The $50B Shift: Why Retail Media Networks are Marketing’s Next Frontier

[00:00:00] Amazon just to frame up, owns like 75 per share percent share of the industry. Right? So basically people have created these tools just to make it easier to advertise on Amazon. And whatever you're doing there is also do that same strategy at Walmart. The same strategy at Incar. Same strategy at Chewy.

[00:00:15] Oh. All within one click. Right. My, my big take is because Amazon is such a huge share of that, and these tools are essentially created to, to make that easier, it's really important for, if you're ever getting into this, just play around with the Amazon ad console to start understand what functionality is there, what tools are there, what reports are there.

[00:00:33] Because without that, you're never gonna really understand the full value of what these tools do. Welcome to Contrary to Popular Opinion, a podcast hosted by IDE Digital. In each episode, we bring you provocative topics and novel perspectives around leadership, business, and marketing that defy the norms because exponential growth demands unconventional thinking and visionary action.

[00:00:56] So open your mind. And let's get into this week's episode. Hey everyone, Kelly McGuire. Uh, excited to talk to today's topics.

[00:01:04] Todd: Hey everybody, this is Todd Kelly's partner and today we're inviting one of our new team members, Matt Kran, to the table to have a discuss discussion around retail media networks. And guess what? I don't even know what that means. A lot of people don't know what that means.

[00:01:19] Todd: It means a lot of different things. So a lot of different people. so we're gonna try and, do some myth busting and dispelling of what retail media networks are and are not. Who are the players out there? What are they used for? How to recognize their use case. and this is all through the lens of advertisers and ads running on these platforms.

[00:01:39] Todd: Not marketplace tools for implementations of storefronts or anything like that, but really just for the purposes of if you're an advertiser and you need to be in these networks, which ones are right for what? And, what are the pros and cons? So, Matt, welcome. Awesome. Thanks for having me guys. Yeah.

[00:01:57] Todd: give a little background. Matt, comes to us from former roles at Amazon, at Walmart, on e-commerce and media sides of those in-house teams. So he's got a very, educated perspective on those. And then prior to that, Matt, you were brand side for some really cool companies like Neutrophil and Huckberry and Charlotte's Web.

[00:02:19] Todd: And so you've got a really well-rounded. Background, none of which is on the agency side, which you find yourself in now. so we're lucky to have your non-agency client side perspective, joining us and that will help us be even better for our clients. So if you, you want, why don't you kick off just sort of giving us a lay of the land are, what are retail media networks?

[00:02:43] Todd: How are they defined? tell us about 'em.

[00:02:45] Matt: Awesome. Yeah. And um, thanks for the intro too, Todd. I'll add a little more context is like my role at e-commerce companies was essentially, part of it was picking which retail media network to participate in based off of like our business as well as at Amazon, one of the.

[00:03:01] Matt: Big things I did there was actually build a funnel that helped advertisers pick which retail media network they should be a part of. So I've kind of seen it from both sides. So I'm super passionate about this and know about how vast of a landscape it is, as well as how much confusion there is. funny enough, just like the last meeting that we had on marketplace, there's a lot of snake oil here and there's, there's a lot of confusion even to like what the term means.

[00:03:24] Matt: In the last couple weeks we've been at. A couple conferences where I've even heard a lot of like agency pros mix these things up, but my definition of a retail media network is essentially something that helps you list and advertise on a marketplace. I've heard some people talk about retail media networks actually being the marketplaces themselves, but you could make an argument.

[00:03:43] Matt: But for today's discussion, what we want to be talking about retail media networks are, is actually the tools themselves that help someone sell across multiple marketplaces with ease is essentially the use case of These different tools are, but it's funny, they're getting so much love from articles.

[00:03:59] Matt: It's currently a $50 billion industry a year. It's projected to grow to 150 by 2028. So everybody wants to get a part of this. Everyone wants a piece and that obviously starts with what the hell are we talking about first? So to zero it in, we're talking about basically advertising tools.

[00:04:15] Todd: Alright Matt, thanks for giving an explanation of that. So, it is. All over the place.

