Scaled National Growth with Dollar General Media Network's GM Austin Leonard

Summary

The CPG Guys Podcast

Episode: Scaled National Growth with Dollar General Media Network's GM Austin Leonard
Hosts: Peter V.S. Bond & Sri Rajagopalan
Guest: Austin Leonard, VP & GM, Dollar General Media Network
Date: November 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging live episode recorded at Groceryshop, Sri and Peter sit down with Austin Leonard, recently appointed VP and GM of the Dollar General Media Network (DGMN). The conversation delves deep into how DGMN is becoming a critical growth lever for both Dollar General and its brand partners—shedding light on national scale, rural and omnichannel reach, digital transformation, media measurement, and in-store innovation. Austin shares insights on serving "the last mile of America" and why DGMN is uniquely positioned to connect brands with hard-to-reach and value-conscious shoppers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dollar General & DGMN: Scale and Unique Audience

• Scale: Over 20,000 stores across 48 states, serving 90 million+ unique customer profiles with $40B+ in 2024 sales. (07:11)
• Audience: While often labeled "rural," Dollar General’s footprint includes suburban and urban areas; 75% of Americans live within five miles of a DG store.
• DGMN’s Unique Value: “Our first party data addresses the gap in less populated markets and allows brands to tap into our unduplicated, extensive and growing reach.” – Austin Leonard (08:00)
• Reaching the Overlooked: DGMN is built to reach consumers overlooked by traditional digital platforms that focus on urban/dense markets.

2. Omnichannel & Digital Transformation

• Store Investment: Massive remodeling effort (targeting 80% of stores) and opening 575 new stores in 2025 to support growth. (09:30)
• Digital Delivery: Partnerships with DoorDash (16,000+ covered stores) and rollout of DG Delivery. Forecast: 16,000 DG stores with first-party delivery by year-end. (09:30–10:50)
• Consistent Value Online & Offline: Digital offers, coupons, and price parity ensures last-mile delivery remains accessible to the value-driven DG shopper. (10:50)
  • “The value part's really important because obviously each shopper might have value in a different way… if there's a way to offset the cost of delivery through some of the digital offers and actually make that value exchange… that's where our first-party DG delivery really shines.” – Austin (11:37)

3. "Winning the Last Mile" – Serving Underserved Markets

• Trademark Moment:
  • “I like to call it winning the last mile of E commerce for the last mile of America.” – Austin Leonard (12:32)
  • Hosts respond enthusiastically; emphasize this crystallizes DGMN’s mission.
• Underserved Communities: Many DG locales are the only source of staple products and now, e-commerce delivery, for certain communities. (12:22)

4. DGMN at Groceryshop: National Scale & Brand Collaboration

• Goals at Groceryshop: Building strong relationships with brand, tech, and agency partners; listening to advertiser goals and feedback; reinforcing DG’s role in national sales/media strategies. (15:27–16:20)
• Message to Brands: “For any brand building a national sales or media strategy, Dollar General is a critical part to helping ensure they reach all of America.” – Austin (16:18)

5. Organizational Structure: Integrated for Impact

• Reporting Structure: DGMN reports to CMO (Tony Rogers), who reports to Chief Merchandising Officer (Emily Taylor). Marketing is within Merchandising. (18:24)
• Benefits: Fosters native integration of retail media into enterprise marketing and merchandising for smoother collaboration and better results.
  • “Our job and really our vision is we want to be the most innovative, collaborative, and consumer-centric retail media network so we can bring the most value to DG shoppers and advertisers.” – Austin (19:42)
• Not a Silo: DGMN is embedded, not tacked on, to brand planning—breaking from the traditional afterthought role seen at other retailers. (21:39)

6. Best-in-Class Partnerships: Evolving with Brands

• History: DGMN started as an offsite, managed service organization before building onsite inventory and self-service tools. (23:16–24:11)
• New Investments: Growing onsite/app/web inventory and self-service functionality to match emerging digital buying workflows.
  • “We need to meet brands how they want to buy media.” – Austin (25:15)
  • “The easier you make it, the more friction that you take out of the process.” – Austin (25:58)

