Retail media buying can now be automated based on shopping data
Profitero works with Pacvue and Skai to let brands instantly change bids based on reviews, low inventory and competitor pricing.
Konoly
Publicis Groupe’s Profitero is launching a tool in partnership with e-commerce marketing platforms Pacvue and Skai that will let advertisers automate buying and bidding for retail media based on what’s happening on the so-called “digital shelf,” how brands and products are displayed and listed.
Profitero’s Shelf-Intelligent Media offering is a sort of programmatic buying that's driven by supply chain and other market conditions rather than audience targeting. It lets advertisers automatically shut down media buys and bids when they’re running out of stock or when consumer reviews turn sour. Or they can step up bidding when a competitor goes out of stock or run “conquesting” ads to lure shoppers if the competitor raises prices unilaterally.
Take, for example, an example in the toy industry. Last holiday season, a Mattel competitor got an alert from Profitero that Mattel's Barbie Dreamhouse had gone out-of-stock at key retailers, Profitero President Sarah Hofstetter recalled. The rival marketer got the alert about the item being out-of-stock but needed to go to its agency to manually step up bidding on keywords such as “Mattel” or “dreamhouse” with each retailer. With Shelf-Intelligent Media, that process can happen automatically across many retailers, she said.
The tool is something Profitero has been working on almost since Hofstetter and CEO Bryan Wiener arrived there more than two years ago. It’s now become possible, thanks in part to the partnerships with Pacvue and Skai that can help make it work across shared clients, Hofstetter said.
“When we joined the company, we thought this was a smart idea, but the organizational design of a lot of these companies and our clients did not necessarily enable the connective tissue between digital shelf data and retail media,” Hofstetter said.
The explosion of e-commerce and retail media offerings since the pandemic began has made the need to automate processes greater, and the partner ecosystem and organizational designs are catching up to make such a tool workable now, she said.
Pacvue's e-commerce buying platform covers Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, Instacart and aggregators of retail media networks that include Criteo and Publicis Groupe’s CitrusAd. And Skai, whose clients include Hill’s Science Diet, WPP’s GroupM and Reckitt, will be pulling 325 Profitero data points into its retail performance marketing system, said Megan Harbold, VP of product marketing and communication.
“Areas where we’ve seen a lot of traction are starting and pausing campaigns based on negative reviews or non-compliant [with retailer specifications] product pages,” Harbold said. The Profitero system can also help marketers know when to step up advertising and bidding when they’re on the brink of earning an Amazon “Best Seller” badge.
“What that really means is pulling in data that informs your media for expert execution,” Harbold said. While the data has been out there, she said, Shelf-Intelligent Media should make it easier to put it into action faster.
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