[00:04:23] Todd: so for the context of, again, anybody listening that's maybe thinking about getting into these networks are already, involved in them either directly or with their agency, perhaps. why don't you walk us through sort of. Which are the ones that you think are best for which types of needs, in your opinion?

[00:04:40] Todd: Or at least what you've been exposed to and have experience with, whether it's CPG or other categories. Amazon's obviously a big one. Walmart, target, yeah, a lot of them. can you just sort of give a lay of the land of who are the major players out there? What are they used for?

[00:04:55] Todd: yep. Get into 'em.

[00:04:58] Matt: So I'll start with kind of a hot take, which I like, but I think before you get into any of these, and first let's understand what they do at like the highest level, they essentially let an advertiser use a marketplace native platform with ease, right? They like essentially would allow you to list on Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, chewy.

[00:05:20] Matt: All within one click. But essentially what they're doing is they're saying, look, it's hard to do this across everybody's platform, but it's really hard to do this within Amazon's platform specifically. So Amazon, just to frame up, owns like 75 per share percent share of the industry, right? So basically people have created these tools just to make it easier to advertise on Amazon.

[00:05:39] Matt: And whatever you're doing there is also do that same strategy at Walmart. The same strategy at cart, same strategy at Chewy. Oh, all within one click. my big take is because Amazon is such a huge share of that, and these tools are essentially created to make that easier, it's really important if you're ever getting into this, just play around with the Amazon ad console to start understand what functionality is there, what tools are there, what reports are there.

[00:06:02] Matt: Because without that, you're never gonna really understand the full value of what these tools do. And it's really painful once you get into Ad Con. So you'll know, oh crap, I need a tool to help me with this. that's always my first thing to start with. 'cause when you're in that tool, you're gonna get a sense of what you actually need help with.

[00:06:16] Matt: And they, all these retail media networks offer everything under the sun. But depending on where your business is, you might need help with certain things. You might not need help with certain things. So a couple of the ones that I really like to start with, we actually use it here at. Vja day is, is Helium 10, which is essentially the keyword researcher.

[00:06:32] Matt: It's gonna tell you sort of if you're running advertising, where should you pick and choose where you're gonna get value out of, and it's gonna give you different results than actually the native Amazon ad console. I think they're smarter. I think they're more up to date. I've had more success using this tool, but that's like a really, really lean version, right?

[00:06:50] Matt: That's just like keyword support. You can go bigger on that, and you can also go into, helium 10 is owned by this, company called PAC View. Pac View offers even more functionality beyond that. They're gonna offer you to be able to list and activate all those insights you're getting from H 10. They're gonna give you a managed service option.

[00:07:06] Matt: Hey, I need support in running these ads. I want strategy on how to tweak my bids and things like that so you can go broader. Now, what's also happening is a lot of these companies are branching into solving things that. Result in more advertising money. So as margins are getting tighter for people, it's really cool.

[00:07:23] Matt: A lot of these retail media networks or tool providers is what they're also referred to as are offering functionality, around carrier costs. So actually the operations and supply chain with the idea that if you can optimize that, you can reinvest in advertising too. So. The point I'm trying to make is, it's a super, super wide world, and typically what happens is people think they need this super shiny item, but they only use, 10% of the functionality.

[00:07:47] Matt: So, I would really, really invest in first starting by looking at the ad console itself, know what you need help with, and then pick your partner from there as opposed to the other way of getting latched into some crazy AI functionality that you're never gonna actually use.

[00:08:00] Kelly: Yeah, I think it's, interesting when you think about it, right?

[00:08:02] Kelly: Because it feels like there's all these tentacles and all these arms that you can go down to, and that's what creates so much confusion or difficulty to understand the term retail media network and really what that's referring to. And so I wonder if we can kind of explore another way to think about it to simplify to my head where.

[00:08:20] Kelly: When I think about, how do I explain the traditional digital channels that we typically will run, right? So Google is gonna be your search, right? Or search is gonna comprise of Google and Bing and, and maybe a few other little tiny networks. But basically it's Google, right?

