Retailers Sharpen in-House Ads to Bring Fresh Revenue, Better Brand Service

In some ways, a new ad platform launched today (Sept. 22) by alcohol eCommerce site Drizly is the retail industry equivalent of a dating service.

Like many of its peers and rivals, the Drizly Ads suite of products is using sales data and analytics to introduce brands to customers in hopes that they hit it off and form a long-term relationship.

If done right, both brands and consumers love meeting one and other, but then again, so do retailers, D2Cs and marketplaces as it is bringing in fresh revenue just when it’s needed most.

“We know our partners are shifting to an omnichannel approach in how they market their brands to consumers,” Amit Patel, SVP of Drizly Ads and Partnerships, said in the company’s announcement.  “We’re now making it even easier for partners to advertise their products on our marketplace,” he added, noting that brands of all sizes can easily and directly connect with a large audience of high-intent shoppers.

Adding Ad Sales

To be sure, it’s not just Drizly, which is now owned by Uber, that is showing renewed interest in the otherwise mature niche that is ad sales. This, as numerous other retailers are also getting involved in what could be described as a sudden surge of renewed interest in building media presence.

Take Walmart, or its Sam’s Club warehouse unit, for example. Both brands have made major media pushes this week, with the former announcing its new Innovation Partner Program this week featuring TikTok, Snapchat, Firework, TalkShopLive and Roku, leading a fresh charge of social commerce  designed to turn browsers into buyers of the brands they love.

A week before, Sam’s Club partnered with ad and data analytics platform Pacvue to integrate new functionality into the retailer’s Members Access Platform (MAP) network, a venture that was described in the Sept. 15 press release as “enabling brands to better reach and engage with Sam’s Club members at the right moment of discovery and purchase.”

Read: Walmart Connect Launches Program to Boost Social Commerce

At the same time, ahead of its annual Unboxed event taking place in late October, Amazon Advertising is also actively building new digital bridges between sellers and buyers in a bid to help them stand out amongst multi-taskers living within what it calls the “Attention Economy.”

“Brands are looking for new ways to reach and engage audiences at scale,” Alan Moss, Amazon Ads vice president of global ad sales, said in a pre-event blog post this week. “We are inventing on behalf of our advertising customers to help them navigate the changing advertising industry and create meaningful connections with audiences,” he added.

And it’s not just eCommerce, general merchandise and warehouse clubs making moves on the media front.  At a time when groceries are on everyone’s minds, segment leaders Kroger announced last week that the Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) ad network was integrating with independent sell-side advertising platform Magnite to do streaming TV ads, in yet another example of this dual-purposed shift.

See also: Digital Advertising Industry Sees Recurring Payments Key to Profitable Growth

“With people consuming more TV hours through connected devices, brands need access to retail sales data in the programmatic CTV environment,” Michael Schuh, VP of Media Strategy and Program Development at Kroger Precision Marketing said in the announcement. “We expect this collaboration will help solve for supply fragmentation and bring scale for CPG advertisers who are looking to activate on CTV,” he added.

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