With the newfound momentum behind retail media networks and Dollar General and Walmart reporting promising results, many brands and retailers feel compelled to take this strategy to the next level. One promising avenue for further development is through leveraging content creators and/or influencers.
A 2023 consumer study by influencer marketing platform LTK revealed that Gen Z and millennials trust creators more than ads and celebrities. Additionally, the study found that all age groups are now purchasing products online through creators’ affiliate links, with Gen Z and millennials taking the lead at 75% and 67%, respectively. Furthermore, LTK solidified the sentiment that consumers are influenced to shop based on what they observe on social media.
These findings follow the fact that the influencer marketing sector hit $16.4 billion in 2022, with 67% of brands and retailers reportedly intending to boost their influencer marketing expenditure in 2023. Additionally, 23% of these businesses plan to allocate over 40% of their total marketing budget to influencer marketing.
As a result, brands and retailers are now more than ever embracing the trend and are taking a more calculated approach in choosing the influencers who will promote them. Rather than selecting the most buzzworthy influencer or celebrity, businesses are seeking to partner with creators who share their values, with the goal of forging a more genuine connection between the brand, influencer and audience.
For example, 27- year-old chef Meredith Hayden, creator of Wishbone Kitchen, recently teamed up with Mediterranean quick-service-restaurant (QSR) Cava to launch a limited time spicy lamb bowl. The move is strategic as now Cava has an opportunity to get in front of Hayden’s 1.4 million TikTok followers.
See also: How Brands Are Collaborating With Experts, Influencers and Nonprofits to Connect With Consumers
Retail media alone has already netted positive results for brands. In April, PYMNTS reported that a month after Meta launched Managed Partner Ads Lite and local inventory ads, retailers who have deployed these solutions have seen a lift in sales.
Dollar General cited Managed Partner Ads Lite as an example, noting that the tool allows brands to engage with its customers through ads on Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram.
“DGMN can now help brands understand their true return on ad spend through attribution-based measurement, helping them validate their marketing investments,” a Dollar General spokesperson told PYMNTS in late March.
Meta also reported that Walgreens collaborated with a consumer-packaged goods (CPG) company and leveraged the advertising tool to increase its sales of health remedies by 3.9% and skin care products by 2.5%.
The Managed Partner Ads Lite tool employs consumer insights derived from retailers’ data and facilitates collaborations between retailers and brands for advertising purposes, per a Modern Retail report.
Meanwhile, the local inventory ads tool, which is designed to boost omnichannel sales, uses store inventory data to target local consumers with advertisements for relevant products.
See also: Merchants and Brands Seeing Sales Boost From Retail Media Partnerships
With already promising results on the retail media front, adding content creators could prove to be a winning formula for brands, retailers and influencers.
PYMNTS reported in March that retailers were not just seeing favorable results from innovative retail advertising tools but were also exploring interactive in-store media options to provide a personalized experience for consumers.
In-store media is a $100 billion industry that accounts for 18% of global digital ad spend. To facilitate brand advertising within physical stores, technology firms like Microsoft and Cooler Screens, and retailers such as Walmart and Amazon, are launching their own solutions.
The shift toward in-store retail media is driven by the fact that brick-and-mortar stores continue to serve as the primary revenue source for many retailers. In the United States, over 85% of all retail sales still take place in physical stores rather than online.
Read more: Retailers Give In-Store Media an Interactive Twist to Boost Basket Size
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