• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 6, 2023

Connected television (CTV) and retail media -- two of the fastest-growing advertising channels -- continue to converge, and this is pushing companies to form unlikely partnerships.

Commerce media company Criteo has announced a partnership in January with Magnite, an independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform. This will enable its global retailer partners to leverage CTV through Magnite.

By collaborating, retailers can drive growth by extending their audiences off-site into addressable CTV environments and in turn, provide closed-loop measurement to their brand and agency partners.

Criteo’s recent agency report found that retail media scored the highest for return on ad spend (ROAS), and CTV took the lead for consumer experience. The majority of U.S. media agency respondents also said retail media will deliver a greater ROI than search or social. 

Data & Programmatic Insider caught up with Criteo CRO Brian Gleason and Magnite CRO Sean Buckley to talk about what that this all means for the advertising industry and retail media.

Data & Programmatic Insider:  How is retail media providing brands an option to run CTV ads?

Brian Gleason:  The beauty of retail media is you’re getting in front of consumers when they’re in a shopping mindset.

With the opportunity to leverage retail media activations onto CTV inventory, advertisers can extend the reach of retailer first-party shopper data to get in front of people on the largest screen in the house. In doing so, a retail media buyer is able to measure the shopper from awareness to conversion, from viewer to consumer, by connecting addressable signals back to activity on retailer properties, thus closing the loop to measure the impact of a brands CTV ads.

For example, I’m a big-box retailer that has partnered with a major athleisure company. I, as the retailer, can now offer my client the ability to run their media buys on CTV and get in front of my retail customers when they are not perusing my site or store.

With closed-loop reporting, that athleisure brand can now get a sense of if people bought its clothes from retail property, digital and in stores. Tying media campaigns back to real sales is important for advertisers as they strive to justify their ad spend, especially in today’s economic environment.

Sean Buckley:  We’ve seen in-store marketing tactics like aisle end caps translate into digital on-site ads on a retailer’s owned-and-operated websites like sponsored search and promoted listings.

CTV is the next opportunity for retailers to further leverage their unique audience insights to help brands reach consumers. The combination of retail media and CTV means that brands can impact customers along the omnichannel shopping journey wherever they are in the purchase funnel -- driving awareness, consideration, and purchase.

D&PI:  How do Criteo and Magnite support the CTV option?

Gleason:  We saw an opportunity to partner with Magnite to help retailers extend their audiences off-site into addressable CTV environments. The collaboration opens up Magnite’s CTV inventory to retailers and enhances Commerce Max, Criteo’s demand-side platform, while also providing new, unique demand opportunities for Magnite’s platform customers.

Buckley:  Magnite’s expansive direct relationships with premium CTV media owners means that Criteo’s global retail partners have unparalleled opportunities to enter this dynamic, growing part of digital media. The combination of Criteo’s Commerce Max offering and Magnite’s CTV inventory brings value for advertisers and media owners.

D&PI:  Please take me through the steps of linking a search campaign on a retail site to CTV ads?

Gleason:  As CTV adoption grows and consumer behavior changes, our retailer partners are looking for additional ways to extend their audiences into addressable CTV environments.

By linking retailers' audiences with addressable identifiers, retailers can use similar in-market data segments in their CTV-targeted campaigns as they would in their display-targeted campaigns.

This partnership enables the linking of audiences with addressable supply. It provides rich audience targeting and closed-loop measurement capabilities.

DP&I: Can you provide an example of the cost and return on investment?

Gleason:  We are still in the early stages of this partnership and beginning to review the cost and ROI impact. However, at this time, we understand that retailers and brands benefit from targeting users with high purchase intent, especially as they introduce channels higher in the marketing funnel.

CTV can be an impactful channel if it delivers the same addressability and measurement as brands have come to expect with other tactics when leveraging Criteo.

Buckley:  Scale is a big factor when it comes to calculating potential ROI for retailers. By working with a scaled, omnichannel sell-side platform, retailers can simplify activation for clients.

Reducing friction to onboarding advertisers will increase the number of budgets a retailer can capture and accelerate the speed of getting campaigns infused with retail data up and running.

Due to our depth and breadth of integrations, we are able to ensure advertisers can run campaigns at scale without over-serving individual consumers.