Navigating the Challenges of Retail Media

More and more major retailers are launching and managing their own advertising platforms, a trend known as retail media. In 2023, Amazon led the way, earning $46.9 billion from ads, mostly from sponsored ads on its site. While retail media offers big growth opportunities, it also comes with challenges. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key challenges and how to overcome them.

But first... What exactly is retail media?

Retail media encompasses so many different facets. Lets zoom in on the aspect where retailers run their own advertising platforms, allowing brands to promote their products directly on the retailer's website or app. This creates unique opportunities for brands to reach shoppers right where they’re making buying decisions. It’s a powerful way to target consumers while they’re already in the mood to shop.

Ad Challenges in Retail Media

As retailers explore retail media, they face some key challenges that can affect their advertising effectiveness. Here are some of the main issues:

• Streamlining High-Volume Creative Requests: Managing a large number of creative requests and approvals can be overwhelming. Without effective communication and approval workflows, delays and disorganisation can occur.

• Ensuring Intuitive and Brand-Consistent Ad Creation: Whether clients upload or create ads, the process needs to be user-friendly, especially for newcomers. It’s important to keep every ad consistent with the retailer’s brand guidelines.

• Supporting Long Tail Markets: Many long-tail clients lack in-house design resources, making it difficult to create effective ads. They require accessible tools, such as AI-powered ad creation, to help them develop high-quality ads easily.

How Cape Transforms Your Retail Media Strategy

Use Cape to overcome these challenges and streamline ad creation and campaign management. Here’s how Cape's solutions will transform your retail media strategy: 

1. Set Up and Launch: Cape enables retailers to easily create on-brand assets that consistently adhere to strict branding guidelines across all desired formats, including display, video, print, in-app, email campaigns, and more. Our user-friendly interface allows for quick campaign launches, minimising delays and ensuring fast turnaround times.

2. Collaborate and Scale As campaign volumes grow, Cape ensures seamless collaboration across teams. By centralising access to all campaign materials, team members can work together efficiently. Moreover, Cape allows retailers to scale their creative assets to match the growing number of campaigns, making it easier to meet market demands without compromising on quality. 

3. Optimise and Report Cape automates repetitive tasks, freeing up time for more strategic decision-making. It also offers detailed reporting tools to track campaign performance, which in turn allows retailers to make data-driven decisions for future campaigns. The ability to optimise ads based on past performance ensures continuous improvement and better results over time.

A Success Story: Cape's Impact 

One of the largest online retailers in the Netherlands uses Cape to manage in-house ad creation while adhering to strict branding guidelines. Their challenge was to ensure that both native and external ads across social media and display channels aligned with specific branding requirements

Cape provided a solution that integrated seamlessly into the retailer's workflow. The platform features a self-service option, allowing advertisers to create their own ads using intuitive templates. With AI-driven ad generation and built-in quality checks, the system ensures that every ad meets the retailer’s branding standards. This approach enables advertisers to produce high-quality ads that maintain consistent branding across all platforms, reducing the need for constant oversight.