Marketers are facing many challenges. Cookies—the small files stored on an internet-user's computer—are going away, so it will be harder to trace and follow consumers on the internet. More states are enacting laws around user privacy. And consumers have options to limit their data sharing, Art Sebastian said Tuesday at the 2023 NACS Show.
There are a lot of ways to navigate that, Sebastian said, including leaning into retail media networks. A retail media network is an advertising infrastructure that comprises a collection of owned digital, offsite digital and in-store channels that are offered by a retail company to third-party brands for their various advertising purposes, he said.
More and more retailers are launching these, from Amazon to Walmart to Gopuff, as well as convenience-store chains like 7-Eleven’s Gulp Media Network and Casey’s General Stores’ Casey’s Access. Sebastian, retail strategist with Nextchapter LLC, previously helped launch the retail media network at Casey’s, where he worked for more than four years.
“Retail media networks in a very short period of time will surpass even linear TV as the biggest bucket of advertising spending,” Sebastian said. “So, knowing that all these different formats of retailers are launching their version of [retail media networks], knowing that brands have challenges in terms of targeting consumers, knowing that spending is increasing, my callout to the convenience industry is: You may want to figure out how to participate in this. And I will admittedly say, it’s not easy. So you need to begin thinking about it and laying your foundation early on.”
There are several reasons why c-stores are prime for this. The industry has invested in digital, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, Sebastian said. The purchase frequency of customers in c-stores is also much higher than other industries, he said. Finally, the c-store industry sells impulse products. So the cycle of ad and transact and then consume continues.
“And it just affords us a tremendous ability to influence consumer behavior,” Sebastian said.
Sebastian was joined by Ben Tienor, director of Gulp Media Network and director of brand and customer insights at 7-Eleven Inc., and Mandee Harvey-Smith, director of analytics, insights and media strategy, RaceTrac Inc.
- 7-Eleven is No. 1 on CSP’s 2023 Top 202 list largest U.S. c-store chains by store count. RaceTrac is No. 15.
Tienor, who helped launch 7-Eleven’s Gulp Media in fall 2022, underscored the importance of customer, or first-party, data. Customer data is what unlocks actual solutions for a company, he said. And one way to get that is through loyalty programs.
“When we think about either decomposing, or understanding, the business, when we think about marketing for the benefit of the brand, or when we think about Gulp Media Network… loyalty data is the throughline that enables all of that, both for our internal purposes and for our brand partners,” Tienor said.
Loyalty programs can also be used as a test ground, Harvey-Smith said.
“As we start to think about what retail media looks like for your business, there’s an opportunity for us to start leveraging those CPG partners in the app, and testing those offers and seeing what responses you get before taking a giant leap forward and building something, and you’re not sure what you’re going to get back from it,” she said.
There are many ways to attack a retail media network, Sebastian said. Tienor said 7-Eleven started with offside digital due to the unique assets at 7-Eleven, including the size of its footprint (more than 12,500 U.S. c-stores) and customer base.
RaceTrac doesn’t have a retail media network yet, so Harvey-Smith said she’s starting with the foundational data work to prepare.
“The message I would want everyone to take away from this is very simply, get organized. There’s a lot of data to organize,” she said. “The focus for us right now is very much data and audience, and making sure that we understand where our guests are and where they’re not and what the real opportunity is. Because what we don’t want to do is introduce additional friction that can’t be overcome.”
NACS was founded in 1961 as the National Association of Convenience Stores. The NACS Show runs through Friday, Oct. 5, in Atlanta.