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Inside the Stack: Creative Strategies for Holiday Retail Success with TripleLift's CMO Meredith Brace
00:15:44
In this episode of AdExchanger's Inside the Stack podcast, AdExchanger's Head of Communities, Lynne d Johnson, sits down with Meredith Brace, CMO of TripleLift, to discuss strategic planning for the holiday season, informed by TripleLift's Retail...
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Foreign.
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This is a new podcast from Ad Exchanger called Inside the Stack where we interview leaders in adtech. This episode of Inside the Stack is sponsored by triplelift, the creative SSP that transforms digital advertising. Through creative technology and innovative ad formats. Triplelift helps publishers, advertisers and agencies achieve measurable outcomes while enhancing user experience. Hi, I'm Lynn D. Johnson, Content Director, Communities for Ad Exchanger. Today we are here with Meredith Brace, CMO of triplelift, to discuss the second part, Triple Lift's retail media guide, which is about planning for the holiday season. Welcome, Meredith.
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A
Thanks for having me, Lynn.
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All right, well, let's just hop right into it, Meredith. What is the strategic imperative for brands for getting a jump on holiday prep right now?
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A
Absolutely. You know, I think a lot of savvy marketers are already used to planning holidays early and getting a jump on the gun. But with the explosive growth of retail media, the holiday shopping season represents retail media's like biggest moment, almost their super bowl moment. So this is a critical period when strategic planning can really make or break your annual performance goals. So it makes it that much more imperative. We just did this research that showed us retail media ad spend projected to increase 88.5% from from 2024 to 2028. So think about that. And we're reaching almost 62 billion in 2025 alone. So the stakes have really never been quite higher for retail media in general. And so what our data shows is that the holiday planning period is more of a strategic necessity than ever. So with the holiday planning season accounting for up to 40% of annual revenue for many brands and developing a strategic retail media approach now can mean the difference, like I said, between a record breaking Q4 and a disappointing end to the year. There's a couple. There's just two reasons I want to talk about why retail media planning is really makes more strategic sense than ever as well. If you think about prime inventory access, like think about Amazon having over 70% of retail media spend in the US this concentration means like premium placements on Amazon and other platforms sell out quickly. So you need to make sure you're getting that high performing inventory. And it also gives you this great testing Runway. So take advantage of it.
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B
Well, let's dig into Amazon a little bit. Prime Day is unfolding this week. How can brands make sure they don't just participate but truly dominate the conversation and cut through the noise?
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A
Absolutely. We talked about like the importance of Amazon and Prime Day is that moment to really take advantage of the smart artist marketers really aren't just focused on immediate sales. They're also capturing all this critical intelligence that will shape their holiday strategies. So Prime Day evolved into this ultimate testing ground for creative approaches. Whether it's audience segmentation, full funnel optimization, which we just talked about. But right now like what we think is really important is like also analyzing which creative formats are driving that strongest engagement. Are your native ads or outperforming display? Is video creative resonating more than static images? These are the insights that become your competitive advantage when holiday competition starts to intensify in November and December. So you really want to make sure that you're using all these tools at your disposal. Also pay attention to your audience performance during Prime Day's lead out period. You know, the remarketing pools that you're building this week. The sequential messaging strategies that you test over the next three weeks will directly inform the holiday segmentation approach when 77% of marketers implement seasonal shopper strategies. So it's this great testing ground. And again really if you want to lean into that creative intelligence, that sounds.
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B
Like some awesome advice. As a follow up to that, what are your go to no fail best practices for crafting creative holiday messages that don't just resonate but you know, sing?
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A
Absolutely. You know, according to our research, holiday specific creative not surprising is the highest. Like making sure that that creative is speaking to and relevant to the holidays. AB testing strategies for strategies for holiday messaging also important and seen as really effective tools for driving campaign performance. And then supportive tactics like format recommendations, production timeline planning and you know, what is your creative refresh cadence. All those contribute to emphasizing the value of seasonally relevant, well structured creative execution to maximize results. One other thing, what these findings tell us is that your creative strategy should evolve throughout the season as well. So if you think about this on a timeline in early seasons like the October part of the retail media planning, this is all about education discovery. How can you push out educational content in the form of short videos, animations, all these things that help produce gift guides and really drive that informational aspect to your creative. And then when you get to the mid season in November, during this period, deal seekers are really looking at comparing options across multiple retailers. So you want to make sure that you're creative and is emphasizing clear value against those strategies. And then obviously in the late season in December, this is where you capture those last minute shoppers, those things, you know, value drivers like shipping deadlines and guaranteed delivery, which I know I always have to use because I'm not the most proactive shopper that messaging can come become really primary purchase drivers.
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B
Mm, yes. That those shipping details for shoppers are very, very important.
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A
If you're very important. Not a pre planner.
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B
Yes, yes. So I want to dig into something in the, in the Triple lift retail media guide that stood out. You guys pointed to how there were measurement challenges when it comes to assessing off site retail media campaign effectiveness. What are some effective measurement approaches that marketers should consider to set them up for success considering those challenges?
