Retail media is the third and biggest wave of digital advertising after search ads and social media ads. In addition to increasing sales, retailers can unlock a new, high-margin revenue stream by offering contextual ad placements to their brand partners across their online properties. But setting up successful retail media campaigns isn’t easy. It requires gathering experts, building technology, and attracting advertisers. That’s why Microsoft created a new advertising network which helps retailers quickly launch a retail media program.
Microsoft Advertising Network for retail offers retailers an easy way to accelerate business growth by leveraging Microsoft’s ready-built demand, expansive ad supply, and access to high-intent shoppers. Now, retailers can easily integrate with the Microsoft Advertising Network to quickly generate incremental sales and retail media revenue with high-quality ads. Even retailers with their own private retail media marketplaces can leverage this network offering to unlock additional high-margin revenue.
How does Microsoft Advertising Network for retail activate retail media revenue faster?
Typically, a retail media program requires a retailer to invest significant time and resources to create a private marketplace for their brand advertisers. This involves building teams across Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales to collaboratively develop, onboard, and grow their program. The building and onboarding phase alone can take months to years before the program generates meaningful revenue. Additionally, advertisers may be hesitant to allocate budget due to the overwhelming number of retail media programs available today, as well as the limited amount of bandwidth available to manage them. The Microsoft Advertising Network for retail removes these blockers, ensuring retailers can launch a profitable retail media program quickly, while simultaneously accessing relevant advertiser budgets from Microsoft Advertising’s vast brand advertiser ecosystem.
Key benefits of the Microsoft Advertising Network for retail
1. Retailers can tap into the world’s largest retail media demand pool
Thousands of advertisers and agencies actively invest in omnichannel solutions, including Search, Native, Display, and Connected TV, available across the Microsoft Advertising Network. With Microsoft Advertising Network for retail, brands can participate in retail media to promote their products across retailer partner websites managed through one of the industry’s most trusted advertising platforms—the Microsoft Advertising Platform. This means retailers will be connected to a large, relevant pool of demand. This demand can drive an increase in sales and generate high-margin retail media revenue for retailers with or without existing private marketplaces.
Tinuiti, the largest, independent performance marketing firm in the US, will be a premier launch partner for Microsoft Advertising Network for retail. “We’re excited to announce our partnership with Microsoft Retail Media to simplify how brands connect with more customers online by making the retail media activation process more efficient,” said Evan Kirkpatrick, Vice President, Head of Shoppable Media at Tinuiti.
And Skai’s omnichannel marketing platform will be the first third-party platform integrated into the Microsoft Advertising Network for retail, offering advertisers additional flexibility into how they buy retail media ads and monitor media spending. “Microsoft is well positioned to solve many of the challenges facing retail media today, and we are thrilled to connect our platform to help the thousands of advertisers who use Skai’s solutions daily,” said Paul Vallez, Enterprise Vice President of Business Development at Skai.
2. Retailers can reach high-intent shoppers to drive product sales
Microsoft reaches over one billion users across its advertising network, including owned-and-operated properties like Bing and the Edge browser, as well as premium publishers such as Yahoo! and the New York Times. These high-intent users spend 22% more than the average internet user, meaning they’re a valuable audience for retailers to acquire new customers. The Microsoft Advertising Network for retail enables retailers to expand their reach offsite and tap into this audience to drive traffic to their websites at no cost through co-branded ads. This creates a flywheel effect for retailers where traffic acquisition drives more shoppers, leading to more onsite sales and retail media monetization opportunities.
3. Tech and operations made easy for retailers and advertisers
With over a decade of experience building some of the most successful, global retail media programs, Microsoft Retail Media is committed to simplifying retail media for retailers, advertisers, and agencies. “We have deep learning of the retailer experience across Microsoft, so with Microsoft Advertising Network for retail, we minimized the efforts for retailers of all sizes to begin immediately generating retail media revenue and increasing their onsite sales,” said Paul Longo, Global Head of Retail Media Sales at Microsoft. And advertisers now have an additional buying path, from the Microsoft Advertising platform, to scale their retail media efforts in what is becoming a crowded space—which can further help retailers capture more demand easily.
Microsoft Advertising Network for retail benefits retailers, advertisers, and shoppers
The Microsoft Advertising Network for retail offers retailers a new, scalable avenue for activating retail media revenue, and increasing sales and bottom-line revenue. Ultimately, this offering allows both retailers and advertisers to engage with shoppers across their customer journey from awareness to purchase.
Microsoft Advertising Network for retail is available in the US only today. To learn more about the Microsoft Advertising Network for retail or inquire about other Microsoft Retail Media solutions, contact us.
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