Search in retail media is king today, has been for some time and will continue to be for a while. But every good story has an up-and-comer, and in our relatively new world of retail media that new kid is first-party data.
We are beginning to leverage first-party data provided by the retailers themselves, which is a big deal because it’s quite useful in helping brands move up the funnel in a more deliberate and targeted way than we’ve been able to with the traditional media options offered to us by our retail partners (e.g. search).
Think of search as allowing for the harvesting of existing demand to those roaming up and down the aisles of a supermarket. Think of first-party data as inspiration—a tap on the consumer’s shoulder to remind them of something they need or something new that they didn’t even know they needed.
I’m not talking about what has been thought of as first-party data in the recent past—namely, the pre-packed audiences assembled by retailers, giving brands access to what they were willing and able to offer at the time. The problem is there hasn’t been a ton of transparency for brands. It’s been hard for them to track progress in a timely manner; pacing is slow, and the eventual, long-awaited wrap report is often executed by the retailer in a somewhat black-box type of environment.
That’s all changing as we move more into self-service options with mature platforms like The Trade Desk and Xandr, where advertisers have direct access and control to plan, select and execute on campaigns. Brands now have the ability to layer in or supplement retailer first-party audiences with third-party data from the demand-side platform (DSP). They can even bring in their own first-party data to extend reach, de-duplicate and measure like never before.
So what do we need to do as marketers to take advantage of the ability to hone in on audiences? Today, we’ll focus on the endemic offering—using retailers’ first-party data and audiences to drive off-site traffic to specific brand pages on retailer sites.
Step 1: Research
Before launching into research, I humbly recommend my previous article on retailer loyalty programs, because this is how a good-sized chunk of first-party data is gathered. Even more importantly, it’s how retailers can close the loop on purchases and measure exposure online to an offline experience.