We speak to Nina Penwarden, Head of Retail Media Advertising Strategy and get her tips for successfully synchronising online and in-store retail media

4 min read

We hear a lot about in-store retail media and the opportunity it represents for brands and retailers. Why is it so important?

Though we hear a lot about how retailers put effort into developing their E-commerce, the store remains where more than 70% of business is usually done (sometimes closer to 85%). So, it is essential that brands are visible in-store, too: retail media online and in-store campaigns go hand in hand and produce consistently better results when they are coordinated.

Your team helps retailers coordinate online and offline campaigns. Can you tell us more about the challenges you face?

I would break them into three main challenges:

1. Firstly, getting the brand that wants to invest in both channels to align on targeting, coherent messaging and timing
2. Secondly, execution. Obtaining the right material and creating the right coordination with the teams in-store to serve the campaigns. We rely on strong local operational partnerships with our retailers and specialised operational partners, such as Médiaperformances in France.
3. Finally, measurement. In-store ad and online campaign metrics aren’t the same. So, a key challenge for retail media (across the industry) is defining a single consistent measurement framework. This is where we bring the most value to our clients.

You’ve been helping retailers such as Exito and GPA in Latin America. What has been your approach to overcoming these challenges?

My team’s retail media expertise has helped in a couple of important ways:

1. We started with each brand’s high-level objectives - this might be brand awareness, customer retention, or new audiences - and helped the retailer build compelling 360 retail media campaigns spanning online and in-store designed specifically to support each objective.
2. We’re lucky enough to have a deeply experienced and talented data team at relevanC. This capacity allowed us to analyse our client’s existing data and help them understand exactly which customers had the highest conversion potential on each channel. With that knowledge, we helped them build a true data-driven targeting strategy that encompasses online and in-store marketing.

How did you ensure the best possible exposure for brands to the chosen targeted demographics?

We know what our consumers buy and where they buy it. So, depending on a brand’s objective, we can identify which stores have the best potential to reach their target audience. Then, it’s a case of iterating for success: we refresh the analysis of our consumer base and adjust targeting based on buying behaviour and store potential.

Can you share some examples of how this approach has improved brand exposure?

The KPIs you track change depending on whether your campaign is looking to achieve increased branding influence or better shopper conversion. If we take conversion, an analysis of campaigns to date shows that we see an increase of 50% in conversion on average, where we’ve helped a retailer deploy a combined in-store and online campaign.

What advice would you give to other retailers who are struggling with integrating their online and in-store retail media?

1. • Find good partners: you won’t be able to launch in-store campaigns alone!
   • Bundle inventories and channels to support the advertisers’ objectives
   • Define an omnichannel measurement framework to make it coherent and simple for your clients to understand campaign performance
   • Provide transparent data & insights that convince brands that omnichannel activation is the most powerful way to engage existing customers and gain new ones!