Topics Covered: January 30, 2023

  1. Benchmark results on Amazon ad shifts
  2. Teams restructuring for retail media
  3. Ad slowdown debate
  4. Clean room adoption
  5. Just Walk Out(performance)
  6. Getir expanding

How are brands shifting between Amazon ad types in '23?

We’ve recently published Amazon’s fast growth outlook compared to retail peers, it maintaining its dominance amongst retail media competitors, and the fact that a third of brands don’t consider Amazon a full funnel advertising opportunity.

 

We now need to examine how brands are planning to adjust their advertising spend inside of Amazon, meaning how share is shifting between Amazon paid search, display, and DSP options.

 

We benchmarked 51 consumer brands and agency partners on how they’re adjusting budget allocation in ’23. Benchmark respondents.

 

The results will help advertisers on Amazon and retail media leaders inside brands understand how their own plans stack up, along with second-order effects on other retail sites.

Continue Reading Here...

For the Nerds

Retail media restructuring teams: Like other large CPG companies, Unilever restructured their media team last year so that retail media was an integral part of the media allocation decision process.

 

"The ads team manages both national and retail media spend, meaning that one Unilever team can tweak retail media budgets to be higher or lower. Donkada's team also works with Unilever's long-time media agency Mindshare to help carve out its budgets across multiple channels."

 

Stratably's research suggests a natural progression for large brands that involves first, hiring an individual or small team to “figure out what to do” with retail media, and then re-organizing in a way that integrates retail media into the broader media strategy.

 

This often doesn't eliminate challenging questions around merging brand and sales goals, but it does tend to result in faster decision-making and a more holistic viewpoint. (Insider)

Why the social media ad slowdown: There's a debate brewing - is slowing ad spend from recessionary concerns or Apple's privacy initiatives?

 

"If a recession is afoot in the advertising market, the brands that paid a substantial premium for Netflix inventory aren’t aware of it: compare Netflix’s $65 CPM to the $50 CPM that Disney sought for Disney+ inventory, or to the $20-35 CPM range paid for cable and network television inventory. And then consider that, even at this price, with advertisers limited to utterly primitive targeting tools, Netflix couldn’t fulfill the entirety of advertiser demand for its inventory."

 

The answer is less "or" and more "and" - recessionary risk AND privacy related changes are impacting results, albeit unevenly between media types.

 

For instance, recent layoffs at consumer brands Newell and 3M highlight slowing , but at the same time, our research suggests planned ad spend at Amazon and Walmart is resilient. Both Amazon and Walmart are seeing slowing sales growth, but neither are impacted by Apple's privacy initiatives, helping buoy their performance.

 

We'll learn more this week as Snap, Meta, Google and Amazon are all set to report. (Mobile Dev Memo 1 and Mobile Dev Memo 2)

Data clean room (DCR) benchmark: IAB estimates 67% of brands are using DCRs today and another 19% are considering them.  (slide 10)

 

One of the common challenges levied against Amazon Marketing Cloud is how to take action from the insights (an area Stratably is helping illuminate with live events here, here and here).

 

The IAB study seems to confirm this with only a minority of DCR clean room users leveraging advanced measurement capabilities (slide 16) and "proving ROI" is a top challenge (slide 25). (IAB)

JWO at Whole Foods outperforming: Placer.ai data indicated Whole Foods with JWO technology tend to be attracting younger, more affluent shoppers and the technology is reducing the amount of time spent in the store.

 

While the study is limited (looking at just a couple of stores), it is a positive sign for JWO tech, which some analysts believe solves no real problem for the consumer and is too expensive to operate. 

 

The open question persists of when or if Amazon will expand its Fresh banner stores with JWO tech. (Grocery Dive)

 

Getir expanding in the U.S.: Despite the variety of challenges in the Q-Commerce market, Getir indicated it is planning to expand in the U.S. market and raise new capital.

 

This latest announcement is partly enabled by Getir removing-thru-acquisition its most formidable rival in the U.S., Gorillas.

 

However, it faces steep competition from Gopuff in addition to tests between Food Rocket and Circle K, DoorDash and Albertsons, and Instacart's Priority Delivery Service. (Insider)