCommerce & Retail

Paris Retail Week - September 20-22, 2022 | Paris (France)

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About Mert Damlapinar

Mert Damlapinar has been in director roles for eCommerce, digital marketing, and sales, he's currently Director of eRetail Insights and Tech Products for L'Oreal USA. He holds a master's degree in Applied Business Analytics from Boston University, executive management certificates in Integrated Digital Marketing from Cornell University, and Applied Data Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He's currently working on his 2nd book.

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