Want insights on the performance of D2C, eCommerce brands in the US & India during COVID lockdowns?
Visit Our Markets Data

The RMN optimization gold rush

Ashwin Ramasamy
Ashwin Ramasamy
Mar 5, 2023
3
Min Read

For a long time, AdTech has been devoid of fresh talk. After search and social, nothing new came up – until Retail Media Networks came and caught everyone’s fancy.

The ‘path to purchase’ is very clear in retail media. At the same time, the ‘path to purchase’ is unclear in social. It’s been well-documented. But search is going through its own crisis moment. What will happen of search when queries and results are replaced by questions and answers? How will that model be monetized?

Retail Media Networks shine because high-intent audiences can be effectively targeted better than social and may be even search, in the years to come.

There is no one kingdom

Facebook is to social; Google is to search; and Amazon is to retail media. But Amazon is not nearly as dominant as the other two, in its kingdom. Every top retailer has its own retail media network. Amazon has a leg up. Amazon’s retail media revenue is xx times bigger than Walmart’s, which is the second dominant player.

But Amazon does not have the offsite might that traditional retailers have.  

Advantage Off-site

The birthplace of RMNs is a retailer’s website - the on-site. Anything but the retailer’s website is off-site: Connected TV (Netflix, Prime, etc), Social commerce, in-store marketing etc. Saturation of on-site avenues (sponsored search, display ads, promoted listings ...) drives retailers to off-site opportunities.  

At NRF 2022, Nordstorm disclosed that 60% of its media revenue is generated from off-site engagements.  Collaborations and integrations such as Lowes/Yahoo, Albertsons/Pinterest/LiveRamp, Walmart/TikTok/Roku/Snap and Kroger/Magnite are all betting on the off-site offensive that has been shown to generate a 150% positive difference in sales performance.  

Interestingly, the cost of acquisition of the users/visitors for retailers is reflected in their retail business margins. The store visitors and online visitors are subsidized by retail and offered to the retail media. No wonder, the gross margins for onsite retail media is 70-90% and offline media is 20-40%.

Retailers’ physical stores attract more unique visitors every day compared to their digital stores. The USD 45B in retail media spend that’s projected for 2023 might sound ginormous, but it’s all just online media. 70% to 85% of retail sales still happen inside the store. That cements brick & mortar’s supremacy as RMN’s last mile. Digitize the store diligently and you have shopper data that’s comparable in precision to its eCommerce peers.

What does healthy gross margins mean?

It means more attention and money to make onsite and offsite retail media work seamlessly for brands. Every surface that can be turned into in-store media will be.  Privacy-safe attribution, integrating measurement for online and offline/CTV/Social ‘paths to purchase’, and efficient allocation of dollars will become the focus.

Credit: Cooler Screens

Speaking of measurement, whither standardization?

That’s the Achilles’ heel RMNs need to tend to immediately. Retailers have to learn to be media companies.  Inconsistent, low-quality data and reporting make it difficult to compare results across platforms and for brands to manage their plays across networks.  

Companies like Pacvue (Le Parent De PipeCandy) exist because of the fragmentation of retail media. If you are a brand selling on Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Instacart, you need to deal with five media networks to manage budgets and campaigns. Then there is downstream data harmonization, synthesis of campaign data and taking actions.

Retailers are not going to be as UX-friendly as Facebook or Google – not for a long time.

The industry of retail media optimization, reporting, and the control center to view, understand, and act – all in one place – is just beginning. They are the proverbial spades in the gold rush.

Brands als have a steep learning curve. They are used to heuristics-based approach to media optimization (In simple terms, ‘throw them and see what sticks’). As media gets fragmented, it's beyond human capability to manage and optimize. Rules-based optimization and even black-box, AI-led optimization are all here, either directly from the retailers or through the spend optimization platforms.

Brands are used to agencies giving them answers. Agencies are used to native DSP interfaces. There is new stuff to learn and figure. There are great tools to optimize media spend but they also need to educate the retailers what programmatic advertising tablestakes are, when it comes to data cleanliness and reporting. They also need to educate agencies and brands to learn new control centers beyond native DSP UIs to optimize spends better.

Sathish Rangarajan, Industry Analyst, PipeCandy contributed to this newsletter.

