A weekly podcast with the latest e-commerce news and events. Episode 326 is is a discussion of retail media networks and their role in the commerce ecosystem.
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Happy Fathers Day!
In our previous episode (325) Jason made a comment about retail media networks sometimes being over-hyped. In response, Scot recruited all his friendsd in the the industry and inticed Kiri Masters to make a rebutle. Which she did via two part linked-in post and a podcast. So in this episode Jason doubles down and defends his position on retail media networks.
In addition to covering the state of retail media networks, Scot introduces his new Retailgentic sub-stack which everyone should subscribe to, and give a listen to his new video podcast focused on the latest Agentic Commerce news.
Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes.
Episode 326 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, June 6th.
Transcript
Jason
[0:23]Welcome to the Json and Scott show this is episode 326 being recorded on Friday June 6th I’m your host Jason retail gig Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot
[0:38]Hey Jason and welcome back Json and Scott show listeners Jason spent about a month since we last had our schedule sync and I had to twist your arm on this 1 what have you been up to for the last month.
Jason
[0:51]Mostly just been bragging to people that you’re back in the Commerce space.
Scot
[0:55]Ah appreciate it it’s been it’s been fun to be back everyone, you know everyone I talked to number 1 thing they say is they want more pods so so I put the extreme pressure on you to make sure we got this 1 so thanks listeners for your patient we’re we’re going to try to at least be monthly I know we even got off that and maybe even every once in a while we’ll do a couple of.
Jason
[1:19]I’m in I’m in as much Scott as I can get I I take.
Scot
[1:23]Yeah. And the have you pre-ordered did you do midnight Menace for your Nintendo switch too that’s kind of the latest console drop it’s been a while since there’s been midnight Menace kind of thing but but seems like it went well based on the reports I saw.
Jason
[1:38]I know I know so no I did not it will not surprise me if I am eventually a switch to owner but I did not have enough enthusiasm to make any extra effort to get 1 when I can assign my agent to just order 1 for me that’s probably when I’ll get it.
Scot
[1:54]Yeah we’re in a test with 1 of the the Chinese agents to see how it did called Manas m a n u s and it did all this thinking it thought for like 20 minutes and it said you’ll like this it basically said your best bet is to call your local Staples. Which I thought was interesting because apparently Staples was a big was very involved in this launch which could be a hallucination I haven’t fact checked this but then it said because people don’t really think about going to Staples to get a game console your your best bet is to call some of those and see if they have them in order so I thought that was interesting.
Jason
[2:28]It is and my assumption was that that LM was trained on Scot Wingo data and behaviors because I actually think I learned the how to get the desirable consumer electronics from the less popular retail channels trick from you.
Scot
[2:44]It’s true and there’s a longtime Star Wars fan the best Star Wars toys were at Kmart because everyone was going to Walmart and Tru No 1 thought about Kmart here in the Southeast I don’t have those in Chicago.
Jason
[2:56]Yeah we we certainly did but not not many anymore there’s there’s this old retailer that no 1 but you has heard of called eBay that I I I heard can be a good good unpopular channel to buy some of that stuff.
Scot
[3:08]Yeah yep they usually do well I saw that they were up to so it retails there’s a bundle that retails for $9.99 and I saw there were going for 6 15 to 650 so that gives you a kind of about a what is that like a, 35% markup is so you know that’s the that’s the amount of demand that exceeds the supply on the switch to.
Jason
[3:32]Yeah now the listeners are are super curious to find out you’re getting a little you’re inching towards empty nest status is that going to actually like increase your your gaming, consumption or or are you going to have to cut back when you don’t have as good a beard.
Scot
[3:56]I get really into the Zone on them and I’ll look up and it’ll be like 5 a.m. and I’ve done an all nighter unintentionally and then my weeks destroyed so I have to be very careful with my gaming because I get super sucked into them.
Jason
[4:09]And that is principle number 1 for listeners to learn know thyself.
Scot
[4:14]Yes yep so I try to try to meter out my gaming very very judiciously.
Jason
[4:20]That that is fair I can see all my bad gaming habits were passed down to my son so it’s always funny when you’re your kid’s biggest flaws are the ones that you gave him.
Scot
[4:30]Yeah it’s the just kind of the way it works DNA is a weird thing.
Jason
[4:34]Indeed it is so Scott I I know that in addition to trying to get these the the frequency on our podcast up you’ve been cheating on me with a new podcast.
Scot
[4:45]It’s not cheating it’s like when a band has someone it’s like when Simon and Garfunkel and Simon went solo for a while because Garfunkel was was traveling amongst clients.
Jason
[4:55]Gotcha so you’re saying it’s not cheating when you’re a polygamist does that what you’re saying.
Scot
[4:59]That’s 1 way of saying it. Yeah yeah so as part of my new obsession which is not video games I’ve directed that to this whole idea of a magentic shopping and have a there’s a substack we talked about last time called retail gentic which is a, a newsletter where publishing some thought leadership around this new trend and helping people track it and think about what’s going on. And then start started a podcast as well, and it’s a more modern the Json and Scott is the OG so it’s Audio Only but here we the the hipsters there’s these new, places I don’t know if you’ve heard of them but there’s 1 called YouTube and this it’s not insta cart but insta and there’s no 1 called Tik Tok the there’s a video format that’s popular so it’s both video and audio so people can choose their own adventure and then the the secret again this you can take this back to your friends at pubis the secret is these shorts are very popular so you take these big Snippets of the videos and put them out there and they they go crazy. So yes we had we had 3 published pods so far I did a little little foundational 1 just kind of talk about some of the. Atomic foundational Concepts, and then we had a friend of ours our show sutareta and then also Michelle Grant on so I’m kind of harvesting the the Jason Scott show friends to come on and.
