Albertsons Media Collective, the retail media arm of Albertsons Cos., and Perion Network, a tech company providing solutions for making digital advertising more effective, say they have formed a strategic partnership that gives advertisers the ability to activate against Albertsons' purchase-based, first-party audiences across Perion's high-impact display and Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) formats.
The companies say the collaboration helps advertisers connect with over 100 million verified shoppers, which translates to 37 million shoppers weekly, throughout their purchase journey — from building awareness near Albertsons' more than 2,200 store locations to driving online engagement through creative, localized offers and performance insights.
“Our frequency is second to none,” Evan Hovorka, vice president of product innovation for Albertsons Media Collective, told The Packer. “Part of that is the grocery business being the second biggest grocer in the U.S. and being in communities where frequency is extremely high. That means when we target and give someone a relevant ad experience, we can feel confident in our measurement tools that they're coming back within days — weeks at most — to confirm that performance is working and that we're giving them the messages and offers they're interested in.”
Hovorka says advertisers also will benefit from the partnership's artificial intelligence-driven optimizations and closed-loop measurement for high-impact display, along with incremental sales measurement for DOOH.
“It's a really tight-knit, closed-loop, high-frequency, data-driven machine to confirm our successes or failures and then learn from them,” he says. “That's pretty powerful.”
And while Hovorka says ID-driven audiences are not new in retail media, what makes the Albertsons-Perion partnership special is the fidelity of the data.
“We have the same ID system for the site, app in-store, and then the penetration of that loyalty program is extremely high, and that's just a reflection of the value of our loyalty program,” he says. You get the discounts and the coupons and all kinds of good value, as well as building lists and shopping [in our] highly penetrated loyalty program, which means the vast majority of our sales are identified, and we use the same identity throughout all of our experiences and touch points with the frequency that creates a kind of a best-in-class identity system.”
The partnership with Perion elevates what Albertsons is already doing by taking those IDs and marrying them to higher impact creative, says Hovorka.
“The higher impact piece translates to items, price points and availability at a local level,” he says. “In those 2,200 stores spread across all the divisions and banners, price points can vary dramatically, and those prices can change on a week-to-week basis. We want to bring the best possible experience to our shoppers and let them know when those items are on sale, on discount and in stock.”
Through this collaboration, Albertsons Media Collective and Perion say they are enhancing the shopper experience by delivering relevant, real-time offers and personalized content through immersive, high-impact ad formats, both online and in the real world. The result is a curated experience that sparks discovery, supports smarter shopping decisions and drives meaningful value for Albertsons' shoppers across their journey.
Hovorka says the partnership allows brands to examine category performance and shopper behavior in each ZIP code around its stores, which in turn informs promotional offers.
“It's letting our best story shine, which is the best story the customer wants to hear on price, discounts, promotions and new products, and doing it in a way that scales across that very diverse set of stores and price differentiations,” he says. “Our goal is to make that shopping experience as seamless as possible, and to let our assets — a coupon or price discount — shine as loudly as possible.”
Connecting shoppers with the prices and promotions that matter most to them is part of Albertsons' overall emphasis on everyday low prices.
“We have new low prices, which is a huge effort our company is investing in, bringing back better everyday low prices,” Hovorka says.
While the high-impact DOOH program is designed to drive shoppers to the store, once there, shoppers can experience Albertsons Media Collective's in-store digital display network designed to improve the shopping experience and enhance customer engagement.
“We're doing more inspiration and storytelling in-store,” Hovorka says. “Maybe the avocados are at an everyday new low price. We get you into the store to get the avocados, and now we've got a guac recipe running on top of the avocado stand with a coupon or some inspirational info on how to use those avocados. The story should continue into the store.”
What does the Albertsons-Perion partnership signify for grocery brands?
“In my humble opinion, we're moving media and merchandise and store closer together,” Hovorka says. “It's my personal opinion that retail media will evolve into retail services, which is when we bring all of our assets and all of the collective intelligence and data sets to bear into one system.
“This partnership [also] elevates a brand's surgical ability to target hotspots, and that hotspot could be: “I'm killing it in this area, and I want to move some of my media dollars to this demographic or this banner, this geo or state level, where I might need a little more love, and now I can see that data in real time and make some adjustments,” he continues. “It levels up our media execution game in a way that reflects just how complex and fast moving retail data is.”
Your next read: How Albertsons New Initiative Aims to Improve the Shopping Experience
