It is no secret that the data retailers have is unparalleled and the growth of Retail Media Networks (RMNs) is interlinked with this. This blog dives into the utilisation of retailer data, how it can be used across other media channels, and how the insights can enable brands to sharpen their advertising campaigns.
A big thank you to the following contributors for sharing their thoughts:
Helen Johnson, Group Director at SMG
Esme Robinson, Director Platform Solutions at Epsilon
Jakub Rutkowski, Head of Digital Media at Allegro
Ollie Walls, Director Commerce Media at PubMatic
Esme: “We all know retailer first party-data is the cornerstone of a Retail Media offering, and this can encompass multiple things – who is buying, what are they buying, when are they buying, trends, performance, and insights – all sorts of invaluable data that can be used to deliver impactful messages to build a trusting relationship between consumers and brands, and measure impact. In addition to this, RMNs can partner with vendors with second or third-party data bringing further intelligence and insights to brands, to create more relevant and personalised messages across the whole funnel. Even with users who may be new to the retailer or brand.”
Jakub: “RMNs uniquely combine media performance metrics with deep insights into customer behaviour, offering a level of data that other sources cannot provide. This combination enables brands to better understand their audience, craft personalised communication, and verify what works, driving meaningful engagement and measurable impact.”
Helen: “Retailer data has always held high value to brands, from historic CRM programmes to general EPOS data. However, the landscape has transformed over the past 5 years with the explosion of rich, large-scale loyalty card schemes and critically the development of technology which has made this data available to advertisers in a sophisticated way across instore, onsite, and offsite.
Taking the UK as an example, with 80% of British shoppers being members of at least one loyalty scheme and thus many UK retailers having millions of consumers as an addressable audience, this has cemented retailer first-party data as a powerhouse in delivering superior insights, precision targeting at scale and the holy grail of closed-loop measurement to brands.”
Ollie: “RMNs provide brands with comprehensive shopper data, including transaction details, real-time inventory, and loyalty programme insights. The data covers customer demographics, purchase frequency, preferences, and lifetime value analysis. Brands gain access to basket composition patterns, product competitive intelligence, price sensitivity and sales performance metrics, and online purchasing behaviour including basket abandonment.”
Jakub: “IAB Europe’s standardised metrics, provide robust tools for most campaign needs, offering valuable insights into performance. Additionally, there is an opportunity for brands to collaborate closely with RMNs to develop tailored campaigns that align with specific goals. For example, in partnership with Pampers, we focused on engaging new customers by using RMN data (developed by the Data Science team) to expand the brand’s audience, focusing on the audience with the highest growth potential. This collaborative approach in setting up a campaign highlights how working together can maximise results, creating a win-win dynamic between RMNs and brands."
Helen: “Retailer data has transformed the advertising process and net output for brands and consumers. From a targeting perspective, brands can not only target their consumers with superior precision but also target consumers who have a high propensity to buy or engage with their brand, limiting media wastage. With closed-loop measurement, brands can measure if their campaigns deliver incremental sales based on real (not claimed or inferred) purchases across both in-store and online and critically this can be done in real-time, allowing optimisation across touchpoints and creative executions.”
Esme: “Beyond the expected performance metrics, which are becoming increasingly standardised thanks to work by organisations such as IAB Europe, there are a host of other insights that can be provided to brands. For example, basket analysis to showcase what other products/categories customers are shopping alongside a brand, or share analysis to see how a brand is trending against the wider category or even how frequently customers are purchasing a brand (vs other brands/the category) – these examples all create actionable insights.”
Ollie: “Retailer data delivers actionable campaign insights, enabling precise customer segmentation and a deeper understanding of purchase behaviours. Through detailed analytics, brands can develop targeted advertising strategies, uncover cross-category patterns, and benchmark against market dynamics. This data-driven approach maximises ad relevance, engagement, and conversion rates.”
Helen: “Some of the UK’s retail loyalty schemes have been around for decades, often meaning that some are operating in clunky legacy data systems, and thus connecting these to third-party channels can be challenging. There are multiple data tech partners available but retailers have three key need areas 1) a simple way of sorting and having visibility of data internally; 2) a clean room that provides a secure, privacy-compliant way for data to be analysed and/or shared with other data sets; 3) an interoperable identifier such as EUID or RampID that allows retailer data to be matched and used across non retailer inventory such as the open web in a GDPR compliant way.”
Esme: “Identity resolution has to be the number one priority here – to create audiences of real people tied to real transactions, connected to attributes or insights to create a segmentation, to control frequency, to tie channels back to conversions without double-counting, all of this relies on tying touchpoints to a real person. This is easier said than done, and working with a vendor who can offer both identity resolution and activation allows brands and retailers to minimise wastage and signal loss and have more control over the end-to-end process.”
Jakub: “Here we face two sides of the Retail Media coin. The good news for brands is that even without their own data, RMNs can provide all the necessary insights and tools to drive success. On the other hand, this places responsibility on retailers to understand, manage, and continually enhance these capabilities. At Allegro, being at the forefront of MarTech innovation is a key priority—not just in advertising but across the entire organisation. This includes unifying our user ID graph, implementing a CDP by year-end, and more still to come. From a brand perspective, if they don’t have their own data, the RMN can provide the necessary data and tools to deliver successful campaigns.”