Scot
[6:21]Understand trying to triangulate on what are people thinking about this whole agentic retail is it you know hype reality when’s it coming, like I have you on at some point would you be so kind and then the so it’s been fun it’s been fun to chat with folks and get that out there also shout out to Scott Silverman and Melissa berdick and all the folks that have been helping me get the word out I appreciate everyone chiming in on that much appreciated.
Jason
[6:46]Yeah yeah I’m an inaugural listener for sure and it’s a super fast fascinating and rapidly evolving topic that’s seems like it’s coming up every day at work right now so it’s it’s awesome to get some some principles and some some povs out there.
Scot
[7:02]Yeah and we’re going to talk about AI so today’s show is a little weird we had like a smattering of news we’re not going to talk about Amazon earnings like has been kind of our our our anchor for the last 3 or 4 episodes so there’s kind of 2 buckets there’s an AI bucket we’re going to cover that second but really the main attraction and the reason we know everyone’s listening to this is to pick up this, kind of online pod. Battle Royale between you and Kiri Masters where we’re going to talk about retail media networks but before we do we’re going to warm up with a couple other topics there was 2 I wanted to get your hot take on because I have an opinion and I was kind of wondering what you thought number 1 is I’m sure you saw the news that Nike is back on Amazon as a first-party third-party seller I guess first-party with Amazon what do you make of that.
Jason
[7:53]Yeah I mean I think it’s interesting I think it makes sense for them to be there in general I feel like the. All all of the channel battles have been fought and it’s to me it’s pretty clear that to reach the broadest possible Market which at Nike scale you you certainly have to, you have to be on the big marketplaces and you have to be in the big wholesalers and so you know there was this this strong pivot it Nike to to direct to Consumer and I I think, their smart to have a direct to Consumer Channel I think they do it pretty well but I think they went. 2 2 extreme on it and you know now under under new leadership they’re they’re trying to course correct and get back so so philosophically I agree with all that what I think the interesting nuance. That hasn’t played out with regard to Nike and Amazon yet but I I cynically have a have a hypothesis is how.
Jason
[8:48]How important is Nike going to make marketplaces and wholesalers and by that what I mean is, there’s Nikki has a lot of mainstream product they have a lot of they won’t appreciate this this characterization but they have a lot of commodity product and then they have a lot of scarce desirable product that helped build the brand. And it is still true today that the scarce product is predominantly available through Nike direct channels and so as they’ve come back to wholesale. They’re they’re not doing the new drops in wholesale and you know they’re going from zero skus on Amazon to a bunch of skus on Amazon but I’m kind of curious. Like what those skis will be will you be able to get the Frontline new drops on drop day will you be able to get the, the the main new releases shortly after drop day or will you not be able to get those at all and only be able to get the kind of more you know mass mass consumer products on on Amazon I think I think those kind of details are going to be what’s interesting about their long-term Marketplace strategy what do you think.
Scot
[9:53]I think it’s kind of the nail in the coffin of this whole you know, dnvb and DTC you know we’re going to own the customer and just go direct I think, that the dnvb were the first casualties in that because they scaled up and they got to hundreds of millions of dollars or or 100 million seem to be where they capped out and then they realized well we’re just paying Google you know it made it seem like they’re going to direct to Consumer but then the reality came that it was really. They were inquiring the customer they just would pay Google for or or Google and Facebook all kind of put those they would pay pay the ad platforms, attacks so at that point if you’re going to be paying the tax. Anyway and you’re not really owning the customer you might as well be everywhere so so I think that’s kind of like the conclusion Nike has come to and you know I think D Toc as a part of a multi-faceted strategy and you should have a piece of direct and you should try to grow it but going exclusive is cuts out too many of the places where people are you got to meet the customer where they are and this is this is kind of proof that the customers on Amazon and if Nike wants to get to them they’re going to need to now they’re you know there is going to be this strategy where you don’t you’re not going to put your hot drops on there that’s that’s the Gold Dust you’re going to use to drive the direct strategy but that’s not what makes all the margin the what makes the margin is the.
Scot
[11:14]The third generation you know the Air Jordan that’s not scarce. You know you’re going to sell a million of at and you get really great margin on it and and it it’s being pulled by the scarcity of the. AJ 26 or something like that.
Jason
[11:30]No I think I I I think we agree and you know that certainly is like every every every business is slightly different but that’s certainly my my sort of starting point is these are all channels it’s important to have a multi-channel multifaceted strategy and anytime you meet a company that thinks that their their whole future is in any 1 channel that’s usually problematic, I will say I’ve been surprised I have stumbled across a couple of recent examples of of outliers that like have been, successful going the other way and for a while I was really struggling to find them like I you know I always talk about how you can’t scale the billion dollars in gmv as a d Toc company and I I did a webinar recently with my friends at Euro Monitor and they they brought the data and they brought up an example I hadn’t considered like there’s a a direct to Consumer pet food company I know you spend a a fortune on Pet Food Scott called Farmer’s dog which is this like, fresh you know consumer formulation and they’re exclusively direct to Consumer and to their credit they’ve built a a well in excess of billion dollar a year business doing it so so it is possible I still I don’t think that’s the. The happy pass for the vast majority of Brands and I don’t think that’s the path to maximize your Revenue.
