Amazon Black Friday Deals are Live!
As of yesterday, November 21, Amazon has already launched its first wave of Black Friday deals. While not every brand is participating, there seems to be major buy-in from major brands like Microsoft, Google, Anker, and others to get a head start on the holiday season. Calling this the start of “Black Friday Week,” this showcases yet another push in eCommerce towards week-long tentpole sales events.
Our Take: It seems that 2024 is the year of sales events, and with Prime Big Deal Days already taking place in October, among other category events like Amazon’s Holiday Beauty Haul, it’s becoming more difficult to pinpoint when the holiday season truly starts. Shortly after Cyber 5 ends, Pacvue will release a benchmark report with how this impacts short-term & long-term sales metrics – only then will we have a better idea of how “Black Friday Week” shakes out this year.
Interview: Retail Media’s Untapped Potential
Speaking of reports, we’ve discovered a fascinating paper on 2024 H1 Benchmarks, published by the retail media platform Pentaleap. This paper delivers unique insights on the industry and platform comparisons, such as breakdowns of sponsored ad appearances and search query complexity.
In an interview with ExchangeWire, Sarah Mackinnon of Pentaleap dives into what motivated the creation of this report, how brands should choose their RMN partners, and predictions of how the next 12 months will look within retail media.
You can find Pentaleap’s H1 benchmark report here for download.
Walmart Earnings show 1/3rd of profit comes from Ads
When you’re entrenched in the world of Retail Media, it’s easy to lose perspective on some things. For example, since Amazon is consistently the frontrunner of eCommerce, it can be lost on us that Walmart is still the largest retailer in the world—by a lot. That should add some important weight to the fact that, within the U.S., Walmart has made its advertising business a cornerstone of its success.
In a breakdown by ModernRetail this week, they refresh the perspective of how far Walmart Connect has come in the three years since its inception. While Walmart has had an advertising branch for some time, the launch of Walmart Connect cemented its commitment to retail media and its importance in maintaining its spot as the #1 retailer.
Our Take: This should come as no surprise to anybody paying attention. Walmart has made no attempt to hide its excitement about growing its advertising business, especially in tandem with its massive physical footprint. With the high margins delivered by Walmart Connect, it will be interesting to see how the pie chart of Walmart’s revenue continues to shift over the next few years.
US eCommerce Trends – Sales Growth Continues in Q3
During the Covid-19 pandemic, eCommerce saw an unprecedented surge due to the circumstances. Since the initial retraction of eCommerce growth, there has been a quiet apprehension that, perhaps, slowed growth will lead to problems for an industry that invested heavily in infrastructure and R&D in ’20/’21.
There might be enough time behind us now to see that eCommerce sales are continuing to grow. Ecommerce accounted for more than a fifth of total retail sales in Q3, and outpaced total sales growth, which indicates that the industry is steady, thriving, and has plenty more room to stretch its legs.
Warner Bros. Discovery Introduces 2 New Ad Types
Sponsored TV was the hot thing in the Summer of ‘24, and like all advancements in retail media, there will always be more to keep an eye on! Warner Bros. Discovery becomes the next media giant to join the fray of STV, launching two new ad offerings in “Shop with Max” and “Moments.”
- Shop with Max identifies items within television shows and films and pairs them with related items in an advertiser’s catalog via a QR code.
- Moments aligns brands with themes, using AI trained on visual and audio cues to deliver relevant advertising to their viewers.
Our Take: Not only are these advertising offerings fascinating, they also point toward the recent trend towards “homogenized advertising.” In other words, this sort of content-driven targeting originated within the “digital” advertising sector, but now we’re seeing that same methodology applied to the cross-section of television and retail media. Sprinkle in the use of AI, and it’s clear: We’re living in the future now!
