Media Buying Briefing: Walmart moves to eliminate DSP waste for media agencies as its retail media profile rockets

The retail giant’s retail media offerings have grown so vast that earlier this year it announced a demand-side platform (DSP) in partnership with The Trade Desk that’s gone live recently.

Though sometimes worth it, using more than one DSP creates potential headaches for agencies and clients on a few fronts, said Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer, Omnicom Media Group (OMG). “Bringing another DSP into the equation means you can’t manage frequency, you’re making a tradeoff with unique reach, and sometimes you’re bidding against yourself. There’s a lot of waste that happens,” she said. Walmart has eliminated all those obstacles, she added.

“We listened to marketers,” explained Stephen Howard-Sarin, vp of strategy and transformation at Walmart Connect (formerly Walmart Media Group). “This ability to frequency-cap across campaigns, regardless of whether the campaign is running in a traditional TTD seat or in the new Walmart DSP seat, we didn’t know we could do. We’ve been able to eliminate this additional tax, this barrier of starting off with a new DSP accessing the data because we can now do campaign-level managing frequency so are not bidding against themselves.” 

Walmart’s efforts are just the latest example of the growing importance of e-commerce, which supercharged the retail media space to the point where many major retailers — notably in the grocery and food space — offer sophisticated options for CPG advertisers to sell their wares on the retailers’ far more robust websites and digital destinations. And the media agency side has taken to this growing world of marketing opportunity like a fish to water. 

“Retail media is a huge part of the discussion and probably the fastest growing element we talk about with our CPG and FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] clients,” said Sam Bukowski, group director, commerce strategy, at GroupM agency Wavemaker.

Walmart’s move speaks to the growing sophistication of the retail media space, but it’s not alone. In mid-September, grocery chain Albertson’s partner with video platform Firework to turn its websites into the “Pinterest of food,” according to Jason Holland, president of Firework. That includes adding livestreams and shoppable videos across Albertsons’ 20 store brands, from Vons to Jewel-Osco and Balducci’s. 

“We believe businesses have to start owning and controlling the connectivity to their consumers again,” said Holland. “We’re entering the platform era, where an Albertsons or a Kroger or a Macy’s or a Nordstrom all compete with TikTok and Snapchat, because we’re going to be blending on the open Web upper-funnel entertainment, or shoptainment, with lower-funnel conversion, all taking place in one ecosystem, which is a website.” 

Holland said that allows businesses to own their first-party data, they can attribute consumer views and can map it through to conversion of the sale — with greater return on investment. “The ROAS component on this is incredibly powerful. The conversion we see relative to the conversion of media exposure in the walled gardens is probably close to 5X,” he added. 

“We are aiming to bring digital shopping and online experiences closer to the … sense of discovery, freshness, and community that a customer experiences in our stores,” said Albertsons’ vp of digital marketing Usman Humayun. “It’s what today’s customers expect and their ever-growing digital engagement continues to validate this for us.”

Wavemaker’s Bukowski is watching all these developments with a careful eye. “It will be interesting to see where people [are] trying to force shift in consumer behavior versus where are the natural cues that consumers want something more,” she said.

And just because media agencies have taken to these opportunities with gusto doesn’t mean it’s easy, said Bukowski.

For one, what used to be clearly delineated budgets (shopper, trade, advertising & promotion, coop) now gets blurred with these new options, and it requires agencies to break down internal walls to effectively use retail media. For another, agencies have to keep up with constant changes and updates to the ad platforms (such as Walmart’s news above), along with their data/measurement abilities, physical ad unit capabilities and then having a perspective on all those changes.

“You have to do your due diligence on what capabilities exist, their maturity, keep in mind brand safety, and keep your own independent tracking,” said Bukowski. “And it demands a lot of agility.”

Color by numbers

Since it’s still Hispanic Heritage Month, Tubular Labs has some interesting stats on Latino audiences and their online video viewing habits.  

• In August 2021, Spanish-language YouTube content in the U.S. generated over 15.9 billion views. That’s a 30% increase since 2018.
• YouTube engagements also ballooned, growing to nearly 278 million in August 2021 from 108 million in 2018.
• Music outpaces other categories of Spanish-language videos in the U.S. by nearly 17 times. 
• Finally, since 2018, Spanish-language influencers in the U.S. have generated 245 billion views, while brands generated 8.6 billion. Influencer videos receive an average of over 51,000 views per upload, while brands attract an average 30,000.

Takeoff & landing

• Anheuser-Busch launched a global media agency review, but only considering its incumbent agencies, which include Publicis, WPP and Dentsu. The review is being handled by MediaLink. 
• GroupM’s Mediacom consolidated all of pharmaceutical giant Bayer’s business after a review, adding Germany, Russia and China to its roster. Bayer’s total media spend is estimated at $800 million. 
• You & Mr. Jones, which bills itself as a brand tech company, acquired a majority stake in DP6, a Brazil-based martech and data firm, to expand its Latin American footprint. The group said it has generated more than 50% organic growth through August 2021 compared a year ago.
• Ad platform Amobee announced a partnership with ID5 to deploy a cross-device solution that will be offered across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. ID5’s first ever EMEA-wide privacy-first cross-device graph aims to comply with Europe’s stringent privacy requirements.

Direct quote

“TikTok is probably not the right place for life insurance. However, even for a traditional brand, if it authentically is willing to take risks, make changes and look awkward a little (which is what TikTok’ers themselves do in order to gain acceptance and credibility), TikTok could be a great platform to reintroduce itself to a younger audience.” 

— Anne Hunter, vp of product marketing at consumer insights platform Disqo.

Speed reading

• Did you miss Digiday’s Publishing Summit in Miami last week? You’re in luck because senior media editor Tim Peterson rounded up the highlights from Digiday’s first in-person conference since the beginning of the pandemic. 
• Digiday’s gaming and esports reporter Alex Lee continues to cover the rapidly expanding metaverse, with the latest news being a partnership between AT&T and esports company 100 Thieves.  
• Marketing Dive offers a cogent summation of holding company WPP’s deal with Snap to jointly develop augmented reality products. 

Media Buying Briefing: Walmart moves to eliminate DSP waste for media agencies as its retail media profile rockets