7. Measurement, Transparency & ROI

• IAB Standards: DGMN’s measurement and metrics follow IAB standards—including clear definitions for clicks, new buyers, ROAS, and attribution windows. (26:56–27:18)
  • “Just making sure that there’s a common language should help make it easier for brands to easily understand our methodology.” – Austin (27:27)
• Incrementality Focus: Emphasis on proving incremental sales and new customer acquisition, as demanded by finance and sales leaders, especially as retail media investments undergo greater scrutiny. (27:54)
• “New to Brand” Metric: Recognized as significant, especially given many brands have lost households since the pandemic. (28:42)
  • “They should look at retailers that are growing households and find a way to partner more closely.” – Austin (28:57)

8. In-Store Media & Innovation

• Scope: Shelf talkers, in-store signage, connected shelves (bridging digital incentives), and in-store audio advertising (radio) now in-market. (29:26–30:56)
  • “With over 20,000 stores, we have a really unique opportunity to innovate at scale.” – Austin (30:56)
• The "Unreachables": In-store channels becoming vital as digital and traditional mass media fragment. (31:40)
  • “They are consumers that have cut the cord… Everything they do is streaming… but they're still going into your store and shopping, aren't they?” – Peter (31:40)
• Measurement for In-Store: Planning to measure the impact and incremental sales correlated to in-store activation as innovation matures. (32:02)

9. 2026 and the Road Ahead

• Vision: DGMN aims to become the most innovative, collaborative, and consumer-centric retail media network—serving both advertisers and DG shoppers. (32:47)
• Strategic Focus:
  • More self-serve, automation, and flexibility for brand/agency partners.
  • Enhanced performance measurement and insights.
  • Prioritizing AI integration and digital/in-store innovation for the “last mile of America.”
  • “We’re really focused on things like automation, more self service tools for our brands and advertisers… enhanced performance measurement… and then finally, we’re really placing an emphasis on AI integration, in store innovation, as we talked about, and serving the last mile of America digitally and physically.” – Austin (33:33–34:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On DGMN's footprint:
  “Dollar General operates over 20,000 stores across 48 states… 75% of Americans live within five miles of a store.” – Austin Leonard (07:11)

• Winning the last mile:
  “Winning the last mile of E commerce for the last mile of America.” – Austin Leonard, coined on the spot (12:32)

• Meeting brands where they are:
  “We need to meet brands how they want to buy media.” – Austin Leonard (25:15)

• Transparency and trust:
  “Just making sure that there’s a common language should help make it easier for brands to easily understand our methodology.” – Austin Leonard (27:27)

• Big picture—on DGMN's mission:
  “Our job and really our vision is we want to be the most innovative, collaborative and consumer centric retail media network so we can bring the most value to DG shoppers and advertisers.” – Austin Leonard (19:42)

• Hosts on DGMN's business alignment:
  “The big thing for me is DGMN is part of marketing, which in turn is part of merchandising. And their core mission is to deliver more meaningful experiences and delight their customers and help their advertisers speak to their shoppers in more meaningful ways…” – Peter V.S. Bond (34:53)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• DG Overview & Customer Base: 07:11–08:27
• Digital Expansion, Delivery & Omnichannel: 09:30–13:31
• Trademark Moment: “Winning the Last Mile” 12:32–13:31
• Groceryshop Takeaways—Collaboration with Brands: 15:27–17:29
• Org Structure & Integration: 18:24–21:39
• Brand Partnerships Evolution: 23:16–25:15
• Measurement & Transparency: 26:56–28:31
• In-Store Media Strategy: 29:26–32:02
• 2026 Vision & Innovation Roadmap: 32:47–34:03
• Closing Reflections: 34:53–36:12

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is lively, full of camaraderie, and blends tactical CPG insights with bigger-picture strategy and a touch of humor. Austin is candid and enthusiastic about DGMN’s potential and the “mission” of delivering for both brands and value-focused communities. Sri and Peter repeatedly draw out what makes DG and DGMN unique in the current retail media landscape—namely, national scale, a truly unduplicated audience, and a collaborative approach.

