EXCLUSIVE: Advertisers Will Soon Be Able to Buy Macy’s Media Network Through Amazon

Macy’s Media Network, the retailer’s advertising arm, today announced a partnership with Amazon Retail Ad Service, the ecommerce giant’s adtech product for other retailers.

The deal allows advertisers to buy sponsored product ads on Macy’s ecommerce website through Amazon Ads’ platform and retail ad-buying firms like Pacvue. Michael Krans, Macy’s vice president of retail media, described the deal as “complementary” to the retailer’s current adtech stack, including Criteo.

The goal, Krans said, is to allow more brands access to Macy’s ad inventory without having to go through Macy’s sales representatives or technology. A pilot will begin sometime this fall, though a start date has not yet been set.

“[We want to be] where media buyers want to buy,” he explained. Working with Amazon Ads is one way to simplify the ad-buying process in workflows that are familiar to advertisers and to their API partners, he said.

The announcement comes amid rising competition within the retail media adtech space, as smaller players like Koddi, Mirakl, and Topsort put pressure on incumbents like Criteo. With Amazon’s offering gaining steam, that pressure could compound.

Befriending Amazon

Macy’s is the first major retailer to sign onto Amazon’s ad product since the product debuted in January. Since Amazon’s launch, sources told ADWEEK that retailers were wary of the idea of working with Amazon—a major competitor for most of them—due to concerns over data privacy.

Krans said that Macy’s won’t share personally identifiable customer data with Amazon. Some transaction data will be shared with Amazon through AWS clean rooms to support sales attribution, he said.

“We have a lot of confidence in what we’ve arranged with Amazon RAS so that we are being very protective of any customer data,” Krans said.

In January, Amazon listed three ecommerce businesses as beta partners of Amazon Retail Ad Service: Party-supply retailer Oriental Trading Company, health and wellness store iHerb, and Asian supermarket Weee!

Macy’s Media Network “share[s] our passion for putting customers first and exploring innovative ways to connect brands and shoppers,” Celeste Donahoe, global head of Amazon Retail Ad Service, said in a statement. “We’re excited to see how Amazon Retail Ad Service can help brands selling in Macy’s digital stores reach customers in a simple, streamlined, and impactful way.”

The deal “marks a pivotal shift in retail media,” Melissa Burdick, president of Pacvue, said in a statement. “Advertisers will soon benefit from the full power of Pacvue’s unified platform to drive immediate scale, performance, and efficiency.”