[00:08:36] Kelly: And then you have social, which is primarily gonna be meta, and then you have some of the other things that you're used to with. Where it has TikTok and X and some of those things. then there's programmatic, which programmatic traditionally was gonna be the very confusing network of what is that comprised of?

[00:08:51] Kelly: Well now that's streaming TV and streaming audio and website and mobile and basically everything that's not search and social. And that was for the longest time. Those were the umbrella terms that sort of explained it all. And then now you have that retail media network. And so the way that I think about retail media networks is the two parts of what.

[00:09:10] Kelly: Media is to us, which is either the ad placement itself, so literally where is it going to show up. So for programmatic, it's gonna be on your TV and streaming content, or it's gonna be on your mobile phone in an app, or it's gonna be a banner on a website and or it is the targeting that you're going after, right?

[00:09:27] Kelly: It is what is the data that informs when and where you bid for that placement. And so that's gonna be based on either third party data. device type, household, all of that. So from that lens, in terms of where the ads are gonna show up and or the data that allows you to decide when and where to buy the ads, how do you think about kinda retail media network in that way?

[00:09:49] Kelly: How do I actually decide who's gonna see my ad and when that's decided, where are they actually gonna see the ad when it comes to a retail media network?

[00:09:57] Matt: I think The Amazon share is the big winner there, like 75% of it. When you're thinking about where these ads are gonna go, or like what this retail media tool can help my ads get in terms of distribution, it's, primarily within the Amazon ecosystem and it's activating all their suites of channels, essentially

[00:10:15] Kelly: so are we talking literally the ads that appear on amazon.com when I'm browsing and it's the search ads or it's the banner ads. Yeah. Um, because I know that there's a mix between sort of the endemic Amazon ecosystem or using Amazon data to serve on CTV and other places as well.

[00:10:31] Matt: The use case I'm thinking about, and this is again back to like keep it simple, is just within the marketplace itself. Yeah. Just within Amazon native, right? It's just limiting there. but I think again, it's like if you think about what you're doing on Amazon and what's successfully working on Amazon, the benefit of a retail media network is essentially allowing you with a few clicks to activate that on Instacart as well.

[00:10:52] Matt: Right? So think about it. Same within that marketplace, same strategy. Same tools, same keywords, even. It's just like porting that over in one click. So let's remove all the world around it is super important. Yeah. And just focusing within the marketplaces themselves.

[00:11:06] Kelly: so if we break it down that way, I mean, again, that's where I'm trying to simplify it in my head or, or try and convey out to, to the listeners here is.

[00:11:13] Kelly: It's really the ability to say, advertise where the transaction is taking place. Right? So rather than using a Facebook ad to expose someone and drive them somewhere else to convert either a website or into Amazon or wherever you're saying, I'm already on Amazon. And I want to control what someone's doing there.

[00:11:32] Kelly: And so there's ad units and targeting units that allow me to direct people within that ecosystem. And that's kind of what that retail media network is, right? how to air traffic control when they're already in that ecosystem versus using external advertising that gets in there in the first place, Exactly, and in

[00:11:49] Matt: a intuitive user friendly way that doesn't require 10 years of experience within a platform. So you can like pick it up and go. A marketing person can use it too.

[00:11:57] Kelly: So what do you think? This is gonna be a big question. It's gonna be your own experience and, and you're in there. But yeah, what do you think prompted.

[00:12:03] Kelly: I understand Amazon itself, but you know, now you have Walmart and Target and all these other ones in there. What do you think prompted these retailers to have this aha moment? That there was a monetization opportunity for them to increase their bottom line by doing this, right, because for the longest time they just relied on external traffic being brought in, and then users kind of navigating themselves, basically self-selecting.

[00:12:26] Kelly: So somewhere along the line, someone must have seen. Hey, we can charge people to influence behavior within this network versus just organically allowing it to occur once they're there. And that sort of takes me to the whole data being the new oil. And how do you monetize that kind of situation?

[00:12:44] Matt: I think two things happened. I think there's sort of the understanding of how much money can flow through the business through ads and making that more democratic for people. But I really think the interesting thing here, 'cause a lot of the questions that the retail media companies have is why wouldn't Amazon just adopt all that same functionality and bring it all in house?