Trusted by world's leading eCommerce enablers to research eCommerce companies and reach out to them
Get 30 mins free consultation with our research analyst.
Book Consultation
company-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logo
company-logo
awards-img
Be a Segmentation Superpower
eCommerce-specfic lead qualification criteria
Freedom from non-Commerce databases.
Predictable demand generation. Very precise segmentation & messaging.
Free Trial
Slips poor jokes & gets away with a poker face. Carries a no BS attitude at getting things done. First to arrive at the office, Ashwin’s energy does not ebb through the day. Ashwin is one of the co-founders and he sets the tone for marketing, sales, design & culture.

Get PipeCandy essays straight to your inbox.

Every week we send out one deeply researched essay that captures the eCommerce industry and its evolution, right to your inbox. 50%+ open rates for a year now.
Trusted by 22,804 DTC & eCommerce industry insiders.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Prospector

The holy grail of predictable demand generation

Build surgically precise lead lists of your ideal eCommerce customers
Learn more
Firehose

Closed lost? Not really.

Enrich your leads & engage again. Generate demand from your ignored CRM leads with right segmentation and messaging.
Learn more
Researcher

The gold standard of eCommerce market size estimates

We hand-count & research every active eCommerce company. Know your true TAM.
Learn more

Get PipeCandy essays straight to your inbox.

Every week we send out one deeply researched essay that captures the eCommerce industry and its evolution, right to your inbox. 50%+ open rates for a year now.
Trusted by 22,804 DTC & eCommerce industry insiders.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Get PipeCandy essays straight to your inbox.

