Retail media networks (RMNs) offer brands powerful solutions to help craft full-funnel marketing strategies. Today’s retail advertising landscape has come to be dominated by these innovative networks. Their deep data pools and access to customers at the most relevant moment for advertisers—during shopping—mean brands of all sizes are quickly learning how valuable these assets can be. However, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of new retail media networks entering the marketplace all the time. Each of them is unique in their services and what types of audiences they provide access to. How can brands interested in taking advantage of these burgeoning networks make the most of them?  Let’s discuss how to use retail media networks as key pieces of a full-funnel marketing strategy.Full-Funnel Definition: What is a Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy?The marketing funnel consists of three main sections: awareness or attention, consideration, and conversion.

The three sections of a full-funnel marketing strategy are:

• The Top: The widest part of the funnel, where customers enter from and which represents all the leads you generate. This is known as the “attention” phase because you’ve captured a potential customer’s attention, but nothing else.
• The Middle: The interest phase. Here, customers are interested, but may still be browsing or making up their minds. They haven’t bought anything yet, so they’re still in the funnel.
• The Bottom: The purchasing stage comes last. This is where attention and interest are converted into sales. Ideally, your customer exits the funnel and enters another one.

3 Reasons RMNs are The Future of Retail Media

Retail media networks are not new, but they are growing rapidly. According to the Merkle evolution of retail media networks report, this is evidenced by 81% of CPG brands who say they plan to spend more on RMNs in the next year. The COVID pandemic likely contributed to the surge in online shopping, which funneled many customers into these RMNs for the first time. There, they got a taste of the personalization and relevance, which makes shopping in RMNs an experience that customers aren’t soon to forget. Here are three significant ways that retail media networks represent an improvement in the retail media landscape:

1. Guaranteed Context & More Relevant Ads

Customers generally enjoy seeing ads for items they’ve bought previously. This context builds trust and loyalty. Advertising directly on a retailer’s website is as contextual as it gets.  An RMN’s combination of access to customer data and natural, unobtrusive advertising gives brands the tools they need to create the relevant and targeted experiences that customers demand.

2. No Need for Third-Party Data

Retail media networks are operated by retailers directly. They collect the data for their own proprietary use and make it available for brands to design sales promotions and new products.  This eliminates the need for third-party data sellers, which fills a big hole left by the death of cookies.  It also results in more reliable data that is less prone to security failures.

3. Better Personalization

Customers today are demanding more and more personalized shopping experiences.  Access to second-party data and the ability to pinpoint target ads means RMNs allows for a new level of personalization in a full-funnel marketing strategy.  Emails, banner ads, suggestions, and even promotions and sales can be personalized to individual customers like never before.

The Best Types of Ads to Run on Retail Media Networks

The main strength of retail media networks is their ability to facilitate highly relevant and targeted advertisements to customers in contextual situations. Think of the “customers also liked” widget or a series of sponsored items that appear at the front of search results. These kinds of native, unobtrusive advertisements are the bread and butter of RMNs. Here are seven ideas you can start designing your full-funnel digital marketing strategy around:

1. Omnichannel Content

It’s best to focus on all types of content when using RMNs for a full-funnel media strategy. This includes video, audio, interactive content, and social media posts. The ability to target all kinds of ad content means the extra expense of producing video and audio may be more cost-effective than ever before.  For example, Amazon Advertising allows for audio and video sponsored ads that can be purchased for display across the entire network. High-traffic banner ads can easily put your logo and product in front of thousands of eyes.

2. Sponsored Search Results

One of the most well-known types of ads run on RMNs are sponsored search results in which your product is guaranteed to show up at the top of search results.  Nearly every online retailer includes this feature, which Amazon spearheaded. That means they should be a mainstay in your full-funnel strategy for targeting those at the top of the funnel.

3. Shoppable Media

Shoppable media are things like social media posts about products that include links directly to a store’s checkout page. In essence, it’s like getting customers to browse items while they engage with social media. If you can place the correct item in front of the right customer at the right time, a link that takes them directly from a social post to the checkout screen could seal the deal before they know they are shopping.

4. Suggested/Related Items

These are like digital endcaps where customers can see recommendations for items they’ve purchased.  Data-driven RMNs also recommend items relevant to the customer’s purchase, like an accessory.

5. Targeted Email Ads

While targeting emails is nothing new, the access to customer data that RMNs can provide makes the process easier and more efficient.