Scot
[12:44]Got it and then the other type of that was interesting is someone from 1 of The Wall Street analysts contacted me and he’s like hey have you heard about this weird thing going on between Amazon and Google and I said no I haven’t and apparently this is from you may know what this is but median tenuity client there’s some data set out there from you know someone in the ad world and they basically look at the they they have enough ad spend going through whatever platform they have to know the impressions of the big advertisers on Google shopping so we’re specifically within the Google shopping part of Google and around, May 21st Amazon. Impressions went from maybe 60% of the time you would see an Amazon product to sub 30 so the implication is Amazon has pulled back dramatically on this spend most their spend is on. And this excludes AWS and Kendall and Alexa and you know that we’re talking just the retail part of Amazon the book of the retail part of Amazon spend is on Google shopping as makes sense because it’s driven by product searches and it feels like they’ve pulled back about half of what they were spending their or more and so I didn’t really have, I mean I I have a universe of what it could be and I was curious what you thought was going on there.
Jason
[14:14]Yeah so also don’t know what it is I do know what tenuity is it’s it’s 1 of these these data panel that that tries to estimate add spend on Google on Google I I saw that that report, and I think it’s too early to give very excited about it here’s here’s what I’m guessing a the the fundamental underlying thing here that people don’t realize or forget that super interesting to me is. The main Amazon’s main business and by far their most profitable business is eyeball Arbitrage. So as we’ve talked about a bunch of times on this show their their most profitable business is is their retail media business that it it it’s you know approaching.
Jason
[14:53]It it’s way higher margin than anything else and and in terms of operating income contribution it it exceeds AWS and anything else, but what people forget is how do they get all those eyeballs all those eyeballs do not organically go to Amazon I’m sure they get a very healthy chunk of organic traffic but Amazon is also the largest Advertiser in the world and as you just pointed out, the place they buy the most ads is on Google so so the real business here is Amazon buys eyeballs from Google they sell something to those eyeballs on the Amazon 1p and 3p Marketplace and they they they they monetize that that sale and then, they sell and add to that eyeball to someone else for more money than they bought it for which is a awesome business right so. That’s their their sort of Baseline business that that’s been super successful for them and continues to scale and grow great. So now you’ve got all this crazy economic uncertainty you’ve got all the these tariff threats you’ve got all these import threads. The the the half-life on all of these Channel strategies is about 3 days right now right because every every 3 days circumstances change, and the 1 of the first ways that companies react to these potential, headwinds in their business model based on regulations and based on taxes and tariffs is they cut back on the customer acquisition they cut back on the media spend and so to me.
Jason
[16:23]It feels like when Amazon you know Amazon waited as long as they could they had a bunch of product in their Channel they didn’t have to pay tariffs on but when you know it started looking like they were really going to meaningfully have to pay a significantly enhanced tariff on a significant portion of their sales they slowed down their advertising right and. The the tenuity data like only has 1 week of of data where the, the spend has way dipped down and so you know the magic question for me is 2 months from now are we going to see, is that lower advertising rate The New Normal at Amazon and are they are they cutting way back and being more conservative is it going to bounce right back in 2 weeks you know a bunch of the the most feared tariffs got delayed yet again and so it wouldn’t surprise me to see, them kind of you know return to their normal advertising levels but I to me it likely this likely reflects like Amazon making some fast Corrections you know based on the complicated macroeconomics that are playing out right now.
Scot
[17:26]Yeah we probably won’t know until the announced Q2 but so Wall Street kind of had a couple of possibilities there were they were thinking well maybe it’s the tariffs starting to hit the business and and, pulling the emergency brake on spending another 1 was they’re going to absorb some of the tariffs and it’s hitting margin and they’re going to have to pull back some ad spend so those are kind of like. 2 sides of the same coin and then you know another 1 was at this point maybe they’re tuning their customer acquisition engine and they already have so many customers they they decided that this the ROI on this particular Channel isn’t great so those are some of the things out there. So we don’t we won’t know until we kind of see how the earnings and I’ve I remember Amazon did this 1 time and then they just kind of came roaring back to, you know like in a week so sometimes they’re just playing games out there.
Jason
[18:16]Yeah and as as you.
Scot
[18:17]It could be a test.
Jason
[18:18]Yeah exactly and as you pointed out sometimes they just they’re they’re engineering a particular outcome for for their quarterly earnings right and so you know. It it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they decide they just need to be like less in market for a particular week.
Scot
[18:35]Yeah and we are you know positional awareness we’re kind of like almost at that midpoint of the quarter so they they’ve got you know 45 dates of data for the quarter that we don’t have that that they’re searing the ship on the the other the other conversation topic what’s this mean for Google is this bad for Google and you know the thing that’s interesting there is it’s not a zero sum game for Google because it’s an auction right so let’s say Amazon comes out of the auction totally the under bidders are just going to come and get that traffic but it is you know it actually could start to be material because you probably had in this chart and we’ll put it in the show notes Walmart is is holding steady but this 1 they they intend they they actually had Teemu and shien on here and Amazon and if you look at the trend of those 3 things is down in the right significantly so at some point Facebook and Google are going to feel it with these biggest Spenders taking some money out I’m not sure there’s enough backfill to come fill all of that but it that’s going to be another interesting thing here in Q2 to see there there’s some some knock-on effects I think Google’s and we’ll talk about this later Google’s biggest risk is AI and and I’m I’m I’m squarely in the camp that well we’ll talk about when we get there.
