需要了解：什么是零售媒体网络，为什么大家都在谈论它们？

如果你在亚马逊上搜索华夫格编织毯，在塔吉特（Target）搜索夏季款式，或者在百思买（Best Buy）搜索洗碗机，你很有可能看到的第一个搜索结果就是赞助商广告。你可能还会在页面顶部看到一个促销横幅，在滚动一两下后看到一个精美的品牌视频。这就是零售媒体的作用：根据你的购物心情量身定制的广告。

Retail media networks are all about seizing the moment, so let’s jump right in.

什么是零售媒体网络？

According to eMarketer, a retail media network is “an asset owned and operated by a retailer that publishes advertisements, or a third-party publisher with ads that leverage a retailer’s first-party shopper data.”

零售商收集有关您购物行为的数据，并用于个性化您的购物体验，包括您看到的广告。他们可以利用你的购物档案以及从你与他们的互动中了解到的其他信息，影响你在社交媒体、CTV 和数字广播上看到（或听到）的广告。除此之外，零售媒体网络还能将印象与平台上的销售无缝地联系起来，这在以前是不可能实现的。 

零售媒体是如何起步的？

对于大多数行业观察家来说，零售媒体的诞生是亚马逊于 2012 年发布的程序化广告解决方案--亚马逊广告平台（AAP）。

Learning from people’s shopping behavior, presenting them with relevant offers and reaching them at the point of purchase wasn’t exactly a new idea. Direct to consumer (DTC) brands, and brands with loyalty programs before them, had long used first-party shopper data to target consumers. And grocery chains and big box retailers have always featured in-store displays and promotions. But the scale and automation offered by Amazon were unprecedented.

From about $600 million that first year to $45 billion in 2023, the rise of Amazon’s ad business has been meteoric—and that was before the launch of its ad-supported Prime Video tier in early 2024. Over time, its success has drawn hundreds of other retailers into the media business. Walmart, Target, Kroger, Instacart, The Home Depot and others are fueling a sector that’s growing at twice the pace of social media (16.3% vs. 8.7% in 2023, according to the IAB) and is expected to overtake linear TV over the next couple of years.

为什么会有这么大的热情？

零售媒体网络是零售商、品牌和消费者的三赢之举。

For large retailers, scale and specialized audiences can represent a whole new revenue stream—with much stronger margins than their core retail business to boot. BCG estimates retail media margins in the 70% to 90% range for onsite ads and 20% to 40% for offsite ads, at a time when inflation, supply-chain issues and other macroeconomic conditions are putting intense pressure on retailers’ standard lines of business.

For brands, retail media networks offer a chance to create audiences based on recent shopping behavior and reach those audiences with finely tuned messages at a time when they’re likely to be more receptive to those messages. Relevant ads to the right people and in the right context is a great combination, especially now that third-party cookies and other legacy identifiers are (slowly) being deprecated. And retail media networks aren’t limited to lower-funnel campaigns either. No wonder 70% of global marketers say retail media networks are more important to their 2024 media plan than the previous year.

消费者也是赢家，因为他们在夏威夷选购冲浪板短裤和浮潜课程时，不会看到雪地夹克或阿拉斯加游轮的广告。

重要的媒体组合考虑因素

对于广告商来说，零售媒体无疑是一个令人兴奋的新渠道，但只有出于正确的原因，您才应该对其进行投资。受众是否值得付出更高的成本？您不仅能接触到现有客户，还能接触到有吸引力的新潜在客户吗？它与其他媒体组合的配合如何？您是否有一致的报告来比较其他零售网络的表现？

Too many marketers add retail media to their mix out of fear of missing out or out of concern that retailers might retaliate with inferior ‘shelf’ placement if they don’t buy advertising on the platform—something Forrester described as a form of hidden tax. Some advertisers are also under the impression that retail media networks solve the attribution puzzle with their closed-loop measurement because they’re so close to the moment of purchase. But last touch attribution isn’t any more reliable just because it’s on retail media.

将零售媒体视为另一种渠道

With hundreds of options on the market, over two-thirds of ad buyers (69%) are overwhelmed by the complexity of the current retail media buying process. While there are calls for standardization, it’s still largely siloed from other media transactions—to say nothing of the process of reconciling retail media buying with the rest of the media ecosystem. Four in ten ad buyers have only enough bandwidth to work with at most three retail media networks at a time.

In a sign that retail media is maturing, the IAB just proposed new standards in Europe to tear down silos between players and harmonize their offerings. At Nielsen, we think that’s a good first step. Brands need consistent, transparent and outcomes-minded measurement across all of their media partners to get a full picture and build confidence in their overall media spend.

这一信心因素对于释放实际支出至关重要。虽然广告商可以因为可衡量的销售提升而转移部分预算，但零售媒体所能提供的增量价值仍存在不确定性。 零售媒体所能做的最好的事情就是被当作其他渠道来对待。要想大规模转移实际预算，就必须在所有衡量指标上实现可比性。 

This is the right time for standards. Online and offline retail media are merging thanks to the rise of digital “smart” shelves, in-store mobile experiences and loyalty programs that connect in-store and online data to build holistic consumer profiles.  And retail media is already growing beyond lower-funnel activities and even retail, for that matter, with market leaders like Lyft, Marriott 和 Chase showing the way. It’s also crossing over into the CTV space, with trailblazing partnerships between Instacart and Roku, Walmart and Peacock, and of course Amazon and Prime Video.