← The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#756: Eagle Eye CRO Jeff Baskin on maximizing your retail media network strategy
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Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and Martech platforms as we explore marketing technology, AI, e commerce, and whatever's next for the Omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes. Please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. Now onto the show. Are retailers leaving money on the table by treating retail media networks as just another advertising channel rather than a strategic lever for growth and profitability? Agility requires a willingness to adapt and evolve strategies in response to real time data and changing consumer behaviors. It also demands a commitment to iterative testing and optimization, allowing brands to continuously refine their approach to retail media. Today, we're going to talk about how advanced AI is transforming retail media networks, enabling more targeted, personalized, and ultimately profitable campaigns. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Jeff Baskin, Chief Revenue Officer at Eagle Eye. Jeff, welcome to the show.
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, thanks for having me, Greg. I'm a big fan of the podcast. I appreciate it.
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Greg Kilstrom
Oh, thanks.
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Interviewer
Yeah.
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Greg Kilstrom
Looking forward to talking about this with you.
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Interviewer
Before we dive in though, why don't
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Greg Kilstrom
you give a little background on yourself and your role at Eagle Eye?
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Jeff Baskin
Sure. Yeah. First off, I live in Arlington, Virginia with my wife and three daughters, although two are off our college right now, so just left home with one at this point. But professionally, I've been in retail technology for close to 25 years. I've helped start an e commerce company way back in 1999, which for me doesn't sound really like that long ago, but the Internet and especially e commerce were certainly in its infancy back then. I then went on to several SaaS based tech companies, kind of all serving retail in the retail space. And I've primarily been focused on, I guess what I would call unified commerce and marketing in that space. I came to Eagle Eye about five months ago as a global chief revenue officer where I lead revenue generation, customer success, solution engineering, account management and marketing. Eagle Eye is headquartered in London with offices all over the world, including San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Jacksonville, and Washington, D.C. here in, in North America.
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Interviewer
Nice.
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Greg Kilstrom
Nice.
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Interviewer
Well, yeah, we are practically neighbors then. For what it's worth. My, my office is in Arlington, so we'll. Yeah, yeah, we can, we can talk about that later.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Interviewer
But yeah, let's, let's dive into, to all this. I want to, we're going to talk about a few things here.
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Greg Kilstrom
First, want to start with just the,
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Interviewer
the evolving landscape of retail media. Certainly, you know, there's a lot of talk about it. There's been a lot of talk, you know, continues to evolve and you know, you've worked with some of the biggest names in retail. What are some of the most significant changes that you've seen in how retailers are approaching retail media in recent years?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, it's really, it's really interesting, Greg. I think the, you know, retail media means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some retailers put up a Pepsi sign in their store and claim to be doing retail media. I think most people would call that advertising in the past retailers relied on kind of standard promotional models which often resulted in wasted ad spend and limited ability to show any sort of attribution. And what's really changing now is how personalized retail media is becoming. It's not just sponsored product ads on a website anymore. The leaders in this space are really utilizing loyalty programs, purchase history and AI to serve the right offers at the exact right time, whether that's in store, online or via mobile. Hence kind of the unified commerce aspect of it. And it's really tying all of those channels together with all of the first party data that they have to create a really great customer experience which results in incremental sales for the retailer and more importantly, or sometimes more importantly, attribution on the ad spend for the CPG brands.
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Interviewer
Yeah, yeah. And certainly, you know, driving those sales is a key target and you know, key desired behavior. But beyond, beyond that, how are leading retailers leveraging retail media to achieve maybe broader business objectives as well, like, you know, enhancing customer loyalty, deeper customer insights. Kind of what you were touching on with the first party data.
