The Trade Desk’s Jill Smith on how differentiation will fuel retail media’s next wave

Retail media is no longer the new kid on the block. It’s a core part of marketers’ media plans.

With a reported 200-plus retail media networks now on the market, Jill Smith, The Trade Desk’s VP of business development for retail, says the key to success will be standing out.

The Current Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Paterik sat down with Smith to discuss this pivotal moment for retail media, as well as the three exciting innovations she sees coming along the way.

What innovation is coming down the pike that has you most excited right now?

There’s so much innovation I’m super excited about. There are three different areas I’ll touch on.

The first one is around the sophistication of creating these audiences. And you hear a lot around audience-first planning, which I wouldn’t say is innovation, but I think as we partner with technology companies and AI, we’re going to start to see these audiences that are coming to life.

Innovation is going to come in the form of surprising and delighting us and finding out “Surprise! This is really your audience who’s buying your product. You may have not known that.” But with technology, with having all of the sales data in a platform, you’re going to start to see who’s driving that growth.

Another innovation that we’re going to start to really watch happen over the next three to five years is these surprising partnerships that are beginning to form. As we think about where could there be some unique partnerships that actually unlock even greater value for customers?

That could be a hotel partner partnering with a grocery retailer. That could look like an airline partnering with a high-end beauty retailer. We’re starting to see some of those form, but we’re going to start to see even more.

And then the last innovation we should all keep an eye on is related to in store in brick and mortar. We know across the board there's still 80-90% of sales happening through brick-and-mortar.

Which is surprising in itself, right?

Yes! And e-commerce is growing quickly. It’s accelerating. But at the end of the day, for a lot of retailers, it’s still that in-store experience that’s moving the needle from a sales perspective. So, we’re going to start to see a lot of innovation happening right at the shelf, right at the point of purchase. For us, we have to keep an eye on that.

When you think of innovation at the shelf, what does that look like? Are we talking screens?

It looks like screens. It looks like personal to you based on what you’re buying. Of course, all in a privacy-compliant way. But, I think, we’ll be really surprised and, again, delighted around this way of reaching customers where and how they want to buy in that moment.

I’m hearing from so many people in the retail media space right now talking about a second wave coming. There’s a sense that a foundation has been laid and we’re moving into the next era. What does that wave look like to you?

I smile because it’s like, what wave are we in? Are we in one still? Heading into two? Heading into three?

It’s just such an exciting time to be in retail media and to work in retail. I think there’s three waves that are coming that we need to keep an eye on.

Number one is operational efficiencies. At retail media networks, you’ll start to see new hires happening, bringing in talent who has an expert experience and background in operations.

Areas where you can really shift from more manual workflows and high-touch that have been instituted because of the early days of retail media. As we gear up for the next wave, it’s about gearing us up for more scale and automation. And that’s where operational talent, tech talent, tech partners can really play a role in that next wave.

Number two, it really will be around how do we maximize performance and growth for brands?

How do we look at this sales data, this measurement data and really continue to work toward driving business outcomes for brands, which at the end of the day is brand growth. So, I think you’ll start to see brands really rally around that in a more sophisticated way to make sure we’re setting up campaigns in the right way that are delivering on growth.

And then finally, I would say a lot of retail media networks have started 10 years ago, eight years ago, five years ago. And there’s been this really nice organic growth. Brands want to lean in, brands want to test. They’re seeing that they can actually close the loop on their media activations.

But in this next wave, we’re a bit at a turning point where there has been so many retail media networks introduced. So, it’s critical that these retail media networks are really differentiated.

I think there’s more than 200 now, is that right?

Yeah, yeah! And so it’s up to these retailers to drive home their unique difference in this industry and why brands should invest with them among all the different choices that you have.

So there’s going to be an element of more demand driving that you’ll start to see from these retail media networks. Where the early days were just keeping up with the demand, keeping up with that organic growth.

Now we need to start really driving that demand and talking about the value that the retail partner can bring.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.