Is the red-hot world of e-commerce, estimated to be worth over $100 billion by Boston Consulting Group, even in need of its own "upfront"? Horizon Media's much debated Night Market unit clearly believes so. Night Market, which specialises in helping customers through e-commerce and retail media options and inventory, sponsored its third annual e-commerce this week. According to Randy Browning, president of Night Market, the virtual event tackles the changing and developing world of e-commerce and shoppable media, concentrating more closely on the falling funnel (the convergence of brand growth and performance results) and the blending of data sets. There were 539 people that registered for the event. The firms exhibiting represent a growing swath of merchants that have created new income streams.
"The opportunity is that you have the power to construct a collapsed funnel in an online buying trip," Browning explained. The following are some key takeaways from the event:
Among those presenting are merchants Walmart and Kroger, both of whom have made significant investments in developing an e-commerce and retail media business stream, but are now also creating data with its own financial value.
"People think retail advertising is just sponsored product listings in e-commerce," said Jill Smith, director of agency relationships at Kroger Precision Marketing, which is now part of the 84.51° data science division. "However, we've entered a new era of retail media." Kroger Precision Marketing's first-party sales data is now being used by companies to target and improve programmatic ad campaigns on the open web."
Nonetheless, retail media is still vying for a larger proportion of media purchasers' attention, despite the fact that marketers have embraced it. According to a recent Digiday+ Research poll of 59 agency and marketer executives, the larger retail firms have yet to witness a major increase in media expenditure. That might be related to why the eCommFronts are taking place.
New channels
e-commerce also includes ad-tech and platform players such as Meta,
Bertsmart, GoPuff, Instacart, Criteo, Roku, and The Trade Desk. Now that the shops have created their media channels, the next step is to programmatically sell some of their goods, as well as pursue additional offline options. "Think about it from a branding standpoint, where we move from awareness to consideration, and all of this with a closed-loop approach to attribution that does not require cookies," Browning added. We are really optimistic about the future of this prospect."
Streaming, which appears to be omnipresent in every media strategy, is making its way into the e-commerce equation as well. "Streaming TV is the next frontier of commerce," Kroger's Smith explained. "Roku CPG marketers can now utilise our sales data to target the households they want to reach, such as lapsed purchasers of a specific salsa or toothpaste brand, and then assess the incremental impact of that advertising."
Uncertainty about the near future?
Browning recognised that the path ahead isn't paved with gold, citing an unsolved gap between shopper marketing expenditures and media strategy as an impediment to smooth growth. He went on to say that improved data alignment between client and retailer is another area that might benefit from the deployment of clean room technology.
Even in these period of thickening economic skies, the earning potential remains bigger than that of most other media. "The ideal chance to communicate to a consumer is at the point of purchase, or when they are in the closest vicinity to conversion - moving a real shopping cart or adding to a digital one," said Albert Thompson, managing director of digital innovation at Walton Isaacson. "It is the revenue return solution in marketing because of its strong correlation for directly influencing sales." What gives it even more clout is its supply-chain expertise, which means it is geared around the volume of product available in real-time, so expenditure is changed in direct connection with supply and demand."
One prominent commerce expert stated that while agency budgets tend to shrink during difficult economic times, e-commerce budgets are rarely affected since they are directly linked to sales, which firms want when market circumstances deteriorate.
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