Key to retail media’s success here, he says, will be the next generation of technology that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver a hyper-personalised experience for consumers, critical to achieving omnichannel integration.
As Odd explains, retail media is an opportunity for a retailer to use its assets – most importantly, including its data – to have a unique conversation with a customer and allow brands to access that customer as well. “It’s about opening up engagement and getting a better understanding across the customer lifecycle – both directly as a retailer and also with the perspective of an advertiser or brand.”
Offering online, off-site, and in-store marketing opportunities is critical to success. But the real benefits come when you link all those channels with a customer ID so you have a consistent and contextually relevant conversation with the customer. Without that link across channels your messaging and approach can become disjointed and inconsistent leading to a poor customer experience.
“There are a lot of people in the market saying they do omnichannel retail media, which is great but it’s only one element. The other key ingredient is linking those channels to a unique customer. After all, the customer experience is critical to a successful retail media network.
“Linking all channels together is critical to ensuring a retailer can provide a true omnichannel, contextually relevant customer experience.”
Odd says Epsilon is seeing significant investment in retail media. “We are still seeing consistently high growth in more mature markets and this bodes well for the growth trajectory in Australia-New Zealand and the broader Asia-Pacific region.” Odd is bullish about the growth trajectory of retail media in Apac, suggesting that in only a few years it could rival other more mature markets or regions.
Epsilon’s point of difference is that it brings the company’s unique capabilities in applying artificial intelligence against person-first identity to retailers looking to address advertisers’ desire to intelligently engage shoppers on retailers’ properties and across the open web. Epsilon’s Core AI analyses every potential shopper encountered, regardless of where they’re found, ensuring 100 per cent of potential buyers are evaluated for engagement.
The company’s Core ID, which it describes as the industry’s most accurate and privacy-centric consumer identifier, powers the recognition of a specific individual in any channel and feeds additional data on the shopper into the AI’s decision-making process. Armed with person-level insights, 5000 or more decisions are evaluated in the milliseconds before a bid must be placed, drastically improving outcomes.
The AI also learns from the result of each engagement, continually rewriting its models to further optimise outcomes across channels and time. This allows advertisers and retailers to go far beyond delivering the ‘right message to the right person at the right time’. AI also determines where to engage shoppers at any given time, how often to engage them in a channel or across channels, harmonises engagement across channels, and optimises the spend to acquire an impression based on the value of the shopper.
Retail media is not just for the majors
A common misconception in the retail industry is that retail media is only workable for large retailers.
Not so, explains Odd. There’s an opportunity for everyone to tap into it. While there is a little bit of extra work necessary for smaller retailers, they can take advantage of the technology as much as anyone else.
“I wouldn’t say anyone is too small, it’s just about activating the right channel and taking the right, phased approach.”
Groundwork is critical when setting it up, he says. “In the past, there’s been an expectation as soon as you set up a retail media network, you’re instantly going to make millions of dollars.” But the reality is different. “In the current climate, you need to understand what your point of differentiation is going to be. How are you going to position yourself as a retailer with your inventory and your data as beneficial to brands who want to target those customers or spend on your retail media network?”
Sometimes collaborations with similar retailers may pay off. For example, in the US Epsilon has developed the Grocery One Network, enabling a group of smaller retailers to offer a larger, combined single retail media network. “Individually, they were too small to compete with the big retailers, but combined, they can punch it out with the best with the best of them,” says Odd. “They’re using this network effect to compete with the big boys. That’s an interesting approach and something that is generating a lot of interest in other regions, like Apac.”
Why personalisation is key
Personalisation is a critical layer that goes on top of standard retail media, he explains. “One of the greatest benefits of retail media is that you can influence the customer’s decision when they are at their highest propensity to purchase – right at the checkout.
“Having that personalised approach knowing what that customer wants and serving them at the right time, on the right device, at the right moment, is super critical to getting that conversion. That’s where retail media differs from most other channels.”
That personalisation is key to building a rapport with customers – not just influencing sales at key decision-making points but as a brand-building tool.
“Retail media gives you a unique opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with your customer. And it’s not all about selling products, it’s about testing and learning, taking insights from the data to improve messaging, testing product developments, and pricing, for example. Both retailers and brands can tap into all these learnings which makes retail media unique.”
Real-time monitoring
Another compelling factor in retail media is the ease of its measurability – often in real-time.
“We can see that a customer clicked on a particular ad, put a product in their basket and purchased it. We are one of the few channels where closed-loop reporting can give you accurate data output to say your ad drove this many sales. You can see how many sales are being attributed to a specific ad and that level of granularity of reporting is critical to help brands justify their marketing spend.
While noting there is still work to be done – and that the retail media landscape is constantly evolving – Odd sees an opportunity in future to seamlessly connect in-store into a retailer’s retail media network offering. While booking a campaign on in-store inventory is the easy part, it is the accurate measurement and ensuring there is a link to the customer that makes the biggest impact.