[00:13:02] Matt: So I think it's kind of two step, Obviously advertising is key and to your point is it's way better to serve an ad to somebody when they're at the point of transaction, right? that's why the advertising platform was created. But a lot of these retail media networks, I think their business was established with, look, it's really hard to use these native platforms and whatever I'm doing here, I wanna be able to do it at the store next door without having to relearn that platform too.

[00:13:27] Matt: So I think the functionality was. Originally created probably just for Amazon, the amount of money that's going towards there. But the retail media networks I think came up with the idea is like, look, if we can make this easier to use for a user, an advertiser or marketer, and then also give them the functionality to immediately replicate that to other marketplaces, we have a winner right there.

[00:13:47] Matt: I think that's the origin story. The question is, is like at what point will these companies potentially go obsolete if everything's brought back to the marketplace? Not too much of a problem there. Yeah.

[00:13:58] Todd: That maybe takes me into another line of questioning, which is how hard is it to actually know and learn how to use these tools?

[00:14:07] Todd: Right. There's agencies that have skilled people at using them. There's in-house teams. I mean, if I were a CPG that sold, maybe we had a store on Amazon, so we sell on Amazon and we sell in grocery retail and we have wholesale distribution and all these things. Like how big is that ecosystem for me?

[00:14:26] Todd: Let's say I'm a yogurt brand. Um, well, yogurt brands probably don't sell on Amazon. So, a non-perishable item that's a CPG item that could be sold in some sort of retail environment, grocery or not, and on Amazon, like How big of an ecosystem is that and how complicated of the skillset is required for that?

[00:14:45] Matt: Well, first off, definitely sell yogurt on Amazon. There's a big yogurt category, so I'll correct you there. and there might be a bigger one on Walmart, which is another really interesting use case for retail medias like marketplaces are all gonna be different in size based off your category. But, to answer your question, they're easier to use than the native platform, but they are pretty difficult.

[00:15:02] Matt: I mean, it's not like you can't be a, I wouldn't say a copywriter could ha it could pop in there and figure the whole thing out immediately. It's more intuitive, but I think it's like. Again, that's why I started with like, know the platforms, know the ad console, know what it helps you with, and then from there you'll be able to like use it for essentially a select use case, right?

[00:15:21] Matt: I think the more narrow you go with these tools, a little bit easier to understand. But I. To, to make this less scary. they all work off the same assumption of what an advertiser is looking to do is find a select group of customers, serve them something that's uber relevant, and then measure the results of that.

[00:15:39] Matt: That's essentially as simple as it gets, right? So if you're going in there with that idea is like, oh, how can I use a targeting tool? Great. How can I then use an automated tool to then serve an ad, and then how can I use a measurement? If you simplify it that way, I think you can get in there and get out.

[00:15:55] Matt: But they're all uniquely a little bit different. I think some of the confusion, some of the watch outs would be is like there's a lot of acronyms in this industry. There's a lot of specific terms and bespoke of things which aren't really bespoke. So, there's a great way it's actually, we could do a whole nother episode of this, of like.

[00:16:11] Matt: How, how to untangle what they all do or what they don't do. 'cause the product marketing for a lot of these businesses make them all seem the same. But, it's a roundabout way of answering your question is like, it is not the easiest thing in the world, but it's a lot easier than using the native platform.

[00:16:24] Matt: And our recommendation is to go in there with a really simple use case to find your way around to start.

[00:16:30] Kelly: Yeah, it really makes me think about sort of the bigger ecosystem and where this fits, what, what puzzle piece this represents. and I'm trying to break it down into the way that we approach sort of that consultative element for clients, which is everyone has a finite amount of resource and we need to figure out how to deploy that to kind of move the needles in the right ways.

[00:16:49] Kelly: And so. Traditionally it would be more of a how do we identify the users who are showcasing characteristics that indicate they'll likely be receptive to our message and interested in our product. And so we find them and we educate and we reach them, and we hope that they either have ad recall so that they search for it later, that they click on the ad and go somewhere and act.