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Guest Expert
Yeah, I mean that's a really important point, Greg. I think because retail media is about, is much more than just driving short term sales. The, the most advanced retailers that are usually utilizing it are using as a strategic lever to strengthen long term customer relationships. As I mentioned before, a lot of advertisers are looking at impressions. How many eyeballs do we see? And that's great. But if you're utilizing it to really build the customer relationship and a great customer experience, those are really the programs that are working and they're doing that in a few different ways. And I'll touch on a couple of them real quick. But one is really, and I've mentioned an enhanced loyalty. So retail media is being tightly integrated with loyalty programs. Instead of just generic ads, brands can deliver offers that are relevant to a shopper's preferences or purchase history, most likely due to their Instagram and Netflix feeds that they're used to seeing on their phones every single day. But over 71% of those consumers, because of that, now expect personalized interactions from the brands that they shop with. And the loyalty data is really the key to making that happen. This makes shoppers feel more recognized and valued, which, which deepens loyalty because they understand that the, the retailer that I'm going to knows me and knows my, knows my preferences and make those ads relevant to me. And the second is really that retail media also creates a feedback loop that most traditional advertising really just can't match. So every campaign Provides insights into how specific audience are responding, what they purchase and even how promotions drive incremental trips. So just to throw another stat, Greg, you know, McKinsey found that retailers with advanced retail media Networks see a 10 to 20% higher customer retention because they're learning and adapting to that stuff in real time. And at the same time strategies like AI powered gamification introduce experiential elements like challenges introduced by retailers like Tesco that build emotional connections and long term loyalty that, that move just beyond price and promotions and traditional kind of marketing.
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Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, so lots, yeah, lots to unpack there. And I know they're, you know, we certainly talk about AI a lot on the show. I mean every, every episode there we kind of look at it from, from some different angle. I want to dive into that aspect of this especially you know, as, as brands are, they're connecting the dots as you're saying, you know, whether you know, from driving sales but also the, the loyalty, all of the other information. You know, we hear a lot of buzz around AI. There's, you know, every company out there is saying some, you know, they have some kind of relationship to AI, but
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Greg Kilstrom
retailers are still looking for some really
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Interviewer
good, concrete examples of success there. So could you maybe, you know, give, give us some examples of how AI is being used to optimize things in retail media campaigns?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I think the, the term AI and even retail media are the, the two of the biggest buzzwords out there.
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Interviewer
Right.
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Jeff Baskin
In retail today. Right. They're on every single company's website.
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Interviewer
Right.
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Jeff Baskin
And so it's, it's frankly, you know, we, we've been doing it actually for years in, live in, in, in a lot of retailers for some time now. So I think really as I mentioned earlier, AI is, is truly getting us to that one personalization which is helping retailers move beyond basic demographic targeting and segmentation and kind of what I'll call for lack of a better term, bucketizing customers into this and then, and then say hey, this is targeting of our customers when we can really get down to that true one to one personalized marketing. And then AI also makes it possible to generate millions of personalized offers or in like I mentioned in Tesco's case, challenges in real time. So something, it would be virtually impossible to manually do that even for really large retailers who can put together offers, but not for 10, 15, 20 million people in a personalized way. And Tesco's club card challenges in particular, they grew from an initial rollout of 3 million customers to a seamless expansion reaching about 10 million plus customers in a fairly short period of time, which, you know, prior to just, you know, a year or two ago was really not possible.
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Interviewer
Speaking to scale maybe in a slightly different way as well. I mean, obviously, you know, scaling to 10 million plus customers, that definitely speak to the power of that ability. What about improving effectiveness across multiple campaigns? You know, again, a lot of this is like, okay, let's run a campaign, let's scale it up. But how can AI help inform decisions about, you know, maybe an overall retail media strategy?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I think this is almost that question. It's almost bigger than retail media.
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Guest Expert
Right.
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Jeff Baskin
So AI is going to help retailers unify data across these different channels, which today is really siloed. And if you can break down the silos of loyalty, e commerce and in store interactions, which typically live in those silos and combine those, you're really going to get a really strong personalization and marketing strategy. And so this really creates a holistic view of the customer journey from start to finish and provides retailers with actionable insights into what drives incremental sales and engagement. So really at the end of the day, it's all about the data and combining that data. Again, I'll use the term unified commerce in a way so that you can utilize your marketing whether the customer's at home, on their phone, on the road or in the store. And so really beyond the first party customer data, AI is then helping retailers adjust strategies and to be able to do that in real time, for example, factoring inventory levels, competitor pricing or local conditions or local events, so that retail media becomes just a much smarter investment than it and more relevant for customers.
