• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, August 14, 2024

Is the RMN the DMP of 2024?  I ask the question not because they are similar acronyms, but because they seem to have a similar trajectory and may well end up in the same place.

RMNs, or retail media networks, are a must buy for CPG and other consumer goods companies in today’s market.  In fact, one could argue that an RMN is as necessary as SEM, or paid search.  Funny enough, these acronyms also share a common idea, that you are paying for something you may already have been getting but can’t truly be sure of.

Many marketers begin their digital media mix with paid search, and most of those break down their strategy to branded keywords and non-branded keywords.  Non-branded keywords are a requirement, but they perform less than branded keywords.  Branded keywords, on the other hand, are the best performers but mostly because these folks were going to find you no matter what, so buying branded keywords is a false sense of security.  It tricks you into thinking that overall search worked well, but the fact is that consumers searched for your brand, and the fact that you showed up at the top of the paid placements doesn’t change that you would have (or should have) showed up at the top of the natural results anyways.  You are, in fact, paying for something you already would likely have received.

Buying on an RMN can be seen in the same way.  If you are buying media from a retailer already incented to surface your brand or product, there’s a good chance you were already going to get that customer.  The extra dollars you spend with an RMN are most likely just giving you a lift, but one that is difficult to prove and may or may not be directly correlative to the incremental spend.

Which brings me back to the original question.  Is the RMN of today like the DMP of yesterday?  DMPs had a steep trajectory when first launched.  They became a must-have for any brand of scale, and they eventually became commoditized as everyone bought into the concept that your data should be separated from your media.  As the separation became standard, so did the idea of sharing first-party data across channels, and eventually the hype cycle flattened and everyone had a DMP, or CDP, and whatever other three-letter acronym was coined for the platforms to share data.

Fast-forward to today, when data has become a normal, and somewhat boring, piece of the media landscape.  In fact, more people are talking about contextual targeting now than ever before the last 10 years.  It almost feels like contextual is the new data, so to speak.

This year feels like the apex of the retail media strategy -- unless RMNs can innovate to deliver new ways of creating value for brands in their environments.  It can’t be just about harnessing traffic and driving consumers who likely would have found the brands or products being advertised already.  It has to work more on creating demand.  If that's where RMNs can evolve, then they have a true opportunity for growth.  Otherwise, they risk becoming the acronym of the past, and will undoubtedly be supplanted with something new.