Every week we send out tidbits that capture the eCommerce industry and its evolution, right to your inbox. It's free. No spam. Choose to opt-out whenever.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
eCommerce-specfic lead qualification criteria
Freedom from non-Commerce databases.
Predictable demand generation. Very precise segmentation & messaging.
Free Trial
Be a Segmentation Superpower
eCommerce-specfic lead qualification criteria
Freedom from non-Commerce databases.
Predictable demand generation. Very precise segmentation & messaging.
Free Trial
Slips poor jokes & gets away with a poker face. Carries a no BS attitude at getting things done. First to arrive at the office, Ashwin’s energy does not ebb through the day. Ashwin is one of the co-founders and he sets the tone for marketing, sales, design & culture.
Slips poor jokes & gets away with a poker face. Carries a no BS attitude at getting things done. First to arrive at the office, Ashwin’s energy does not ebb through the day. Ashwin is one of the co-founders and he sets the tone for marketing, sales, design & culture.
hm.com
HQ Location: Beaverton, Oregon, United States Of America, 97005
hm.com, operated by H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB, is an internationally-focused online store that generates eCommerce net sales primarily in Germany as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom. With regards to the product range, hm.com achieves the greatest part of its eCommerce net sales in the “Fashion” category.
Web Sales
Order Volume
Commercepedia Maturity Score
Record Coverage
High
Category
Arts and Entertainment, Business and Consumer Services, Business and Industrial, Consumer Electronics, Health and Fitness
Sub Category
Arts and Entertainment, Business and Industrial, Office Supplies and Stationery, Technology and Computing
hm.com funding details
Total venture and debt funding raised by hm.com from accredited investors.
View full report
The most accurate online retailers dataset curated by algorithms & analysts
The most accurate online retailers dataset curated by algorithms & analysts
Slips poor jokes & gets away with a poker face. Carries a no BS attitude at getting things done. First to arrive at the office, Ashwin’s energy does not ebb through the day. Ashwin is one of the co-founders and he sets the tone for marketing, sales, design & culture.
Slips poor jokes & gets away with a poker face. Carries a no BS attitude at getting things done. First to arrive at the office, Ashwin’s energy does not ebb through the day. Ashwin is one of the co-founders and he sets the tone for marketing, sales, design & culture.
Trusted by world's leading eCommerce enablers to research eCommerce companies and reach out to them
Get 30 mins free consultation with our research analyst.
Book Consultation
company-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logo
company-logo
awards-img
Trusted by world's leading eCommerce enablers to research eCommerce companies and reach out to them
Get 30 mins free consultation with our research analyst.
Book Consultation
company-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logocompany-logo
company-logo
awards-img
Prospector
The holy grail of predictable demand generation
Build surgically precise lead lists of your ideal eCommerce customers
prospector-img
sm-logo
Firehose
Closed lost? Not really.
Enrich your leads & engage again. Generate demand from your ignored CRM leads with right segmentation and messaging.
firehose-img
sm-logo
Researcher
The gold standard of eCommerce market size estimates
We hand-count & research every active eCommerce company. Know your true TAM.
Researcher-img
State of the Direct-to-Consumer Industry in 2022
New
State of the Direct-to-Consumer Industry in 2022
The direct-to-consumer sector as we see today is far different from what it started off as about a decade ago. What we see about the DTC space today with data-driven research insights?
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
COVID Impact on US D2C brands
New
COVID Impact on US D2C brands
Which D2C categories thrive & which ones struggle due to COVID? – A data-driven report.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
DTC Playbooks
New
DTC Playbooks
How do D2C brands think about growth? A perspective from early days of DTC.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Global eCommerce market size
New
Global eCommerce market size
Total addressable market size of eCommerce companies in the US and other major markets
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Subscription eCommerce industry report
New
Subscription eCommerce industry report
Total addressable market of subscription eCommerce companies
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Fashion industry & D2C fashion brands
New
Fashion industry & D2C fashion brands
How big is the fashion industry and how are the brands distributed by revenue?
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
More Reports
New
More Reports
Country-specific eCommerce TAM reports & white papers
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
State of the Direct-to-Consumer Industry in 2022
New
State of the Direct-to-Consumer Industry in 2022
The direct-to-consumer sector as we see today is far different from what it started off as about a decade ago. What we see about the DTC space today with data-driven research insights?
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
COVID Impact on US D2C brands
New
COVID Impact on US D2C brands
Which D2C categories thrive & which ones struggle due to COVID? – A data-driven report.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
DTC Playbooks
New
DTC Playbooks
How do D2C brands think about growth? A perspective from early days of DTC.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Global eCommerce market size
New
Global eCommerce market size
Total addressable market size of eCommerce companies in the US and other major markets
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Subscription eCommerce industry report
New
Subscription eCommerce industry report
Total addressable market of subscription eCommerce companies
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Fashion industry & D2C fashion brands
New
Fashion industry & D2C fashion brands
How big is the fashion industry and how are the brands distributed by revenue?
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
More Reports
New
More Reports
Country-specific eCommerce TAM reports & white papers
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Prospector
The holy grail of predictable demand generation
Build surgically precise lead lists of your ideal eCommerce customers
Qualification Criteria
Technology Catogories
30 of 30 Catogories Selected
Website Technologies
6 of 1.5K Web Tech Selected
Product Category
Fashion & Apparel & 1K more
Product Sub Categories
Accessories, Babywear & 1k more
Web Traffic Rank
<1M, 1M-5M, 10M-25M & 9 more
Web Sales
<$1M, $1M-$5M, $10M... & 9 more
Countries
USA, Canada, UK & 192 more
States
California, Florida & 748 more
Customer Type
B2B, B2C, B2G, C2C
Physical Store
Choose Option
Own Brand
Choose Option
Business Tags
Subscription, DTC & & 500 more
Monthly Unique Visitors
$0 - $10B
Monthly Shipping Volume
<100, 100-500 & 5 more
Payment Partnerships
Alipay, Vantiv CNP & 2k more
Logistics Partnerships
UPS, FedEx, DHL & 2k more
Technology Catogories
Content Delivery
or
Content Management
or
CRM
or
Website Technologies
Azure Edge
or
CloudFront
or
Turn
or
DemDex
Apply Criteria
Let's Get Started!
Narrow down your keyword search using 'Commercepedia Keyword Search' on Top
Find a comprehensive list of eCommerce companies & DTC brands using 'Filters'
Powered by PipeCandy's Proprietary Online Merchant Graph!
Slice & Dice
D2C companies based on attributes made possible for the first time with Commercepedia
Advanced Search
This is some text inside of a div block.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Filter by Sub-categories
Reset All
314
314
314
314
314
Filter by Annual Revenue (USD)
110
410
124
45
15
HQ Location
15
15
15
15