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Yeah, I mean, you know, measurement, it's just so sometimes it can be really hard to navigate because there's so many tools in the toolbox. And while retail media offers some incredible ways to measure success and direct outcomes which make it so, you know, such a viable path for marketers, there are some challenges that we outlined. So for pre campaign measurement, one of the greatest challenges in retail media was really comparing performance across platforms that use different metrics and methodologies. So 52% of brand advertisers rank the lack of standardization in reporting metrics among their top five challenges. So we suggest using like that July August period as I mentioned, to really create a standardized framework that translates platform specific metrics into comparable business outcomes. And this allows for more effective budget allocation decisions during that fast paced holiday season. So that's pre campaign measurement. So during the campaign it's all about monitoring the performance of your messaging and creative on a daily basis and then adjusting where it's necessary to fit the needs of your audience. Refer to some of that audience targeting strategies that I shared early to develop creative and messaging strategies that fit the holiday shopping patterns. But then really think about how to measure those against the key KPIs that you have. Whether it's click through rates, conversion rates, roas, et cetera. And then for the post campaign measurement. The most sophisticated marketers recognize that holiday retail media isn't just a seasonal sprint. It is the foundation for year round access that keeps consumers engaged long after the decorations come down. So it's important to use post holiday campaign learnings to help you inform your year round strategy. And you can do this by conducting throughout campaign postmortems, analyzing which audience segments drive the biggest results, using holiday customer data to build lookalike models for future campaigns, and finally developing that always on strategy that builds from your holiday success. So really think about those three stages.
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B
Those are great steps for pre, during and post holiday campaign. And I really think that's so useful for marketers to think about being always on. With that in mind, let's shift to the media plan. Side of this, what are some useful steps for brand marketers to consider when building those holiday retail media plans?
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A
So we have a Path to purchase or the Path to Purchase Institute reports that 85% of CPG brands now span across 54 or more retail media networks. If you think about that like this indicates a growing strategy of diversification, right? With this in mind, there's three things that we consider when building your retail media strategy. 1. Really conduct that comprehensive platform assessment. Evaluate each retail media platform based on relevance to your audience, creative capabilities, historical holiday performance and while Amazon will likely remain most people's, you know, central to most people's strategy just given its scale and sophistication, this assessment can also reveal underutilized opportunities and other platforms that can complement your Amazon presence. Second, building platform specific holiday creative playbooks Very important. Each retail media environment has unique creative specifications. They all have different capabilities, best practices and they often change throughout the season. So July is the perfect time again to develop those creative playbooks for each platform. Special attention to holiday specific considerations and then work with those partners to maintain strong relationships with Amazon while providing expertise across the entire ecosystem that can help you accelerate your efforts. And then my favorite invest in high engagement ad formats. Creative is key and our research shows that online video and native are seen as the most effective off site formats during Q4 holiday campaigns and perform well above display those they just provide those high engagement potential opportunities and adaptability for storytelling that really contribute to their strong holiday season impact which we know is important to people's bottom lines.
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B
I'm, I'm glad you mentioned those like high impact creatives because I feel like in general creatives are a missing link and, and the Triple Lift Guide to Retail Media talks about that missing ingredient in retail media success. Why is creative the differentiator? How can marketers truly leverage it?
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A
Absolutely. I'm always been a strong believer in creative. You know, like a lot of digital advertising there's always this r embrace data driven precision and that's never more true than in retail media. So marketers are overlooking what what is really the most crucial element of successful campaigns and that's creative execution. And that oversight isn't surprising to us. Like after all the retail media narrative is largely centered around the power of first party data to target consumers and this, you know, like how to capture that moment of purchase purchase intent. But as someone who's spent like my entire career at the intersection of both marketing and technology, I've observed this pattern that repeats itself across digital marketing time and time again and that's that data can open the door, but creative is what can what invites those consumers to step through. So we're really uniquely positioned to elevate retail media beyond basic product listings. Like how do you take that creative technology and transform standard retail media that's heavily data driven and really turn into like engaging high performance formats that give all the necessary information and drive those measurable results. So we've developed a first of its kind integration with Amazon DSP through our native responsive E commerce format. I know that's a mouthful and we shorten it to recognize, but this dynamic creative optimization and SKU integration enables advertisers to scale retail media campaigns with real time updates on pricing, discounts, product availability. So it's like this smart ad and we're building technology to scale native retail media creatives and capabilities to all DSPs and expand this to other retail media networks like Walmart because it's such a high performing unit. Finally, our approach to retail media applies our creative technology expertise really to transform standard product fees into these engaging native experiences that perform better than traditional display. So that's what makes it so exciting for us.
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B
Meredith. Well, those native formats and experiences really sound like a winner and I really loved how you phrased this. Data can open the door and creative invites consumers to step through. That is the T, as people would say, right? Well, well Meredith, I really want to thank you for sharing all of these insights about the second part of Triple Lift's retail media guide, which was about planning for the holiday season. Thank you again, Meredith.
- [14:57]
A
Thank you, Lynn.
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B
This is a new podcast from Ad Exchanger called Inside the Stack where we interview leaders in adtech. This episode of Inside the Stack is sponsored by triplelift, the creative SSP that transforms digital advertising through creative technology and innovative ad formats. Triplelift helps publishers, advertisers and agencies achieve measurable outcomes while enhancing user experience.