[00:17:11] Kelly: And I think that that makes sense, right? that's really that, that push messaging where you're trying to generate some interest in there. The retail media network becomes interesting in, in that I think it serves two potential parts, right? It is either you are in an environment where people are actively shopping, and so I, think of it as this giant grocery store, right?

[00:17:33] Kelly: Mm-hmm. And they might already have their shopping list, and if you don't find a way to be on that list. you might miss out. They might not go down your aisle, they may not know about you. But where it gets confusing to me is the heavy lift done before they get into the grocery store and they know what brands of cereal they like, and so they're like, okay, I know what I like and I'm gonna go shop for it.

[00:17:56] Kelly: Or is it that you're getting someone in the store who just knows that they want cereal? And at that point it's like, okay, now let's get them to ours. And I don't think there's a clear answer. I think it just opens up the way that you have to think about using this, which is there's an opportunity to reach people who have a need but haven't decided on how to solve it in a place where they can go from that discovery to purchase really quickly.

[00:18:17] Kelly: But also are you leaving that up to chance of how big that universe is? Because a lot of people will come into that environment with that decision already kind of made because of good advertising that was done and branding that was done beforehand where it's like, I've already decided what I want to solve this problem.

[00:18:34] Kelly: And so trying to change my mind at that point is gonna get really expensive. But other than I'm presenting solutions, I'm just thinking about the way that expertise that you need to navigate that, which is. How do you pre nurture in there and make sure that you use the me the Retail Media Network to not let people get distracted versus how do you spend dollars to ensure, hey, someone who is probably willing to buy but hasn't decided yet, let's navigate them into us.

[00:18:59] Kelly: and that's probably a good chance to win.

[00:19:01] Todd: So Kelly or Matt, before you answer that, Kelly, what you just described, if you remember, was Google Zemo, right? Yeah. The Zero Moment of Truth represented this period of time where somebody walked down the, grocery store aisle. Already knew what they were gonna buy in a crowded category because of all the preheated advertising that came before that experience.

[00:19:20] Todd: And Google argued that that was the majority of consumer shopping behavior.

[00:19:24] Kelly: And it's just, really weird to me to think that for the most part, the heavy lifting of getting someone into the environment with that knowledge and that ad recall, that was the big. The big win, right? once they got into Amazon, they've already been exposed to our ad or they clicked on it, or they engaged with this.

[00:19:40] Kelly: So there's a good chance they will naturally go and find our product. And now it's almost like we're trying to take a secondary point of control where it's like, now that they're there, let's not let them find their way to our aisle and put our product in their guests. Let's grab their hand and drag them to the aisle and put the, the item in their court cart for them so that we make sure we get the outcome that they need.

[00:19:58] Matt: I like what you're saying. I think it, opens up the question of. What does this solve and what does it not solve? Or like it, it can't solve all the business's problems, right? You're not gonna get all that pre-awareness within the marketplace. But what you're able to do is for a customer that's already in a consideration point, you're able to serve them an ad really efficiently at the right time.

[00:20:20] Matt: Without getting your wires super tangled up. But it's also maybe a good way to talk about the history of what these tools did too, and it just built for search at the beginning, right? So like super high intent consideration. Now what's happening is. You're able to spend and use these retail media networks for all different types of placements, tv, everything like that.

[00:20:39] Matt: So you're able to get a lot of that exposure that you weren't able able to get pre or, yeah. Before it was just search. Now you're able to expand and do everything. But I think the point you're making is actually a good one is like this isn't just a, silver bullet. You can't do it all here. Like certain brands are maybe built just to be all Amazon or all marketplace, but there still needs to be an investment in brand building and awareness beyond just retail media.

[00:21:00] Matt: You can't put all your dollars there, I guess is what we're saying.

[00:21:03] Kelly: Yeah, and mean, I fully agree with that and, yeah, it just makes me think about the way that you have to approach it in that, again, it's not enough to just create all that leading up to it, but then I try and look, take another broad view.