Jason
[19:45]All right um I I will say that this this whole conversation about like what happens when a big Advertiser pulls out has come up a lot recently like there’s, you know Amazon’s the biggest Advertiser so that’s a you know very meaningful if they’re slowing down and particularly they they slow down for prolonged period it would have a. Prominent sort of head effect and a a tail effect on a bunch of things. You know the other big advertisers that have been out there for a while are the Chinese direct to Consumer businesses right and. They they are a big players on Google they’re even bigger players in the meta ecosystem and you know tariffs are most directly impacting them and the changes to Dominus so they have. For sure pulled way back on their advertising investment and in fact like in the case of she and they moved all those dollars to Europe and so we talk a lot about well what does that mean for, people on meta like if if you know the highest bidder pulls out like our you know our our cpms improving on meta. As these big advertisers leave and it turns out the answer is way more complicated and uncertain than you might think because the. The wrinkle on all these things we we like to think of of these bidding on ads as a as sort of a product with scarcity and that you know people multiple people are bidding for the same terms but there actually is unlimited inventory of these things so it’s not like. There’s there’s more inventory and they’re they’re all using these complicated.
Jason
[21:13]Auction system you know second price auction systems these like the the terms of art are like the victory card Groves auction system is is the. The foundation of the meta advertising platform bidding platform and and so. It does lower the winning bid when a a major Advertiser pulls out but but only very nominally so it’s it’s it’s kind of interesting to see what the the long-terms impact are like certainly like it impacts. The advertising platform’s Revenue but it but it may not have as.
Scot
[21:46]Have to do what was this called we’ll have to do a whole show on This this term of art you just use.
Jason
[21:50]Yeah yeah I feel like you you should be the um you’re this is going to be your deep deep dive that’s going to cause you to realize it’s 5 a.m. is is you know they in the old days of auctions it was like whoever had the highest price. When the auction and that’s what they paid right and.
Scot
[22:07]Yeah and I’ve heard of like a Chinese auction there’s like a lot of different flavors I’ve never heard of the 1 you said.
Jason
[22:13]Yeah so so like most of the world has like moved to these second price auctions where like the you know the winning bid pays like a fraction more than the second highest bid, and then all of these economists have come in with these like changes to that auction system to to make it even more efficient and more maximize the the revenue for the the platforms and I think these are the names of the economists so I think like, I think there there was a system called the victory auction and a system called The Clark auction and a system called a gross auction and, uh meta in particular their actual bidding system is a black box which has a lot of advertisers kind of up in arms because you like, you can’t actually do the math to know what you’re going to pay, but but they they basically said that their their algorithm is an amalgamation of these of these 3 documented bidding systems so they call it a victory card Groves auction system.
Scot
[23:11]Hmm okay with a a hint of maximizing Revenue to meta.
Jason
[23:16]Probably more than a hint.
Scot
[23:18]A touch a scooch. Okay now for the main event the retail media Network Battle Royale so the way this started is on May 6th about a month ago we did episode 325 and Jason you just jumped right out there and said you know I’m kind of burned down on retail media Networks, here’s 4 reasons why I think they’re kind of meh I’m not super excited about them and I said, Jason be careful you’re going to get Carrie really fired up and carry Masters is she ran a agency sold it and then.
Jason
[24:00]Bob Squad marketing.
Scot
[24:02]Yeah there you go I didn’t even know the name and then now, now she does a variety of different Consulting things and she has a excellent podcast and and newsletter called retail media Breakfast Club. And she as the name would imply the first 2 words are retail media she spends a lot of time in this world of retail media Networks and sure enough less than 2 days after we posted that on May 8th she had a rebuttal the beginning of rebuttal that basically said hey Jason says retail media is actually kind of quote unquote mid does some kind of fancy term the kids use today and then she sent a call out she kind of highlighted your for for criticisms if you will and, areas for uh Improvement we’ll call them and then 21 days later the industry rallied and provided her with a lot of data and she kind of flushed out her argument so here we are June 6th and I’m going to tee these up for you and see what you’re so you’ve had your argument she had her counter and now we’re going to have the Jason counter to the counter so is that a fair setup or do you want to change any.
Jason
[25:11]Yeah yeah yeah no I think. I think that’s mostly Fair like a fun fact I’m not sure if you fully realized Scott but like what you and Kiri have exactly in common is you, you both were like awesome and successful in the Commerce space you both foolishly thought there’d be something interesting outside of the Commerce space and then you you subsequently realized that the Commerce space is the best and came back. Um and so so I I feel like you might be kindered spirits and I. 1 of the problems with doing a podcast for 11 years for someone like you and I have been doing now is I sometimes forget we record these things so it probably wasn’t that smart for me to like. Take a a position that maybe isn’t super popular at my employer that sells a lot of advertising that that thing goes on the podcast and then cury to help we amplify it wrote this awesome article Jason Goldberg says retail media is mid and so so there there was a day in pubis where like that title is was. Was thrown around pretty liberally on our on all of our teams chats and I I had to quickly explain to everyone and I I think this is fair this is not a reinstatement like.
