Retail media
Retail media is advertising sold by retailers (supermarkets, chains, marketplaces) on their own channels and using their purchase data, so that brands can reach shoppers close to the moment of decision.
It includes ads on the retailer’s website and app, sponsored products in the store’s search results, in-store screens and, increasingly, off-site campaigns that use the retailer’s purchase data to target people on other media. For the retailer it is a new revenue stream; for the brand, a way to talk to the people who actually buy its category.
Its strength lies in real purchase data and measurement: it is possible to know whether the people who saw the campaign went on to buy. Its limit is that each retailer only sees what happens in its own stores. Audiences built from purchasing behaviour in the physical world extend that view beyond a single retailer.