[00:21:15] Kelly: And we've had this debate before where, you know, what is truly altruistically the point of advertising and. I think it's been used in ways to try and what we've termed as manipulate people into buying things, which is why I think it gets a bad reputation. But altruistically, I think advertising is intended or should be intended to.

[00:21:35] Kelly: Generate awareness of a product that fits someone's lifestyle and need. I think we had a, an episode where we talked about Todd discovering some, I don't know, it was like a gas thing for your motorcycle or something like that. And you were like, this fit my lifestyle and it was a great thing and I would've never known it existed and made my life better if advertising didn't find me, and it exposed me.

[00:21:55] Kelly: And that was a perfect example of what advertising can and should be. And so thinking of it from that lens. I don't know the answer to this, but it becomes, how does the, what is the retail media's network's job in that? Is it trying to further be helpful in generating exposure and awareness around products that solve needs?

[00:22:15] Kelly: Or is it a little bit more aggressive than that in that it is trying to truly direct people in certain ways? Right, because. in its perfect scenario. The search functionality should present someone all of their options, right? I should say I want a multivitamin, gummy, And in theory, that should show me all of the options that solve that need.

[00:22:34] Kelly: I want a multivitamin, gummy. That search should give me all of the options that I have to choose from. And in the Amazon experience, I should be able to look through, you know, sort it by the star rating and the user reviews and the product features and all of that. In theory, you're trying to game the system a little bit by saying, rather than, again, altruistically letting you discover what matters to you based on whatever criteria matters to you.

[00:22:55] Kelly: We're gonna put this one number one in you and try and direct you to buy this multivitamin gummy because this person paid for the right to be able to do that. Now, is that a good or a bad thing? I think there's different ways to think about that, but I think that's where my head goes is what is that user journey?

[00:23:10] Kelly: How does the retail media network either. Benefit or take away from that? and I think that that even gets noisier when you think about, okay, well in theory, if there were 10 multivitamin gummies to choose from organically, maybe I wanna sort through those and find them. If there's 10,000.

[00:23:28] Kelly: That's probably impossible. So maybe pointing out the best ones for me might make sense. don't know. It takes me on this really interesting thought process of how are we engaging with the users and their journey and what matters to them in a meaningful versus manipulative kind of way.

[00:23:42] Matt: Yeah. I feel like a lot of it is much more conversion focused than what I think about other networks of advertising.

[00:23:49] Matt: Like I definitely think, A lot of the search examples that we talked about have a different objective than other media dollars that a business spends of really just trying to win that final step for a customer. but I also think if we think about, maybe the question is too, of like, what's the value of retail media networks?

[00:24:05] Matt: I also think there's a missing one that we haven't discussed yet, which is like probably the hottest trend of like. Of why, especially if you think about how much money is flowing towards these tools is like the measurement element. So it's not actually just helping advertisers win customers, I also think it's helping them measure their investments.

[00:24:24] Matt: Right. How is this comparing against programmatic, for example, what sort of incrementality is striving? So I think the big. The big innovation that's gonna be happening for a lot of these retail media networks and a lot of the benefits as a business, if you're listening into this, is actually gonna be answering that question of what is the value of Amazon and then what's the value of Amazon Instacart, chewy, Yada, yada. Like all of it together. And then the final question is like, it's really easy. I mean, that's what MMS are. It's like an attribution tool. What are these guys doing? But the big question that they're gonna be able to answer this year and next year, and this is due to ai, is, what is the incremental lift of these networks?

[00:25:02] Matt: That's a very different question. And there's a lot of tools. There's one in particular, I'm, not getting kickbacks by this for anyways. It's called incremental. It's essentially a tool that's eliminating the need for businesses to do all these experimentations and tests and be able to get an incremental read of what is this doing and how is it different from everything else that's going on in my business, and what's an incremental number that it's lifting me at?

[00:25:23] Matt: It's super complex. We'll need a whole nother episode to talk about how it does that, but if you're listening, the point is. This is not only a beneficial thing for you to get into a new marketplace. It's not only a beneficial for your teams to serve the right ads, it's beneficial 'cause it's gonna help you answer the question to your board, your CEO.