Ollie: “Retailers need a robust data strategy built on either a CDP (Customer Data Platform) or DMP (Data Management Platform) to develop their desired taxonomy. Retailers can share their data through direct integration with supply-side platforms (SSPs) to enable targeting for media buyers and advertisers, or by partnering with data onboarding specialists to facilitate secure data transfer. The recommendation here is for partners to offer buyers core targeting options plus custom segment capabilities. This approach generates market demand and interest for their data without having to upload the full catalogue.”
Jakub: “Standardisation and transparency. These are the homework RMNs must complete to succeed, especially as over 50% of brands see them as key challenges. Establishing these foundations builds trust and attracts advertisers’ investment. I've highlighted data capabilities and MarTech implementation, but the Retail Media wave also requires retailers to think and act like media owners. Offsite means that no inventory is within retailer ownership, making partnerships with publishers essential. At Allegro, we prioritise collaboration with major local and global platforms such as Google (YouTube), Meta, and TikTok to deliver impactful and scalable campaigns.”
Helen: "There are three core strategies retailers are driving – firstly, ensuring that they have a sizable (in terms of breadth and depth) addressable audience, ensuring that their first-party data is competitive and has a clear proposition usage for brands. Secondly, they have been creating alliances with third-party media owners such as CTV, social platforms and open web DSPs ensuring that they are offering brands a full omnichannel proposition to activate against and elevating their capabilities in planning, activation and measurement to deliver this. Lastly, they are looking at broadening their access to brand investment, creating partnerships with media agencies and developing their non-endemic strategy."
Esme: “For brands to invest, retailers need to be competitive in what they offer. This can be anything from data hygiene and organisation, to channels offered, and measurement capabilities. Regardless of the individual capabilities, what RMNs need to do is reduce fragmentation. Fragmentation was the number one investment barrier (58% of respondents) according to IAB Europe’s ‘Attitudes to Retail Media Report’. By working with the right partners, retailers can reduce fragmentation for a better experience and will be rewarded with increased investment.”
Ollie: “UK retailers are expanding offsite data strategies through partnerships with DSPs, SSPs, social platforms, and broadcasters. Using data clean rooms enables secure insight sharing for targeted advertising across digital, social, and CTV platforms. The integration of in-store and online data drives personalised offsite campaigns, enhancing customer engagement and omnichannel strategy. While larger retailers already monetise their data for offsite use, others seek guidance on activation. The convergence of retail data and CTV has created direct partnerships with broadcasters for first-party data measurement and monetisation. Success depends on maintaining customer trust through relevant advertising that enhances the shopping experience.”
Ollie: “I have seen this successful typically when the advertiser, agency, and retailer collaborate in their approach. An example would be a health and beauty brand that partnered with a retailer to leverage first-party data for market share growth. They analysed purchase history to deliver personalised ads across digital, social, and in-store channels. Customers who bought specific products received targeted ads for complementary items, creating cross-selling opportunities. This integrated approach significantly increased both online and in-store sales, with clear measurements, showing digital ads' impact on physical purchases—proving the value and effectiveness of retailer data in offsite advertising.“
Jakub: “I’ve already mentioned the Pampers case, and we also have recent examples of collaboration with a cosmetic brand (achieving a ROAS of 10), and a cleaning supplies brand (reaching 5.5 million category buyers). Leveraging first-party data is the sine qua non of digital campaign success. 85% of our campaigns are powered by this data, delivering a twofold increase in ROI compared to those without it. Our MarTech implementations enable a 90% customer match rate for offsite activities. With 20 million monthly users, our data drives an average of 50% better ROAS than industry benchmarks while reducing media waste by targeting only relevant audiences.”
Helen: “A360, which is Boots’ award-winning first-party data proposition, connects the 16MM users of Boots’ Advantage Card to both Boots’ owned and third-party media channels. This allows brands to deliver audience-led campaigns across instore, online and offsite with precision planning, real-time optimisation and closed-loop measurement within the AI-enabled proprietary software platform Plan Apps, both at a managed and self-service level. This has been used by brands such as L’Oreal, Oral B, Dior, Dove, Phillips and Estée Lauder. It has proven to deliver positively against short-term conversion in incremental ROI as well as measures such as new to brand and category and longer-term customer value, transforming the role Boots can play for brands across the total media funnel.”
Esme: “Currys, representing the largest consumer transactional database for electrical purchases began to leverage their first-party data with Epsilon – linking to Epsilon’s COREid and enhanced with contextual and buyer demographic information to provide deeper understandings and message the most relevant in-market individuals to ensure better targeting, performance and more efficient media spend. By connecting in-store data, Currys was able to see the impact of the advertising on offline sales, with 26% of tracked purchases occurring in-store and achieving a total of 8:1 SKU-level ROAS with 65% of buyers being new-to-brand. By taking advantage of the retailer’s rich first-party data and Epsilon’s offsite behavioural information, it was able to reach a large audience in a short period, driving real revenue and value for Currys and Currys brands.”
IAB Europe’s Retail Media Committee is at the forefront of the Retail Media industry. Members are driving Retail Media growth and shaping the landscape by:
All of the committee's work can be found in our Retail Media Hub here.
Find out more about getting involved by contacting Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett@iabeurope.eu.
