Welcome to the consumer-centric future of programmatic media

Programmatic media is at an inflection point right now. The old ways of targeting aren’t sustainable. Consumers are in the driver’s seat, controlling the terms of how and when their data is shared. Consumer trust must be earned every day.

Meanwhile, national brand advertisers are shining a brighter spotlight on media KPIs. As a result, programmatic media traders are under pressure to deliver more meaningful results for brand investments.

Retailers have earned a significant role to play in this new programmatic landscape. Retail loyalty programs have amassed first-party data—known consumers—at scale. As America’s largest grocery retailer, Kroger serves 60 million households nationwide. We’ve invested for many years in building a value-exchange that our shoppers understand and trust. With 96% of sales connected to our loyalty accounts, we are uniquely positioned to help brands identify relevant households and measure media impact through verified sales.

Introducing the Kroger Private Marketplace

That’s why Kroger Precision Marketing powered by 84.51° is launching a new private marketplace, which allows agencies to directly activate custom-built audiences in their preferred DSP—and measure performance against retail metrics like sales lift or household penetration.

The Kroger Private Marketplace is made for advertisers to customize everything from designing the audience and choosing measurement criteria to setting safety standards and activating in their tech stack. We designed this private marketplace to be flexible for agencies—while protecting the data of our shoppers.

Harness the power of high-quality data and targeting science

With the new Kroger Private Marketplace, advertisers tailor their audiences to match campaign objectives using targeting science exclusively available through Kroger Precision Marketing. Powered by machine learning that explores 3,000+ variables, the Kroger Private Marketplace pre-optimizes audiences to achieve business outcomes.

For instance, when aiming for conversions, the targeting science will enable brands to identify and reach households that will deliver the strongest sales impact. These activations have resulted in household penetration gains from new and lapsed households along with at least 3x more sales than the average shopper.

Safeguarding our shoppers’ data and trust

Consumer trust in Kroger is at the core of our decision to build a PRIVATE marketplace, which allows us to govern who gets to target our shoppers. We use deal IDs as the primary governing mechanism to transport audience data seamlessly and privately for one-time usage into client DSPs. The new platform applies the highest standards of data protection in the programmatic industry.

Reduce ad waste and improve ROI

Brands deserve better targeting and measurement than what the traditional programmatic space can offer. By identifying the most relevant households for each campaign, the Kroger Private Marketplace reduces wasted advertising impressions.

This solution also delivers better return on ad spend (ROAS). Traditional programmatic media can only optimize against media performance (cost per click or click-through rate), not actual sales. The Kroger Private Marketplace measures campaign results against retail metrics including sales lift, new buyers, and household penetration.

The time has come

Shopping habits have been disrupted these past two years. This is an important time for brands to be influencing new shopping behaviors. The Kroger Private Marketplace is the right tool for brands to identify relevant households, activate in their DSP of choice, and optimize against business outcomes.

Kroger’s new private marketplace is nothing short of transformative—and we believe it will shape the consumer-centric future of programmatic media.