Core Takeaways:

• Dollar General is an essential part of any brand’s national reach and go-to-market, especially for the “last mile.”
• DGMN’s strength is its ability to connect brands with overlooked, high-value shoppers via both digital and physical channels—with robust transparency and innovation.
• Integration of retail media, marketing, and merchandising delivers better results for brands, advertisers, and shoppers alike.

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For anyone exploring how to scale CPG brand growth through retail media, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Austin Leonard]

Hi, I'm Austin Leonard, VP general manager of the Dollar General Media Network and you're listening to the CPG Guys podcast.

[Podcast Announcer]

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Set at the intersection of commerce and tech, your hosts Sree Rajagopalan and Peter V. S Vaughn explore how brands and.

[Podcast Announcer]

Retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

And now, here are the CPG Guys.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. I'm of course Sree, your co host and also CRO and co founder of Think Blue Consulting, your trusted partner in your omnichannel development journey. Get in touch with me at shreenkblueconsulting co. Please do listen to my older daughter's [e-mail]. and now announcing Ria's first national tour begins December 1st. Five cities also follow Lara Raj, my younger daughter is a member of the world's fastest growing global girls group Katsai, winner of an MTV vma. Excited to be here and recording live from grocery shop. And joining me today of course is my co host, co founder, best friend who also moonlights a set of industry and client engagement with Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. Peter, how's grocery shop been so far?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Well, it's been great. Why didn't you tell me your daughters were musicians?

[Austin Leonard]

How have I missed this?

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Because you live under a rock.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

That is kind of true.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Sometimes you gotta lift the rock.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

But I did get on the rock and I have been walking around grocery shopping. It's one. It's. What have you found a lot of talk about groceries, obviously. No, the interesting thing, genius. We. We obviously had our kickoff.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Was it talk about shop?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

We had our kickoff party Sunday night. We had a couple hundred people come to that. That was a lot of fun.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

And which our guests today did not.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Which. Oh no, I don't know what happened. They were too busy.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Too busy.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You know we didn't. We were a little.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Not important enough.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Maybe they just flew in a little bit later.

[Austin Leonard]

That's probably maximizing every hour. Wanted to be there. You know, I want.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

There we go. That's okay. We're okay with that.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

We get snubbed all. I'm not a big deal.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

But no, we don't take it personally.

[Austin Leonard]

Don't.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

That's got. Which dg they did and they made.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Sure to come by and say hello.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

They were fully represented. But no, I'm having a great time. Sri the conversations going on, what we've had, the recordings we're doing, the suite, the dinners we've been hosting. It has been an absolutely incredible event and we're literally only halfway through day two.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Yep. I do want to acknowledge the moment and also congratulate Sean on his new role at Dollar General Media Network. Wish him all the best as he and our guest today build the future of what this looks like. So thank you, Peter. Always a pleasure doing this live with you. I'm glad we're actually doing this live from Grocery Shop to our audience. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on your preferred listing platform over 45 of those where you can, of course, get our latest episodes. Go back to consume some of the 525 + episodes we've already published. You know, sometimes when I read out that number, it's just 540.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

That's a lot.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

And I just feel like a number on a page. But that's insane, man. 540.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So how much? If you multiply that by the number of hours it took to record net and every.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Good heavens.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You spend a lot of time with me, don't you?

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Reminders.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Okay.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

The week Reminders. Today's episode, of course.

[Austin Leonard]

Nice married couple here. I love it.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

We stay together for the kids.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Now you're gonna make him talk about the Muppet thing, which I cannot relate to.

[Austin Leonard]

Oh, hard pass.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Do you, you know, you know the Muppets, the guys that were up in the balcony, Waldorf and Statler, Where? That's us, right?

[Austin Leonard]

No, I know. I've seen you.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You've seen us bicker, both at the.

