Best Buy and CNET Are Combining Their Ad Inventory

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy and digital publisher CNET are teaming up to create a new retail media model, the companies said Thursday.

The electronics retailer and the publisher are combining their ad inventory, allowing advertisers to buy across Best Buy Ads’ retail media network and alongside CNET’s tech-review-focused editorial content and measure whether ads seen on either platform drove sales. CNET’s independent product reviews and expert picks will also be placed in Best Buy stores and across its website and application.

“[Partnering with CNET] will provide more value and insights to our advertising partners because it allows them to advertise and reach consumers across the shopping journey, including in that early discovery phase when they’re researching products,” Jennie Weber, Best Buy chief marketing officer, told ADWEEK.

The deal represents the first time a publisher and retailer have combined data in this way, said independent industry analyst Andrew Lipsman, and it could mark a turning point if more retailers and publishers partner in the coming months.

Tracking the customer journey

Best Buy and CNET first started working together about one year ago, testing the potential value of a partnership like the one launched Thursday. Together, the companies have an unduplicated reach of more than 50 million unique visitors per month, they said, and 5 million who already overlap.

The primary goal for Best Buy, Weber said, is to make it easier for shoppers to find the new tech products they’re looking for.

For CNET, a 30-year-old publisher that draws revenue roughly equally from advertising and affiliate marketing, being able to place its own content on Best Buy’s in-store and online channels boosts the publisher’s credibility with consumers. But it also aligns with its mission to “demystify, educate and guide our audience on the best consumer product choices,” Lauren Newman, executive vice president of revenue at CNET, told ADWEEK.

In a monthlong survey during which CNET content was displayed nationally across Best Buy’s in-store TV walls, 86% of respondents said the content made them more confident in their purchases. It also garnered a 25% lift in purchase intent, according to the companies.

“This partnership will allow us to follow that consumer journey from the point of research and intent, when we capture them in search, push them down into our content and recommendations, and then ultimately drive them over to Best Buy and see what they’re researching and ultimately what they’re purchasing,” Newman explained.

A new era of retail media

The retailer-publisher partnership could mark the beginning of a new era in retail media, according to Lipsman.

“The ability to understand whether somebody who’s exposed to ads on CNET then actually went and purchased through Best Buy—the ability to close the loop … that’s a totally new innovation,” Lipsman said.

In a January newsletter, he predicted that retailers—aiming to mimic the “flywheel” created by Amazon’s mutually beneficial media, ads and commerce businesses—would begin pairing up with relevant publishers to accelerate the growth of their retail media businesses.

He expects to see more partnerships in this realm: Think grocery chains pairing up with recipe publishers, pharmacies with health publishers or beauty retailers and fashion sites.

“This was an inevitability for the industry,” Lipsman told ADWEEK. “This is the first domino to fall.”