[00:25:40] Matt: Why am I playing in marketplace and what's the incremental value of it? That's actually what these tools are doing now too.

[00:25:45] Todd: yeah, I think we need five more episodes just to unpack a lot of what was said here, but, we'll wrap this one up. Kelly, I know you have a wrap up. So Matt, can you sort of summarize what the TLDR is here that we can use in the, upfront soundbite of enclosure, what's the primary sort of big thing that people should think about relative to retail media networks?

[00:26:05] Todd: When, where, how, and why?

[00:26:07] Matt: Yeah. I think the TLDR summary is make sure you're picking a retail media network that matches your proficiency with ads and the marketplaces that you're in because you can quickly get over your skis with that, but make sure that you're also going into using a retail media network for very specific use case that you can actually accomplish.

[00:26:25] Matt: Don't get in a tool that you're getting overwhelmed. You're getting 10% of value out. Make sure you're selecting a tool that you're able to use. The majority of it. Make sure your investments sound, but also think about retail media networks, not just to make your advertising business hit harder, but also for you to measure your success in these emerging marketplaces.

[00:26:42] Todd: Kelly, what do you got?

[00:26:43] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, for me, I think my takeaway is more of a, thought exercise around it, which is, you know, it really highlights to me, I. it's a picking up of the baton of the user journey and the fragmentation of that online journey, right? It's not just going to a website.

[00:26:58] Kelly: It's not Now you can buy on TikTok shop, you can buy on Amazon, you can buy on Chewy, you can buy, there's all these places that you can convert and buy, and so. we focus so much on building brand awareness and making sure that we're driving people these conversion points. And now there's this whole secondary environment.

[00:27:15] Kelly: You can almost think as Amazon is like a secondary internet because you can get lost in there and navigate. Right. And so once they're in there, do you have a way to continue to influence and continue to use that experience and continue to leverage that second experience and environment in that way?

[00:27:31] Kelly: And then most importantly, how is that? Playing nicely with the rest of your marketing efforts and the rest of your investments, and where do you balance what it takes to get that awareness, pre-experience versus when they're in there? how do you measure that? I think the idea of incrementality that you brought up Matt, becomes really interesting, which is, constantly talk about the whole marketing mix and would someone have clicked on my ad if they didn't see my video before?

[00:27:54] Kelly: So which one gets credit and multi-touch attribution and user journey and all that. It just gets noisier and more difficult and more complicated. So having the sophistication to be able to look at both big picture and tactically individual becomes extra critical. when you get even more things that you have to manage and understand those components of,

[00:28:14] Todd: Matt, I'm gonna put you on the spot.

[00:28:15] Todd: One last question before we close this episode. we'll plan for you to be on here many more times. I always put everybody on the spot. Can you remember, since we're in the advertising business, what was the last ad you saw?

[00:28:30] Matt: Oh man. Yeah. I'm gonna Las Vegas and next week with some friends, and I'm a little scared, but I'm going with a brewer friend of mine.

[00:28:37] Matt: He is a big drinker, and he told me about this business called Cheers, which is like a night before product. and he's like, Hey, before I say this, you're about to get a bunch of ads. And I've been hit with ads all weekend for Cheers. It's like a morning, be morning bef, I don't even what you call these things, but they're everywhere.

[00:28:54] Matt: So. I'm gonna be trying hang a hangover remedy, right? Hangover remedy. Yeah. We tried some other ones in Nashville a couple weeks ago and they worked pretty well, but apparently Cheers is is the one. So yeah, we'll report back on next episode if it works or not. And they're doing a good

[00:29:07] Todd: job targeting and retargeting you and getting you to buy their product.

[00:29:10] Todd: I.

[00:29:10] Matt: they already won. They won. Good job guys at Cheers.

[00:29:13] Todd: Advertising works when it's

[00:29:15] Matt: done.

[00:29:15] Todd: Yep.

[00:29:17] Matt: Yep, they got me.

[00:29:18] Todd: Alright, Matt, we'll see you on another episode. Thanks very much for your words and insight. Kelly talk to you on the next episode as well.

[00:29:25] Kelly: Appreciate it.