Closing the Measurement Gap in CTV and Retail Media

Retail media is entering a new era of rapid growth and off-site expansion, bringing both opportunity and complexity for advertisers. The following byline (featured in Total Retail) by Digital Remedy CRO Jeremy Haft explores how lessons from CTV’s evolution—and the push for unified measurement and simplified tech stacks—can help brands and agencies thrive in an increasingly fragmented landscape.

Retail media is experiencing a full-blown boom phase. This is great news for advertisers and agencies — it means more retail media networks (RMNs) investing in best-in-class, competitive technology, providing more ways to reach target audiences. The catch is that when growth extends in all directions, the process of pursuing business objectives becomes that much more complex. Not only do the nuances of ad tech, but so too the need for speed given the media dollars at stake.

Sound familiar? The digital media industry has also been working on solving complexity and improving efficiency in connected TV’s (CTV) own boom phase. Along the way, forward-leaning brands and agencies have learned quite a bit about how to thrive amidst CTV complexity. Of course, there’s another important reason why RMNs should look at CTV’s evolution: RMNs are rapidly expanding into offsite channels, including CTV. Most retailers started this game with limited ad inventory on their owned and operated sites, and the natural way for them to grow is to bring in quality inventory across the open web. This gives advertisers more reach as well as a greater variety of valuable consumer data. Along the way, advertisers and agencies will have the benefit of their experiences in navigating the CTV landscape — where they’ve learned a lot about how the right adtech partners can provide the unified strategy and measurement capabilities they need to unlock the valuable opportunities promised by retail media.

The Importance of Streamlining the Ad Buy and Measurement

However, in both retail media and CTV today, platforms, systems and the entire industry lack standardization. Indeed, recent studies show lack of standardized measurement is the No. 1 challenge for advertisers in retail media, with 55 percent citing it as their greatest challenge. What might seem like a source of frustration now is in reality a font of opportunity. Businesses across the retail media landscape have a chance to take the lead and devise new ways to streamline the overall experience of the ad buy. In retail media, siloed data for targeting and measurement creates real challenges for brands while comparing in-store and online performance across retailers. Within all of those datasets, there’s a wealth of opportunity to reach consumers at a wide variety of touchpoints and show the effectiveness of the buy. But first, the data needs to be unified for efficient and accurate analysis, activation and reporting.

The next question is how brands and agencies are to seize these opportunities without further cluttering their ad stacks with point solutions. These marketplace demands are sure to drive the next wave of mergers and acquisitions in adtech. There are solutions available in the adtech market for all of these core functions that drive retail media. The incoming M&A wave will empower brands and agencies to dive into the ad channels of their choice without driving up complexity and tech fees.

In the retail media landscape, there’s no true one-stop shop for advertisers and agencies. However, there are tech partners that can provide strong cross-channel support and are innovating toward unified buying and measurement capabilities. They’re right on time. Brands and agencies are eager to test and invest in the ever-growing range of options for spending in retail media: Today, RMNs number in the hundreds, and 46 percent of marketers are buying on five to nine RMNs. Measuring performance across RMNs can seem like a daunting, manual prospect, demanding close attention to align campaign reporting and gain useful takeaways to apply to future campaign strategy. And at the heart of the fragmentation challenge is the fragmentation of data sets across media channels and buying platforms. This is especially challenging as advertisers increase their spending in offsite channels within RMNs. To navigate all of these platforms and tools, brands and agencies need a unified platform to analyze performance across all channels, enabling real campaign flexibility and agility, effective optimization, and lower operational costs.

Demand for Better Support Will Drive Adtech Innovation … and Consolidation

All of this is driving advertisers to seek tech providers that provide high-quality service and support for navigating this complexity. It’s now unreasonable to expect even the largest brands to have enough in-house specialists to effectively manage campaigns in such fragmented environments. Data unification and analysis, media buying, campaign optimization, and measurement and reporting all require specialized knowledge. Fortunately, brands and agencies can go forth and find the partnership and expertise that ultimately delivers cost efficiencies along with specialized service.

But then there’s the question of how vendors will provide this holistic support. Obviously brands and agencies will turn to their tech partners for solutions they can’t develop in-house. However, robust support across retail media and CTV channels entails a robust suite of point solutions. Adtech vendors will need to acquire the best tech and talent for the job to strengthen their own in-house capabilities and value in the marketplace. The need to serve advertisers and remain competitive will be driving the next wave of adtech consolidation, and the coming M&A trend will focus on providing cross-channel campaign support without piling on adtech fees. There’s a lot to be optimistic about when we consider the direction the adtech marketplace is moving in.

Changing Consumer Habits Lead to Shifting Ad Budgets 

Consumers are particularly concerned about the near-future state of the economy, and their spending habits are sure to reflect that anxiety. Less-than-favorable economic conditions can actually influence or inspire consumers to switch brand preferences, temporarily or permanently. This levels up the competition within the CPG industry. CPGs have been shifting more ad spend to digital channels in general, and we can expect them to increase spending and budget diversification in retail media. But to diversify, they’ll need relevant data insights from across the retail media marketplace.

This, in turn, will require technology and expertise to gather and analyze that data. To reach consumers efficiently, brands and agencies will need intent, purchase and demographic data. They’ll also need real-time reporting, holistic digital and in-store measurement, and attribution. They can find this support from partners that are dedicated to providing a unified framework for targeting and measurement across all channels.

Retail media is evolving toward a point where advertisers will be able to analyze consumer actions along the whole path to purchase. The number of consumer touchpoints is growing, as is the number of solutions and functions involved in optimizing and measuring campaigns. We will see adtech providers making strategic talent and tech buys, allowing advertisers to gain holistic campaign insights from a more streamlined tech stack and to make the most of today’s cross-channel opportunities.