E-commerce is evolving at a neck-breaking speed, making all things competitive. Customers today have multiple options to buy a single item from multiple touchpoints. Study reports indicate customers go to a minimum of two websites before they decide to make a purchase. Such random consumer behavior makes it even more necessary for retailers to do everything to catch the attention of their potential customers and retain the information.

This is where retail media comes into play. It is rapidly being sought out by brands. The best thing is that the channel uses a data-driven approach to boost conversions. As per studies, advertising expenses on retail media are expected to go beyond  USD 107 billion. And the impact has been considerable in the last five years, earning almost $30 billion. On the other end, data suggests that almost 44% of consumers look at ads for best-selling items before 37% buy the item.

For Amazon retailers, the good news is that retail media ads can be blended flawlessly in the shopping experience of customers. After all, around 50% of customers in the US purchase products after seeing ads on Amazon. As per data, Amazon has about 7.5% of the advertising market online. The biggest e-commerce platform offers varied ad formats to help brands strengthen their voice. Today, all major online marketplaces like CVS, Walmart, eBay, Kroger, Marriott, etc. have started their retail media networks or RMNs. All these marketplaces are also doing incredible retail media ads. Walmart’s revenue from online ads is growing at a double rate like Amazon, and eBay registered 35% year-on-year growth in Q2.

Consequently, brands need to strategize optimally to use RMNs so that they can stand out in a very crowded e-commerce landscape and gain traction.

Working with Retail Media Algorithms for Optimized Visibility

All RMNs have algorithms built in-house. The core concepts are the same in general. However, the approach to building the algorithms is the same. This cycle includes –

• Ads and promotions – publishing paid advertisements to increase the effectiveness of retail media and multiplying the other factors mentioned here.
• Owned content – This includes flawlessly-created content with product titles and descriptions, bullets for improved readability.
• Earned content – Aspects that denote customer engagement, like reviews and ratings, should be included in the content.
• Sales velocity – The path to flow, where with increased orders, organic rankings improve with improved visibility. The higher the organic position, the more visible your product will be.

Brands need to focus and maximize all these four elements to boost conversion rates, drive increased product exposure, and make sustainable growth a reality.

The Pyramid Approach to Building a Strong Retail Media Strategy

There are four main sections of the Retail Media Strategy Pyramid.

● Safeguarding Your Brand

After the first step is established, you need to strategize for brand protection. In this step, brands need to bid on branded keywords. This involves securing product detail page placements so that immediate competitors do not gain from keyword-related traffic. Brand protection campaigns result in better ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) as conversions are more likely when customers land on the site after searching for a brand. Brands have better control over their narrative, and the risk of losing customers to competitors is reduced.

● Reaching New Shoppers

Building new customers is as important as retaining old ones. To do this, brands also need to target non-branded category keywords, audience targeting based on categories, and use ad formats like Sponsored Brand Video to drive higher engagement.

The ROAS is usually lower in the case of customer acquisition campaigns than brand protection campaigns. This is because a new audience needs more time to convert as they use more time to engage with the brand. When used with brand protection, a sustainable pipeline is created for long-term growth.

● Smart Product Grouping & Keyword Strategy

This is the basis of a successful campaign. Consumer search behavior is studied and analyzed for brands to identify keywords with the highest potential for optimized performance. Big online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon offer this component for automated campaigns. Brands can use this feature to shortlist keywords that have the most potential to drive conversions, set initial ROAS benchmarks, and allocate budgets for paid media campaigns.

● Winning Over Competitor Customers

This strategy is about targeting potential customers of competitive brands. The ROAS on this strategy can be lower because multiple touchpoints are involved. However, competitor conquesting strategy is good for improving brand awareness and also targeting a higher market share. How can this be done? Start by targeting the keywords used by competitors. Ads are placed on competing product detail pages. Brands can feature promotional incentives for customers to switch from one brand to another.

How to Make Retail Media Campaigns Efficient?