Jason
[26:20]Retail media is awesome for the biggest players in the ecosystem and and as a huge business for for Amazon and Walmart and pendwa Duo and others the, I’m I’m more concerned about how profitable retail and how big a deal retail media can be for the longer tale of retailers and particularly specialty retailers and Regional retailers so that that was kind of my position so some of the people like chiming in on Curious Thing are like Jason’s crazy don’t you know how big amazon is and. That’s that’s not my position I do know how big amazon is and I think they can get a lot bigger in their in their advertising business um so so that Kiri understood that and like her arguments are are more targeting the the stuff where where she and I probably legitimately disagree but it’s awesome because she’s super smart and I’m happy to hear her position and I’m happy to to learn that I’m wrong I gotta be honest so far she has not convinced me.
Scot
[27:19]Okay you’re somewhat biased but let’s let’s let the listeners be the they’re they’re going to call the balls and Strikes so and I’m just the moderator in this whole Wacky World.
Jason
[27:27]No you’re just the the pot store is what you really are.
Scot
[27:31]Some say arsonist but yeah I’ll take poster that’s a nicer version okay so there’s basically 4 areas of disagreement and we’re going to go through them, pretty quickly here so your your initial position was and you just recited it that it’s really concentrate on if you really zoom out this is basically an Amazon thing and, you basically said that Amazon has 76% of the ad spend and then you have Walmart is the next biggest at 8 and all the rest is basically 16%. So that’s your argument curious counter is she acknowledges that Amazon’s dominant but she does highlight. The longer tail and she kind of throws Walmart Target Kroger and a bunch of others in there they offer unique inventory and different formats and if you look they’re growing faster than Amazon in many cases and over time they’re going to start to pull away from Amazon what is your counter to the counter.
Jason
[28:32]Yeah well they are all growing faster because they’re they’re wildly smaller and the the law of large numbers plays out but it’s still like Walmart is almost certainly twice as big as the next biggest retail media Network and so, the you know if if their directionally around 8% and they don’t disclose their number so we’re just we’re using some some third-party estimates if their directionally 8% of the market and Amazon’s 76% of the market the the third largest add retail media Network which is probably like instacart, is less than 4% of the market so it they could grow really fast and still never be meaningful it’s it’s for sure true that some of these platforms all have unique ad formats and unique audiences in the main argument they’re all going to make is we don’t have the scale of the big ones but we have better eyeballs right like you can’t buy near as many eyeballs from us but you can buy more targeted eyeballs from us because we know our customer better and our customer picks us because we’re special and so you can buy that special eyeball and in general I think all those are arguments are true it’s still just doesn’t add up ever add up to enough dollars to be meaningful right and if you’re you’re the.
Jason
[29:43]The the main media spender at a huge fast moving consumer goods company say Your Mark Pritchard at at Procter and Gamble, you don’t have the luxury of working really high to buy super special eyeballs for 2% of your audience like it just it just doesn’t economically make sense like you need you need to buy hundreds of millions of eyeballs to to move the needle and make your comps.
Scot
[30:07]Yeah but let’s let’s say, so for instacart for example yes it’s small in this larger thing but it’s big enough for them that it basically makes all the margin like if you’re your argument is these Regional ones are you know you’re not sure it’s going to work but it doesn’t have to be that big for them. You know it will be teeny tiny compared to Amazon but it doesn’t have to be that big for them because it’s pure margin to move the needle on the the ibida so.
Jason
[30:31]Yeah now but in true fair and that that like that, potentially Jim argument it would be better if you could make that argument for HEB than instacart because I actually said like in the episode 5 325 that instacart is probably big enough to be profitable too at at 4% of the market right so I actually think you’re right they, safe enough squarely on the other side of the chasm to still win but the magic question is can a regional grosser win can a you know. A specialty retailer for for uh nutritional supplements when can these these kinds of folks have a big enough retail business, to justify the effort and this is going to get conflated with with the next argument but the. I I think there’s not a lot of great examples of them already winning so that you you have to believe some future potential and you know time will tell. The ones that have the most the biggest numbers have the biggest numbers because. Reclassifying a bunch of Revenue that they already had right so the so part of my argument in 325 was, when you when you get down when your HB which I’m using HB as an example HB is the best grocery store in Texas right they’re great people love them but they’re only in Texas they’re not huge they don’t have a huge audience. The.
Jason
[31:58]When they launched a retail Network and lean into it and then there’s public reporting on on you know estimating how much revenue they’re getting a big chunk of that revenue is, the trade dollars that they’ve been getting for the last 50 years in their store and when they hired, a VP of Revenue to launch a retail media Network the first thing he did is hey instead of buying the the store circular and the floor decal from your your merchants in your joint business partner meeting you’re now going to buy those those advertising opportunities from me through a website and I’m going to count that Revenue.
Scot
[32:33]Mhm yeah so you’re just moving dollars from the.
Jason
[32:37]So if you take those dollars out I haven’t seen any any of these like specialty retailers are really small retailers even that are great at what they do I haven’t seen them generate enough Revenue to. To justify the the effort.
Scot
[32:52]Gotcha. All right argument so Jason says show me 2 very specific things being successful and then I’ll call you when this is what you do to me on predictions you you make the success criteria this little pinhole that’s impossible.
Jason
[33:08]Yes yes keep moving moving the gold post and shrinking them.
Scot
[33:11]This teeny tiny little gold post uh.
