BOOM: Retail Media According to Skai

We often use “BOOM” to identify a category or store brand that’s thriving. But BOOMing can also apply to trends in media buying and creative.

So, for 2024 we’ve expanded the term to cover that as well, so MULO (multi-location) brands and the agencies that work with them can identify how to better reach consumers and businesses and amp up their insights, sales, upsell, and retention.

A new study by Skai revealed data that can be applied to all kinds of MULO businesses.

Skai is “an omnichannel advertising platform, uniquely enabling brands and agencies to run data-driven programs across walled garden media.” Their client brands include Reckitt, DoorDash, Sony, Philips, and L’Oreal. Skai’s partners include Google, Amazon Ads, Microsoft, Walmart Connect, Apple Search Ads, Instacart, Criteo, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, Meta, and more.

Among the trends revealed in the study are:

• The Future is Bright for Retail Media. It was ranked as the most important of ten marketing channels. A whopping  81% consider it very or extremely important for 2024. This is underscored by the fact that 77% of respondents attest to retail media driving good or excellent results for their businesses in 2023. The Report details each of the types of retail media and how they are being included in brands’ 2024 plans.

• Analytics will be AI supercharged. AI is expected to have the biggest impact on retail media campaign optimization, targeting, and insights.
• Despite the Power of Analytics, an Investment and Attribution Gap Exists. Analytics/reporting limitations and difficulty proving investment incrementality are some of the challenges that might drive organizations to invest less in retail media going forward.
  
• Budget is Being Directed to In-store Buzz. Budget increases for digital brick-and-mortar retail media are right behind increases for social commerce (i.e. TikTok Shop, Facebook Marketplace, etc.)
• Data is Still Dirty and Complicated. Nearly two in five are using data clean rooms in some capacity. But top challenges include joining data with additional sources, not having enough first-party data, and the cost of building a useful database are all obstacles to understanding how retail media is performing. 
• Incrementality is Imperfect: While most organizations are measuring retail media incrementality, less than a third say they’re proficient in this and also challenged in applying the insights.

So, smart marketers in 2024 will look to retail media as an effective marketing showcase, provided they can figure out how to decipher the data!

You can see a full copy of the Skai Report here.