Kroger Precision Marketing Announces Programmatic Solution with Flexible Controls and Decoupled Pricing

Seamless retail media connection with The Trade Desk upgrades programmatic offering.

CINCINNATI, OHIO – November 15, 2023 – Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), the retail media business of Kroger powered by 84.51°, announces that advertisers can now activate Kroger audiences directly in their existing DSP seats. The new programmatic capability pre-optimizes Kroger purchase-based audiences and then uses the advertiser’s own inventory supply and rates for activation. The first iteration launches exclusively with The Trade Desk.

This feature is an evolution of KPM's existing self-service solution, which also measures ad effectiveness by matching ad exposure of custom audiences to in-store and online sales at Kroger. Now, advertisers will activate and measure campaigns within their existing seats on The Trade Desk – including display, online video, and connected TV.

The Hershey Company participated in early testing and provided feedback during product development.

“Pairing Kroger audiences within The Trade Desk reduces ad waste by weighting our impressions to the households most likely to convert,” said Vinny Rinaldi, Head of Media and Analytics, The Hershey Company. “With a positive return-on-ad-spend, our test proves we can more actively steward programmatic campaigns by applying retail data.”

“Kroger Precision Marketing’s audience and sales insights are powerful tools that help advertisers minimize ad waste by enabling them to only reach relevant buyers and to hold advertising accountable to sales through measurement,” said Ben Sylvan, Vice President, Data Partnerships, The Trade Desk. “Advertisers will be able to scale verified buyer audiences across all inventory types on The Trade Desk, including connected TV.”

This product innovation was designed for more buyer flexibility, impact, and transparency:

Flexible Controls: Build campaigns within existing DSP seat to choose supply. Manage placements in the DSP with preferred brand safety controls and verification tags.

Measurable Impact: Measure effectiveness and optimize audiences against in-store and online Kroger sales data.

Transparent Investments: View audience costs – decoupled from inventory and measurement – for full pricing transparency.

The product launches at a time when advertisers are demanding more transparency and impact from programmatic providers.

A recent report by the Association of National Advertisers estimates advertisers waste at least $20 billion annual dollars from inefficient programmatic media. The report recommends in part that buyers measure success based on business goals – rather than just measuring typical media metrics.

“Kroger won’t wait on the sidelines for the programmatic supply chain to evolve,” said Cara Pratt, Senior Vice President of Kroger Precision Marketing. “This combination of our deterministic data with flexible buyer controls has become the new model for inspiring shoppers and reducing programmatic advertising waste.”

KPM plans to expand to other demand-side and buying platforms in the future.

Media Contacts: Jamie Scalici / John O’Hara Mower 212-980-9194 / 315-413-4212 jscalici@mower.com / johara@mower.com

Brian Spencer for Kroger Precision Marketing Brian.Spencer@8451.com