Jason
[33:15]57 words in my title is strategist.
Scot
[33:18]I was wondering if you’ve been picking up my uh yeah I’m not sure after this episode retail media is going to still be in your title or not I may have to take that 1 out.
Jason
[33:26]Yeah I feel like you had Michelle Grant on on your your new podcast that you like better than ours and I I think she officially has 2 times as many words as me.
Scot
[33:36]You need to get to work Buddy stop stop throwing your strategic stuff into the Buster. All right your second argument which you kind of reiterated just now is there’s kind of 2 things conflated here there’s format and and advertisers so so your second argument is retail media is really at the end of the day sponsored product ads we’ll call that spas. And instead of it being this. It’s always advertised that these are Brands spending money and whatnot it’s really third-party sellers its Marketplace sellers paying up in the search results for their listings versus the first party. Her counter is that yes that’s where it is today but if you look there the landscape is diversifying rapidly with new formats and broader, Advertiser participation and let’s see she cited. I don’t have the reference here but she started she mentioned brand carousels are improving in popularity video ads and off-site media, and then oh she talked about Best Buy has some kind of a bottom of page Carousel that has a 19% increase in Spa coverage sponsored product covering, coverage reaching 97% and then she had she cited some. Report that the advertiser base is broadening with more mids mid and smaller Brands participating what’s your counter to Gary’s counter.
Jason
[35:00]Yeah but I think all of her examples were kind of still proved my argument their their Marketplace third party sellers buying different different stuff but it’s the you know I think when you look at the winners versus the losers in retail media all the winners are going to be successful marketplaces that are mainly selling eyeballs to third-party sellers and so yeah the. There might be more than 1 format the biggest format is likely to be sponsored search until until AI totally disrupts search someday maybe but we’ll we’ll talk about that later, but it’s it’s it’s the marketplaces that are buying the things when you you know you go look at other places where advertisers spend a bunch of money getting eyeballs like I don’t know the Super Bowl and you look at all the people that are advertising on the Super Bowl and you say like how many of them are non-endemic buying ads on retail media networks and the answer is none.
Scot
[35:52]Yeah all right so now you said the goal is a Super Bowl ad buyer has to participate in retail media Networks.
Jason
[35:58]Uh well or no okay uh we’ll call the goal uh you know somebody somebody getting the majority of their their advertising revenue from from non-endemic or first-party sellers versus third-party sellers.
Scot
[36:11]What let’s use an example of a brand like Pepsi Pepsi doesn’t participate in retail media Networks.
Jason
[36:16]They do I would I would argue that they they you know vast and, this this starts again in controversial territory they vastly disproportionately invest in the biggest marketplaces and the ecosystem so in the in Pepsi’s world and I I work with a Pepsi competitor a lot more than I do Pepsi so I’m not speaking from a a position of knowledge but I think you’re going to find that the vast majority of Pepsi spend is Amazon in the US is Amazon Walmart instacart and, you know they’re not making a proportional spend at HEB and by the way like I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this but they’re they’re they’re become some interesting antitrust things that come up when you start diving too deep down that rabbit hole.
Scot
[37:00]2 okay I won’t go there that sounds like me in some courtroom so let’s let’s go to argument 3.
Jason
[37:05]Yeah.
Scot
[37:06]Uh okay so you said incremental ad dollars for specialty or Regional retailers are limited. You’re very skeptical about potential further being ad Revenue growth for the smaller retailers or third-party marketplaces kind of on the tail. Kiri countered that efficiency and Innovation are actually countering that and driving growth at non Amazon retail media Networks, she cited some data from Keen decision systems which is a triangle company and my investment piece is an investor in there for full disclosure. I actually had no idea she was going to cite this which was kind of funny it’s a small world out there. But Keen has data that shows that while Amazon their data shows Amazon gets 64% of retail media budgets which is much smaller than you pontificate 1 the return on investment is, cents per dollar the the marginal return on investment the mroi is 71 cents Walmart, has an mroi of 90 cents Target a buck 8. And Kroger a163 so you basically be crazy not to advertise in this long tail because for every dollar you put in you get money it just rains money Jason how can you possibly argue against that.
Jason
[38:23]Yeah well so a I feel like anytime they have to use a Scot Wingo holding company as the proof Point like I’ve already won the argument but I’m kidding of course, um the uh like it it just it just amplifies their credibility in my mind that that that they’re they’re in the fund Scott but that aside. I think my response to keery was that I I have no doubt that in some cases they’re more efficient I’d actually say the efficiency is uneven like it’s it’s neither. It’s not true that the longtail is inherently more efficient than the head advertisers or platforms, or inefficient but I’m sure there are examples of of longtail retail media networks that are more efficient and examples of particular ad formats in the long tail that are more efficient but none of that matters because no Advertiser is trying to be efficient or is bonus based on efficiency like they’re, trying to sell as much stuff they’re trying to maximize their revenue and you need scale for Revenue which in advertising is at the head so if if you go to any smart CMO and you say you, I I can help you reach an audience of a thousand people and be super efficient or I can help you reach an audience of 10 billion people and be less efficient. They’re they’re going to grow a bigger business earn a bigger bonus and retire on a better yacht by by inefficiently reaching the 10 billion people.