Efficient retail media advertising campaigns are crucial for optimal growth. Here are a few strategies to get there –

• Curate Target ROAS for Each Strategy: Don’t stick to a single ROAS. Break it down. For example, an ROAS baseline for auto campaigns is suggested. For brand protection, higher ROAS should be targeted, a lower ROAS for new customer acquisition, while a higher CPCs for competitor conquesting.
• Budgeting As Per Strategy Goals: Remember budgets should be allocated depending on whether a brand prioritizes efficiency or growth. For efficiency, invest more in brand protection and organic ranking improvements. For growth, you need to allocate more budget to customer acquisition and conquesting.
• Keep Optimizing: For effectiveness, optimization needs to be ongoing. Examples include increasing Budgets for high-performing campaigns and using negative keywords to filter out low-performing traffic.

Retail media ads offer brands robust ways to engage consumers at the point of purchase. Brands must adopt a data-driven approach, leveraging catalog segmentation, brand protection, customer acquisition, and competitor conquesting.

Retail Media Best Practices

1. Use Automation to Save Time & Improve Ad Performance

Manual management can be unsustainable, especially when your catalog grows. Use automation tools help streamline operations. To stop underperforming ads, create filters. Create activate ads for new or seasonal products.  Also, adjust bids based on inventory and sales velocity.

2. Put Budget Behind Your Bestsellers

The ad efficiency can be driven by using precision targeting. Sponsored Products on Amazon can strategically boost visibility, and convert high-intent traffic.

• Target your own Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) so that your listings is protected from competitor ads.
• Use Sponsored Products so that these can appear on rival product pages and attract customers who are browsing similar items.
• Apply product page bid modifiers. This will help increase your visibility in high-performing placements.
• Ensure proper synergy for optimized total ad performance between your Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display campaigns.

3. Make Your Listings Work Harder

The product content is the foundation of the brand’s RMCs (Re-marketing campaigns). The content should be top-quality, and optimized so that there is enhanced visibility, organically driven. This also drives ad relevance and there are better chances of conversions. This includes –

• Visuals: Use high-resolution images. Ensure that the product is showcased from various angles. Include lifestyle shots and close-ups that convey size, usage, and key features.
• Titles: Ensure proper titles are keyword-rich and descriptive and keyword-rich. The ideal is approx. 80 characters and should include brand name, model, size, or category.
• Bullet Points & Descriptions: The product benefits should be written in a compelling manner. It should be written in easy-to-read bullet points. Use technical info too.
• Skimmability: Make the content digestible. The structure should be property formatted, spaced, with the use of concise language so that fast-scrolling shoppers are satisfied.
• A+ Content: Leverage Amazon A+ Content that is available for brand-registered sellers. The product detail page can be enhanced with branded visuals, charts, and expanded copy.

4. Organize Your Ad Campaigns Better

An organized account structure is very important for campaign efficiency and future scalability.

• Segment campaigns by product category, brand, performance tiers, or campaign objectives
• Structure campaigns around specific goals, so that targeted bidding strategies and easier performance tracking are possible.
• A clean structure is a basic criterion for effective automation and improving the agility of campaigns.

5. Try, Learn, Repeat

Online retail media is dynamically evolving. Consequently, what works today may not work tomorrow. You need to keep testing continuously. This will ensure relevance and top performance. Use A/B Testing to keep experimenting with various ad copies, formats, visuals, and target marketing. Interpret campaign metrics so that you can identify trends and opportunities. To narrate richer brand stories, Sponsored Brand Videos are recommended. You can use Sponsored Displays for retargeting high-intent audiences. Continuous testing is a learning process. It allows you to fine-tune campaigns regularly over time. This will help maximize return on ad spend (ROAS) and overall effectiveness.

These best practices can help brands enhance their retail media strategies and get better results and performance from these strategies.

With retail media becoming the new cornerstone of digital commerce, brands need to work hard on optimizing their ad strategies. It is basic and essential. With ChannelSale’s centralized platform, streamlining and scaling retail media campaigns across different marketplaces and online channels becomes easier. With these tools and automation, you can boost brand visibility, drive traffic, or hit aggressive ROAS goals. The robust technology of the ChannelSale platform helps you manage campaigns efficiently and maximize every dollar spent on advertising.