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Interviewer
Yeah, and impactful in also in the larger strategy. Right. So it's not just, you know, it's not just thought of as a silo or a channel, but really part of the overarching strategy like that. And you know, so speaking to the margin impact of this as well. So you know, a lot of retailers are focused on top line growth metrics when evaluating retail media success. Why is shifting the focus to margin impact so critical, especially in the current economic climate?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I mean, it's a really important question, Greg, because retail is such a low margin business as, you know, and specifically in grocers, for example, they're operating on a 1 to 4% margin. So really any initiative that only boosts top line sales without protecting margin can feel like you're running faster on a treadmill without getting ahead anymore. And what's shifting is that retailers are starting to see retail media as a Way to improve profitability, not just the technology, top line revenue. And I'll give you a few reasons why, why that margin impact matters so much. You know, right now with primarily with inflation and more cautious consumer spending, retailers just can't chase sales volume. They need initiatives that drop profits to the bottom line. And retail media is one of the few levers that can add incremental margin without raising prices on consumers, which is especially with tariffs and other things right now that's extremely important. And also top line growth metrics can mask whether the sales are actually incremental. I mentioned kind of Tesco's club card challenges, and I'll mention that again because it's such a good example. But the challenge essentially guarantees incrementality in your sales. So you're not spending your same ad dollars on the person that is already buying two, two liters of Coke. Now they're buying four and purchasing all of them with your brand. So I'm not just wasting dollars on people that are already buying. You know, specifically at Eagle Eye, we see the leaders connecting retail media to loyalty and personalization because that ensures campaigns aren't just driving any sale, they're driving the right profitable sale. But, and again, all while strengthening the customer relationship, which is, which is, at the end of the day is really the key factor that drives all those other KPIs.
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Interviewer
Yeah, so for those, those retailers out there that are, you know, maybe, maybe they're struggling a bit to accurately measure and demonstrate some of the impact, you know, what, what practical steps would you recommend that they take? And, and you know, how can a technology like Eagle Eyes help in the process?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I think the first step in that process is integrating loyalty and retail media data to create closed loop attribution. So this really allows retailers to link ad spend directly to purchasing behavior, revealing not only which campaigns drive sales, but which drive profitable and incremental sales, which is really the key. EagleEye supports this process by enabling precision and personalization at scale. And our vision is to embed retail media into the wider marketing and loyalty ecosystem in general, where your data is flowing across channels and attribution is built in. And every campaign contributes to stronger personalization as well as increased digital engagement. So I'm not only driving more incremental sales, but because I have this challenge or this gamification, I'm looking at my phone a couple more times, I'm getting
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Guest Expert
more eyeballs while increasing your sales.
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Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, that's great. So looking ahead, what are some of the things that, you know, exciting developments that you see on the horizon for retail media. And you know, will AI play a role in that and you know what, in shaping its future?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I think it certainly will. And I think the next phase is really defined data driven personalization. I keep saying data, data, data, but at the end of the day, the first party data that a loyalty program has on its customers is just an absolute wealth of knowledge that most retailers are not utilizing today. So AI will continue to play a central role in enabling retailers to deliver experiences that are not only relevant, but also adaptive in real time. And beyond that, we'll see more gamification and interactive experience integrated into the loyalty programs that are making media less about transactional advertising and more about building those meaningful customer engagements that I was talking about earlier. And I think these developments will further differentiate retailers driving growth both from brand partnerships and then again those strong customer relationships.
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Interviewer
Yeah. Love it. Well, lots to look forward to here. Well, Jeff, thanks for sharing your ideas and insights.
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Greg Kilstrom
One last question for you.
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Interviewer
I like to ask everybody, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
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Jeff Baskin
Yeah, I think in retail it's a tricky question. I think retail is just a different beast that a lot of people don't understand, but it's really understanding your retail partners, their customers, their culture. You need to do store walks and understand the different cultures of your retailers. I make it a priority to work with our customers as partners to understand all the challenges and their primary goals. Even if you look at grocery or if you look at sporting goods, you know, they sell a lot of the same things, but they sell them very differently and they sell them to different demographics and they're, they're just, their culture and way of doing business is different. So it's not a one size fits all type of, type of program that you're running. And so the way that I look at it is if we understand all of that and they're successful and we look at their metrics and their goals, we make sure that they're successful, then at the end of the day, myself, eagle eye, we'll, we'll be successful as well and we'll be partners forever. And so that's, that's really kind of how we try and stay agile. And I do that personally. And so, yeah, Greg, thanks so much for having me on. It's been great and I look forward to listening to a lot more episodes of the Agile pod.
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Interviewer
Yeah, love it. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, great. Great talking with you again. I'd like to thank Jeff Baskin, Chief revenue officer at EagleEye, for joining the show.
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Greg Kilstrom
You can learn more about Jeff and
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Interviewer
EagleEye by following the links in the show. Notes
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Greg Kilstrom
thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagilebrand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.gregkilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
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