6. Custom Promotions

The massive amounts of data that RMNs generate mean the ability to design sales and promotions with a precision that wasn’t possible before. RMNs like Wayfair allow for custom promotions that can be researched using their proprietary data. Design sales for customers in specific regions, for particular products, or along any line that makes sense for your business.

7. Sponsored Brand Ads

Like a display of items arranged to appeal to customers who are just walking into a storefront, sponsored brand ads display many products from a single brand at once. These can be banners, image posts, or even videos highlighting your products.

RMNs Make it Easier to Attribute Offline Sales to Online Advertising

A retail media network’s biggest strength might be its ability to generate high-quality that brands need to truly understand their customers. Since 90% of grocery sales are completed in-store, keeping track of sales data for CPG brands was very difficult before the rise of RMNs.  Despite this, it’s clear there’s a massive opening for technology to make the shopping experience better and more valuable for customers, brands, and retailers. According to a recent report by eMarketer, 82% of Walmart’s shoppers were using smartphones while shopping. 43% were using their phones to compare items in-store to those on Walmart.com.  As one executive points out in the report: e-commerce isn’t just a channel anymore, but a shopping tool.  A proper RMN will provide a closed loop of data attribution that makes it easier than ever to keep track of purchases:

• Data is sourced directly from first parties who voluntarily enter it as part of purchases or loyalty rewards programs.
• Brands can buy access to this data to design ads and promotions.
• Customers respond to these ads directly, whether they see them in their email inboxes or click on banner ads while on the website. Either way, their interest is tracked.
• Throughout the buying experience, customers are open to receiving more ads for relevant products or things they’ve bought before. They can also see content relevant to the item that started the journey, such as tutorials or other informational content.
• Purchases are handled by the retailer, providing yet another data point in the journey.
• Post-purchase data is easier to obtain since users have already given their information during checkout. Timely surveys or feedback requests can illuminate how customers feel after purchasing.

F.A.Q. about Full-Funnel Marketing with Retail Media Networks

Some of the most frequently searched questions about this topic include:

What Are Retail Media Networks?

A retail media network is a network of media tools like content platforms, advertising products, customer data, digital shelves, and web pages owned by a retailer. These media, tools, platforms, and data are packaged as a premium access service sold to advertisers (brands) to help them design better products, advertisements, and promotions for the retailer’s customers.

What is the Future of Retail Media?

Since 2020, e-commerce and RMNs, in particular, have seen a massive increase in revenue and customers.  As customers worldwide are adjusting to more consumer-friendly, personalized, and targeted advertising, retail media marketers will need to adjust by involving themselves as soon as possible.  Retail media networks in 2022 have proven to be the best solution for brands and retailers alike.

Why is Retail Media Important?

The retail media industry, and the rise of RMNs, are important because they represent the future of retail marketing.  The access to customer data, context, and personalization make RMNs a product too good to pass up for most brands. In other words, brands and advertisers are quickly adjusting to this increase in retail media opportunity not just because they have to—but because RMNs are succeeding and everyone in the ecosystem is taking note.

Why is Full-Funnel Marketing Important?

Designing a full-funnel marketing strategy is important for a few reasons.

• You never know when the customer will encounter any given advertisement, meaning targeting ads only to a certain place in the funnel could be inefficient.
• The customer’s experience should be streamlined, but you can’t assume it will be linear.  Customers should be able to pick up where they left off regardless of how they resume the buying process or why they paused it.
• Widening every step of the funnel can increase ROI, meaning an effective full-funnel strategy will outperform one focusing on a specific section.

Why You Might Want an Agency Like E29 To Help You Manage RMNs

Retail media networks are working for everyone involved in the equation. Retailers, brands, and customers will look for RMNs and optimize their usage in the coming years. Brands interested in helping sculpt the retail media landscape in 2022 and beyond will want to involve themselves sooner rather than later or risk lagging behind competitors who are better at leveraging RMNs, thanks to experience. Still, for small and medium-sized brands, the added time and effort it takes to interact with dozens of diverse and competing RMNs may be daunting. Agencies like E29 can manage multiple retailers’ RMNs within a single platform, making reporting uniform and allowing us to analyze the contribution of all moving parts in a comprehensive and powerful way. E29 was founded on the principles that make RMNs so successful today. Our professional media buyers and planners excel at shopper marketing, sophisticated analytics, creative ad campaigns, and modern digital advertising solutions.  If you feel your company may not have the time or resources to do it on your own, an agency like E29 can help manage your RMNs so you can stay ahead of the curve. If you’re interested in learning more about how E29 can help you manage the wide and growing world of retail media networks, click here to contact our team today.