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Pacvue 2024 Q3 Retail Media Benchmark Report

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Explore performance data from Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart in our quarterly benchmark report, which compiles eCommerce advertising data from thousands of brands across every major product category. With in-depth data and benchmarks provided, this report equips you with the necessary tools to evaluate your performance and gain insight into the latest industry trends. Some of the top highlights from Q3 include Amazon's new AI video Generator, Walmart’s category expansion, and Instacart’s new partnerships

Amazon Ads U.S. Trends

Between Prime Day and back-to-school, ad spend on Amazon increased 16.5% quarter-over-quarter for Sponsored Brands and 8.3% for Sponsored Products. Looking year-over-year, Sponsored Brands ad spend increased by 20.7% and 11.3% for Sponsored Products, showing brands continue to invest in the platform despite increasing CPCs and declining ROAS.

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Amazon Ads Europe Trends

Amazon’s European marketplaces continue to see the average CPC increase at a faster rate than the US marketplace, with Sponsored Brands increasing 13.3% and Sponsored Products increasing 16.7% year-over-year. In Q3, Sponsored Products increased by 7.7%, and sponsored brands increased by 6.7% quarter-over-quarter.

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Walmart Connect Trends

Despite ROAS remaining nearly flat, ad spend on Walmart Sponsored Brands ads rose at the highest rate across ad types on all three marketplaces in the US, increasing 19.6% quarter-over-quarter, and 29.6% year-over-year. Sponsored Products followed a similar trend, with ad spend rising 8.9% quarter-over-quarter, and 17% year-over-year.

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Instacart Ads Trends

Competition on Instacart remained relatively flat in Q3, though some mild year-over-year changes trended towards affordability and higher returns. Cost-per-click increased 2.3% in Q3 and declined -4.3% year-over-year, likely due to slight budget shifts.

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Category Trends

Back-to-school season knocked the Patio, Lawn, and Garden category out of its top spot of year-over-year increase in ad spend, with Office Products increasing 71% and Patio, Lawn, and Garden coming in slightly below at 70.3%. In third place for the biggest increases in ad spend came Toys & Games, likely due to Prime Day, increasing 61.8%. Download the report for deep dives into the Pet Supplies, Beauty & Personal Care, and Electronics categories.

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Quarterly Performance Drivers Calendar

"We noted a lot of increased competition across the board during Prime Day as sellers invested more ad budget into retail media channels. That made things more expensive: our data showed that advertisers spent 27% more year-over-year during the week of Prime Day as overall CPC costs got significantly higher in most categories. Higher ad costs can be caused by a lot of different things: industry dynamics, consumer behavior, increased competition, a changing share of market, customer loyalty and changing product demands."

– Melissa Burdick, Pacvue President & Co-founder

Q3 Insights from Industry Experts

"The question is no longer whether to invest in retail media, but how to do so to drive incremental sales growth. As retail media budgets expand and offerings become increasingly sophisticated, it is imperative to assess which investments deliver the highest incremental lift on overall retailer sales. Incrementality measurement is a crucial practice for every brand, ensuring that each media dollar is optimized to drive measurable, long-term growth across the business."

Jared Scott, VP of Commerce at Spark Foundry

"One of the biggest opportunities right now is the fact that there are so many more metrics available to measure success of our campaigns now. We are so close to being able to directly tie objectives to KPIs, to mid-campaign optimization metrics. It's making our media campaigns more strategic and multifaceted."

Katie Pretti, VP, Commerce at Publicis Commerce

"Looking outside of Amazon is the biggest opportunity for brands in late 2024 and beyond. Amazon has done and will always lead the way in retail media, but in EMEA the Tesco Media and Insight Platform has made some big hires and is scaling rapidly. Platforms such as Zitcha are making it easier for retailers to capitalise on the retail media boom – they recently signed a deal with Ocado Ads and secured a $15m Series A. It will be exciting to see how these platforms can work together to encourage more spend and connect to other marketing channels and formats."

Matt West, Founder at West Media

"The CPG industry needs to shift from ‘Digital Penetration’ as the benchmark for how many dollars are allocated to retail media, to ‘Digital Share of Growth.’ For example, of the total growth of my company in 2025, how much of it will come from online channels? If online channels are projected to be 60% of your growth in 2025, you should consider allocating 60% of your marketing budget growth to digital/retail media channels."

Imtaez Ahamed, Director, Performance Marketing – Nutrition at Reckitt

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