As the holiday and promotional season approaches, brands and suppliers should be preparing now to maximise the ROI of their retail media strategy. The early spring months seem like an appropriate time to moderate media spend and be light in the marketplace. However, there is actually much that can be done to prep for the holidays to maximise revenue through the end of the year.
Be strategic with retail media full funnel spend
Retail media has transformed to being more than just a performance media tactic driven by trade or shopper marketing dollars. Brands should be eager to leverage retailer ecosystems to drive maximum returns. Retail media strategies should align with a full-funnel marketing approach, and brands should capitalise on top-of-funnel opportunities before the holiday season. It’s not necessary for brands to deploy media tactics across the entire funnel simultaneously to be effective. Instead, the key is to focus on different stages of the funnel during peak and off-peak times to optimise returns.
Get ahead of customer considerations before holiday campaigns
This is the time of the year to run awareness and consideration campaigns to get the brand in front of consumers while they begin to build their consideration set. Brands will want to be top of mind while shoppers are in mid to low buying time frame and begin their research for holiday sales. This also allows the time for brands gain traction with their ideal target audience. They can test and learn different messaging and evaluate performance in different retailer ecosystems.
Lean into retailer promotional calendars and messaging
Retailers know their target audience and core customers best. So partnering with them to align yourself with their seasonal calendar and messaging can be a key differentiator to stand out amongst competition. Retailers also appreciate it when brands are leaning into centralized messaging as it maximizes their returns as well. Brands should request retailers’ promotional calendar timelines and any key messaging they plan to use during peak seasons. Integrating this information into their own campaigns can enhance alignment and effectiveness.
More is not always better for holiday and promotional campaign strategies
Holiday and promotional seasons have more advertising activity than ever. This can be overwhelming to the consumer and often wasteful for brands blindly spending to be competitive. Spending more during this time frame can be a way to beat competition, but it’s imperative to not spend blindly. Prior to holiday peak season, brands should evaluate past campaign successes, top performing ad units, keywords and messages. Once peak season has arrived, brands will be prepared to spend wisely on priority SKUs leveraging wins from the past.
As the holiday season nears, brands should prepare to enhance their retail media presence. Rather than pulling back on fall spending, focus on full-funnel strategies, leveraging top-of-funnel opportunities before the holidays. Run awareness and consideration campaigns now to get in front of consumers early. Align with retailers’ promotional calendars and messaging to boost effectiveness. Finally, avoid overspending by evaluating past campaign successes and investing wisely in high-performing areas. Marketers that take these steps to prepare for peak season will be better positioned to maximise the ROI of their holiday retail media strategy.
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Meghan Barden is director of global retail media at Rithum.