Scot
[39:50]All right the last argument is the excitement around retail media is overhyped outside of Amazon so you basically said once you get outside of Amazon the excitement for me to tell media really is very limited, Kerry’s counter to that is. That retail media is increasingly not confined to on-site ads so people are using the first-party data to drive off-site advertising so there’s more programmatic advertising using that first-party data in store video is growing very dramatically again we’re an investor in a company in that space and you’re getting these more full funny funnel campaigns available your marketer forecasted off-site retail media ad spend, which is currently 10% is expected to grow to 30% in the coming years indicating a dynamic and expanding landscape what’s your counter to the counter.
Jason
[40:43]Yeah well so so a couple of things in store media it, for sure everyone in retail media loves talking about in store media there’s 2 kinds of in-store media there’s digitizing all the in-store stuff that we’ve always been doing right and so we talked about that already right so if if in store media is buying the floor decal okay well the floor decals were there before right so that’s not interesting the 1 of the, respondents and curious curious thread is deeply involved in retail and New Zealand and he’s talking about the cool in-store feature displays with with animatronic dinosaurs that he did right and what kind of successful they were and I’m like yeah but we’ve been doing, animatronic dinosaurs in stores a lot longer like just calling it retail media doesn’t make it a new thing and so the so there’s. The these people that are digitizing the existing efforts that are in store which I don’t count and then, could be an argument like oh man I’m adding a bunch of New Impressions in store I’m hanging a bunch of monitors in store I’m hanging a bunch of signs in store specifically for this new retail media opportunity and there have been, a number of startups there have been a few retailers that have like announced major initiatives to add a bunch of screens and impressions in store and monetize them, and I would argue here today none of them have been successful like none of them if they’re if they’re a retail hanging screens, they’ve all scaled back their plans and not hung all their screens.
Jason
[42:12]If it’s folks like cooler screens at at you know that that was putting all the the video screens in refrigerators inside of Walgreens like.
Jason
[42:22]Fighting with each other Walgreens pulled them all out and they’re suing each other like like there’s no successful examples of of adding impressions in store. Specifically for a retail media Network and selling them and similarly. The the off-site opportunity is is relatively small number 1 it’s a small piece of the thing so all the other arguments about scale and reach still apply. But also. That’s not a new ad that ad was already running offsite and so you go oh well maybe that ad is a little better maybe it’s a little more efficient because it’s fueled by a little more data from the retailer and I do believe that like it is, it is like incrementally better but it’s not. Groundbreaking or game-changing or you know they’re trying to take credit for that whole ad saying like man that didn’t exist in the world and now it does when really it was, 2 dollar impression that’s now a 2 and 5 Cent impression and so the incrementality of that ad is 5% not 100% and it’s. You know 5% of 8% of retail media networks been so it’s just not not a big thing yet. Again time will tell I’d love to find out I’m wrong I I hope these guys are all successful but so far I haven’t seen the examples show me the money.
Scot
[43:40]Okay Carrie the counter to your counter has been presented and now we’ll wait to see what what comes out of the retail media Breakfast Club.
Jason
[43:50]Yeah I’m looking forward to to tomorrow’s LinkedIn headline and tomorrow afternoon’s like is Jason Goldberg crazy thread on our internal on our internal team stage. The hopefully cure you’ll give me a job when when I get myself fired at pubis um. Given that you’re getting me in hot water I was laughing because I I listened to your first episode of of uh the retail gentic podcast. And you you had a line in there that I was chuckling at because it this is a another controversial topic that comes up that I want to get you to weigh in on. You mentioned your your background and you you talked about the success of Channel advisor which is an awesome story, I’m super proud I know you but you kind of talked about how you guys had this hypothesis about how important marketplaces were going to be and that like you know time has proven you write and I 100% agree with that marketplaces are super important. I think, the the marketplace is kind of the winning model in digital Commerce and every Market in the world so congratulations that’s awesome but you you then kind of threw a line in at the end so every retailer needs to have a Marketplace and. I chuckled at that because I’m familiar with a lot of retailers that are struggling with whether they ought to launch a Marketplace or whether they ought to.
Jason
[45:06]You know keep supporting the marketplace there there they they already launched that isn’t performing very well. And I’ve been going around to a bunch of these retailers giving them advice it’s almost impossible to operate a successful, third-party Marketplace if you’re a first-party seller in your DNA like you almost you have to fire the merchants. Your first party Merchants to be a successful Marketplace and I I would argue that’s exactly what Amazon did and I would argue that like Walmart kind of did a a slightly different version of a similar thing when they did a aqua higher and put a billionaire in charge of their Marketplace that like had the leverage to Towing into the marketplace like even though there were a bunch of upset Merchants but that when you’re a small retailer who’s you know fourth generation family business you know making money selling stuff it’s really hard to grow and be successful as a Marketplace and I look at all the the the, the first party retailers that added a Marketplace it feels like most of them fail then they’re either small or they’ve canceled it or they’re on their third efforts and so I just I was curious if that is your official position like should should HB have a a Marketplace in Texas for grocery.
Scot
[46:17]I’m I’m a Marketplace pure so I would say yes where they usually fail is where you point out its theology it’s the the company can’t get their head around the. The they think they can control the world right so so the, first-party people they want to curate this beautiful selection of of items for the buyer which which I understand and and you do need to do that to some degree but then the day if you. It’s out there anyway and the consumer is going to find it so you might as well my argument is you might as well make money from that on your site if they’re not going to buy from you which. You know it’s going to happen anyway because it’s the internet and you know you you just you have to have the technology and you.
