With the surge of online shopping and ecommerce sales, e-retail sites are becoming a more popular avenue for brand advertising.

In fact, with the implementation of new privacy laws, retail media may be a necessity for publishers and advertisers. Now that third-party cookies are slowly fading away, it will be a challenge for the ad tech industry to analyze the actions of consumers after they interact with an ad.

On the other hand, many assert that retail media could be a solution to this challenge.

The advantage of retail media advertising is that the medium provides marketing that links ad spending directly to digital sales. Establishing networks to offer retail media on a large scale is the next step and predictions suggest that US Retail Media Networks will exceed $52 billion in ad sales by 2023.

“Retail media is becoming a very critical part of the digital media ecosystem,” says Brian Spencer, Marketing Director at Kroger Precision Marketing. “You know, I would say we are routinely added to brand plans now.”

What is Retail Media Advertising? According to a Xenoss study, retail media advertising is “a form of promotion on the media inventory of the retailer, with advertisers paying a platform or marketplace to showcase their products at or near the point of sale.”

The study highlights two forms of retail media advertising which include sponsored products and onsite and offsite displays. Sponsored products are generally the main form used for retail media advertising. They can be placed on a variety of pages on retailer sites such as search results pages, homepages, and product detail pages.

In addition, Spencer asserts that offsite displays offer their own set of benefits. He noticed that larger retail media networks are including offsite media into their ad packages. For example, Kroger has cultivated relationships with Pinterest, Pandora, Meta, and Roku in an effort to engage other avenues where their consumers spend time.

The advantage of retail media advertising is that the medium provides marketing that links ad spending directly to digital sales.

“We also have our own programmatic private marketplace,” says Spencer. “It allows brands to use our first-party sales data to identify most relevant households and reach those households across the open web, using their own DSP of choice.”

Spencer adds that the programmatic marketplace provides daily reports on which placements are driving sales at Kroger. It allows opportunities for advertisers and publishers to reduce wasteful impressions and connect right with the consumer.