[Austin Leonard]

Show and also on the podcast.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yeah, that'.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Because he's accepted his age. I don't have to. I don't have to be graceful about it. Today's episode, of course, is with Dollar General Media Network and a repeat guest on the CPG Guys. For those following us, we recently had Heather Land from Dollar General on earlier this year as he spoke to merchandising at Dollar General. Of course, if you want to search for episode, all you got to do is type either Dollar General, Space CPG Guys, Heather Land, Space CPG Guys.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

It's one of our most downloaded episodes of the year.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Yep, it was. The conversation was very enriching and she really, really added a lot of value. I hope those of you that haven't heard it just follow that simple Google.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Put a hyperlink in the show notes of this episode.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Today's I would say slightly different because we want to dive into the media world and audience building world and everything. On the favorite topic here on the CPG Guys. Which is retail media.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

AKA commerce media. Join us and welcome you to the podcast. Austin Leonard, VP and GM of Dollar General Media Network. 20 plus years of advertising experience. Austin has an extensive background in traditional digital and retail media to the point where I want to talk to him today about in store media only and in store shopper marketing only. But just kidding, guys. After starting in radio in Atlanta, Austin made the jump to Digital in 2008 with eBay. In his time there, Austin led several teams for ebay Enterprise. Helped bring eBay's first party audience targeting programmatic platform to market. Since then, Austin has held sales leadership positions at both Walmart Connect and Sam's member access platform where he helped grow the media business significantly. Most recently, he was at Epsilon and a close friend of the CPG guys, Austin Leonard. Welcome to the CPG guys. How are you doing, man?

[Austin Leonard]

I'm doing great, guys. Super excited to be back.

[Podcast Announcer]

What is this?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Your. How many times have you now appeared on the podcast?

[Austin Leonard]

I think it's three.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Three.

[Austin Leonard]

But it might only be two.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

And you know about the five Timer varsity jacket.

[Austin Leonard]

Oh, yes, I know about the jacket.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You've counted the tick marks.

[Austin Leonard]

I'm working on it.

[Podcast Announcer]

Okay.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Simple left on tick. Take a look to your left on the chair back behind there.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

It's a real jacket, you know, I.

[Austin Leonard]

Hear about in so many episodes, but you don't always get to see it other than on one of you guys. So it's just right there.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Maybe you'll let him slip it on for a little, little try before.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

This is when you tell him who actually has it. Only five, four or five people have earned that.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Distinguished AJ Sharma from Bear has it. Ria. Pardon me. Risa Crandall, who's now at Smart Commerce has it. Chris Loosby Canon.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Liz Buchanan from the Ocean.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Like just a handful of people.

[Austin Leonard]

And then of course the two of you here. So yes.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

And we've been on 540. What's the 540th timer jacket is that we got like rhinestones.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Let's make one for 550.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

550. We'll do it. Okay.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Challenge us to make swag.

[Austin Leonard]

You know, regardless of what time it is. Guys, I'm excited to be back. Not just on my favorite podcast, but also back on the retailer side where I'm closer to the customer, the merchants and the brands. It's only been four months now, but I feel like I've been welcomed into a fantastic company that the many in our industry don't know much about. So excited to Share more about that today.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Terrific.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

You also have fantastic company today, by the way. Lucky you both in your day job and your podcast, you have fantastic company. But Austin, in all events, seriously, we're excited to have you back on the pod in this new role. You know, one that will be groundbreaking for the industry, of course. In the digital show notes of this episode, we'll include links to your LinkedIn profile and that at Dollar General Media Network. So if you're ready, Austin, let's get to it, man.

[Austin Leonard]

Let's go. I'm ready.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

So I think first question is an obvious one. You know, as you've just come in, Sean is coming with you. The industry is curious, our audience is curious. Give us a solid overview of who is Dollar General? Heatherland did that. But for those that haven't heard that episode, let's repeat it. Who is Dollar General Media Network? Who's the Dollar General customer? The DGMN audience proposition. Let's get going.

[Austin Leonard]