Scot
[47:05]You your your merchandising becomes not the underlying selection but the technology and how things are presented to the buyer and if they don’t like what you’ve presented wouldn’t you rather them buy something else that’s on your digital shelves versus going so to Amazon, like how has that worked out for you would be my argument so and then also there’s another practicality is these many of these retailers they struggle to grow selection because they have these very Arcane underlying systems that. You and I know many of them are like these as 400s and they use EDI and all these very archaic ways of onboarding product that doesn’t was wasn’t it was invented for the offline world and hasn’t scaled well to the digital world. So we live in a fast-paced. Pace world and if there’s a hot new product you can’t have these long Cycles to get that on your site you need to be you need to have a FastPass for awesome product to get onto your site in a Marketplace is a great way to have that, especially on the digital side for these Omni Channel you know. Harmonized whatever you want to call it so so I think those are the 2 theological things that people kind of have to get their head around.
Jason
[48:12]Yeah and so would you say like I look at the landscape there’s a bunch of kind of. People that like the poster child for for adding a 3p Marketplace to 1 P used to be Staples the guy that was an advocate for that at Staples left and they closed the marketplace so I Best Buy was a big example they closed the marketplace they just brought back a new Marketplace Kroger I think is on their third Marketplace Albertson’s tried 2 marketplaces I look at someone like Target right and target has something they call a Marketplace but they the they have a stricter process for onboarding third-party sellers than they do for onboarding first-party product and so I think, you know in their fourth or fifth year of the marketplace they have like 3,000 vendors on the marketplace and like 5,000 skus or something like to me that’s a Drop Shipping program not a Marketplace so I guess that like. Are did all those fail because they couldn’t get over those those philosophical you know Transformations that they needed to make or.
Scot
[49:09]Yeah yeah I was literally in a a Staples meeting with Fazil in like some exec there and it was a we got in this circular argument where you know. They said well you know they were looking at the channel advisor merchants and we have a merchant called E4 City that’s just like you probably have run into him jack. Jack option and they’re just like relentlessly low-cost direct from China electronic accessories like let’s say an HDMI cable and there are you know they were lamenting, that we had the seller on Staples that was selling a very similar HDMI they had like a 30 HDMI cable and 1 of our sellers had a 5 Dollar 1 and they’re like why would we let this happen and I was like because it’s going to anyways. Is going to go find this cable and they were like yeah but we saw it for a $30 and we make a lot of margin on that cable I was like but you’re not going to for long like but we are now and my whole point was well if you know wouldn’t you rather make a buck off of everything Jack is selling the 5 1 and you know which is pure margin to you you don’t have to, come you know it’s just pure margin and they’re like well no and yeah so it was the theology they just and I bet if we went to Staples right now they’re not selling any HDMI cables because the consumer smart they they’re not going to pay 50 bucks for a stupid cable. So so they’re saying well it’s not if it you know.
Scot
[50:33]You will but you’re going to know its got like gold you’re you’re going to go get monster cable and pay because but you’re there’s apples and oranges.
Jason
[50:40]Yeah I would argue even monsters way smaller today than they once were because of of the, affordability of all the of these relatively good products but but if you’re buying a TV or a big monitor at Staples and you decide that was the right place to get the monitor and you just want to leave with a cable with it you might be willing to knowingly overpay for the cable but.
Scot
[51:00]In the store sure but online I don’t I don’t think there’s really any.
Jason
[51:04]Lesson yeah.
Scot
[51:05]Yeah so that’s you know that leader is no longer there.
Jason
[51:08]So all right yeah.
Scot
[51:11]I’m sure they missed their margin numbers because they don’t have a market and then the target case they’re purposely you know it’s very hard for their merchants on board stuff so the marketplace is basically a different mechanism for onboarding which is fine.
Jason
[51:24]So hopefully tomorrow on LinkedIn people are ignoring the Jason Goldberg says retail media networks are mid and instead they’re saying Scot Wingo says a bunch of people will fail when they launched a Marketplace.
Scot
[51:35]Well my my what you what what I didn’t get to in that interview is I think and this is a this kind of like is a good thing into our next discussion I guess is I think almost all the stuff goes away because agentic is going to LeapFrog it so so. So yeah so. All these discussions both retail media networks and marketplaces could be for naught if the action goes into the Gen AI engines and they effectively become marketplaces do we even need websites.
Jason
[52:05]A very good question yeah yeah yeah and do channels even matter right.
Scot
[52:09]We’re not going to have time for that 1 tonight so we’ll just leave that 1 out there.
Jason
[52:11]Okay my answer would be yes.
Scot
[52:14]Smart that you’re uh yeah is that a a poopy official position you need website Jason Jason Goldberg says she don’t need websites.
Jason
[52:24]Yeah probably career limiting to to have taken that position so I’m not.
Scot
[52:29]Any crap on retail media networks but now he says he doesn’t need any websites okay well good smart of you not to take the bait that I threw out there on that 1 you’re learning.
Jason
[52:38]Thanks thanks every yeah even a broken even a broken clock is right twice a day Scott reference to analog clocks for all you old school kids out there.
Scot
[52:46]Okay this ends episode 326 stay tuned cliffhanger. Up next in the next episode recorded at the same time much like Back to the Future 2 and 3 another deep cut we’re going to talk about the AI news and a lot of really interesting things there.
Jason
[53:05]Awesome I can’t wait to hear about it uh Happy Commercing!
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