With retail media set to account for one in eight digital ad dollars, mature retailers are already growing sales by expanding how they reach consumers and the ad products they offer to brands.
Historically, retail media has been focused on lower-funnel tactics, but Amazon and Walmart are now offering a full-funnel experience to advertisers through video ad offerings.
Some of these upper funnel ad products include:
Amazon Sponsored Brand Video (popular). These are CPC ads that link customers to the product detail page so they can learn more and purchase.
Amazon CTV-based offerings. Amazon’s CTV ads are becoming increasingly sophisticated due to the amount of data the company is able to collect from consumers. This ad option allows advertisers to directly tie and measure campaign attribution and conversion.
Amazon Shoppable CTV video ads allow consumers to make Amazon purchases while watching an ad on TV.
Walmart’s sponsored placements across in-store TV walls. This combines DOOH ads with the fact that shoppers are in store and able to purchase at that moment. Walmart is one of the largest in-store activations and digital out-of-home ad platforms in the country.
Why is This Important?
As retail media expands into a full-funnel experience, brands can not only create awareness with targeted, shopper-specific consumer sets, but seamlessly lead them to making a purchase.
With Amazon’s sponsored brand video and CTV-based offerings in particular, brands can create more demand generation and consumer interest into their products. This, in turn, will drive more sales.
Final Takeaways
Ecommerce is growing rapidly, and the advertising capabilities of retail media is expanding as well. Instead of focusing on providing only lower funnel tactics to advertisers, Amazon and Walmart are becoming more advanced by offering a full-funnel experience. Will Instacart and other retailers follow?
Critically, the time is now for brands to truly consider the two largest retailers, Amazon and Walmart, a complete advertising ecosystem.