Dollar General operates over 20,000 stores across 48 states. That's over almost 21,000 points of distribution and we serve 90 million plus unique customer profiles. We surpassed $40 billion in sales in 2024 across the 2 billion plus transactions that we see annually. So it's a massive retail business that many, again, in our industry don't know much about. We're often labeled as rural, but our footprint includes suburban and urban areas and 75% of Americans live within five miles of a store. Heather Land did an awesome job of talking about our, our structure and our audience and our stores and how we think about it. So there's a ton of great insights from our episode. We'll plug it one more time at least. And I've used that as a lot as I've been ramping up with this national footprint. The Media Network, it's called the Media Network A Lot. And, and we'll, we'll shorten it to DGMN A Lot. It's built to serve a differentiated audience that is often overlooked by traditional digital platforms. So typically, digital platforms focus their media delivery on high volume efficiency plays which will naturally skew to more densely populated markets. Our first party data addresses the gap in less populated markets and allows brands to tap into our unduplicated, extensive and growing reach.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Okay, Austin, welcome again to the podcast. We're glad to have you back. And we'll, we'll start, we'll start sizing you up for the jacket you're feeling. You're going to hit the mark in, in short order. Don't tease me okay, we do like to do that. We have a friend of ours has been on four times and he hasn't been on a year and a half. He thinks, he thinks we have a holding pattern. Yeah, no, I know we have been, but we like creating that. You know, you're getting, you've got it. But not just quite anyhow. So it's very clear from your description of what Dollar General is, you have a very strong physical presence. 20,000 stores, 48 states. No question about that. Let's look at the digital side because you started to reference that in DGMN. How is the footprint growing? Who are DG's partners on the digital side? And how is DGMN fitting into this equation of really emphasizing that there is a digital component to a true omnichannel experience for DG shoppers?

[Austin Leonard]

Peter Sree. This is one of the areas that got me most excited to join the Dollar General team. Dollar General has strategically invested in our stores. So for example, right now where we have a current remodeling effort that's targeting about 80% of our, this initiative aims to drive 3 to 5% in same store sales lifts. We're also continuing to open new stores. So we've got about 575 planned for this year. This serves as an amazing foundation to provide additional convenient on demand delivery across the communities that we serve. So let me tell you a bit more about the ecosystem that we've been building. So we started with DoorDash in 2021. It now covers more than sixteen thousand Dollar General stores. We've seen great incrementality with this partnership, a lot of new customers and it's really helped introduced Dollar General to a lot of folks that hadn't been to our stores in a long time. And we, at the same time we also rolled out our own first party delivery called DG delivery. Heather shared a little bit about this when she was on a few months ago. So this allows DG shoppers to purchase the same low price, high quality goods while using the digital coupons and cashback offers that they're used to using in our stores. When her first episode aired, we were at 3,000 stores and we were trending to about 10,000 by the end of the year. Well, as of as of August, we're actually at over 6,000 locations already and we've upped our forecast for this year to be 16,000 stores by the end of the year.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So and let me double down on that because it's very important that not only are the prices comparable to store. But the offers to reduce those prices through coupons and what have you, those are also available because, correct me if I'm wrong, you know, the profile of the DG shopper is. Is very value conscious. And so adding on an element of last mile delivery that can have some cost implications to it. Further heightening any type of cost increase might have a debilitating effect on the consumer's willingness to leverage that, that omnichannel mechanism for delivery. So it's very important that the consumers can still derive the same kind of value they can from shopping in a store.

[Austin Leonard]

Absolutely. And I think that the value part's really important because obviously each shopper might have value in a different way. And when our shopper, when she thinks about her purchase and obviously some of the trade offs. Does she want to get her four kids into the car and drive to.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

A store they need something for dinner?

[Austin Leonard]

Absolutely.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

It's worth it not having to unload the kids to go in and get one item off the shelf and then buckle them all back in.

[Austin Leonard]

Yes. But also importantly, if there's a way to offset the cost of the delivery through some of the digital offers and actually make that value exchange. Yeah, that's where our first party DG delivery really shines, to help give our customers that value. And candidly, I think, and this is what gets me so excited about it, is these communities have typically been underserved by the E commerce wave and the.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Challenge that we're oftentimes the only source of staple products for a community. And when you say they're underserved, you mean they're not served at all in other cases?

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah, our core customers, and especially the ones that are in the rural communities, that they're not served by anyone from a grocery delivery delivery standpoint in many times. So. So this is an opportunity and I'm going to trademark this. So I like to call it winning the last mile of E commerce for the last mile of America. And that's an important part because.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Put that on a T shirt, Cherie.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Wait, I want to. I want to get that again. What is it?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You know, we're recording winning.

[Austin Leonard]

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's winning the last mile.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

I just want to beat him to the trademark first.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yeah, we can do that.

[Austin Leonard]

That's good. That's good. It's. It'll be published that I said it first, so it's helpful. But there was so much talk, you.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Know, we can edit this podcast.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah, I know. Yeah. But anyway.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

All right, Joseph Bard, let's hear it again. Because I think, I think that's a very important message.

[Austin Leonard]

The early 2000s was all about winning the last mile, right?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Right.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Yeah.

[Austin Leonard]

So there's been a lot of focus on those bigger markets. I believe that with what we're doing with Dollar General and the digital ecosystem we're building is that we can help you win the last mile of e commerce for the last mile of America.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

I love that.

[Austin Leonard]

And these shoppers should have the opportunity to take advantage of the same time saving options that the same day delivery offers of any other American.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Brilliant.

[Austin Leonard]

And we're helping our brands really tap into our platform so they can ensure that their products make it into these digital shoppers homes.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Thank you for that, Austin. Also, the numbers you kind of talk to, they're awesome. I mean, given where we are in the industry at this stage, the 500 plus new store openings is gonna. And given you talked about the last mile of service, it's a big deal that, you know, there are so many stores like every. I think you mentioned every household is within a 5 mile radius. Adding 500 more stores will only help towards that cause to be able to get staples into places where many cannot easily find it in a five mile radius. So grocery shop. We're all here. What brought you here in the first place? What?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

I'm assuming an airplane, but.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

What's that?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

I'm assuming an airplane.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

How do you know he didn't drive?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

He might have.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Yeah.

[Austin Leonard]

It's quite a heck of a drive.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

But I thought.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

I'm assuming sailboat maybe across the Panama Canal.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah. So you guys know I love.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Don't we love to throw these?

[Sree Rajagopalan]

I'm not done with the question yet.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

We just love throwing curveballs. We're all friends. We love having some fun while we're doing this.

[Austin Leonard]

Right. I couldn't do it on a real diamond, but the curveballs in the podcast world, you keep coming, you know. All right.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Can I give you a knuckleballer? Kim Wakefield Classic.

[Austin Leonard]

Oh, yeah.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

He was a Yankee killer until Aaron Boone hit him out of the park.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

The one thing we can all agree on is the Phillies are not going to the World Series this year. Can we? Okay, good.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Is that mathematically done at this?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

I think they're eliminated. I think they're already booking golf reservations in Florida Braves.

[Austin Leonard]

The Phillies actually already clinched the nle.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

No, but I mean, they're already booked golf reservations for next week because I think they're anticipating.

[Austin Leonard]

Got it.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

All right, man. We're poking the bear.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

We're poking the bear.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

What Were you hoping to accomplish?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yep.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

And what would be some takeaways you've already had?

[Austin Leonard]

So this is a really great forum to get to meet with our brand, tech and agency partners. So I love when the community gets together and we've got an opportunity to really efficiently spend some time together. So as DGMN evolves into our next phase of growth, on top of the digital acceleration that I just talked about, I'm making it a priority to really spend time to listen to how DG can help our advertisers, making sure that I'm understanding what's top of mind for them, what are their big bets, getting feedback on the platform and where they're seeing some growth opportunities. The way that I see it is that for any brand that's building a national sales or media strategy, Dollar General is a critical part to help ensure that they helping ensure that they reach all of America. For any brand building a national sales or media strategy, Dollar General is a critical part to helping ensure they reach all of America.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You offer 20,000. Let's not under undersell that. 20,000 points of distribution is massive scale. And that's what brands crave. Yes, they crave scale because to do retail media on a retailer that has 30 stores takes just as much time as it does to do retail media on a, on a, on a retail that has 20,000 stores. Where, where, which, which, you know, which juice do you want to squeeze? I'm going to go with scale every time if I'm a brand.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah, yeah. A mentor of mine, always. You say you want on the graphs that are up and to the right.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yes.

[Austin Leonard]

So you want to continue to really push on that. Part of what I'm doing is I'm sharing a lot of how the Dollar General and the DGMN platforms are growing. So we talked a lot about the growth in both digital and stores. And that's an important part that they see that growth because we're a retailer that is obviously a growth vehicle for them. The other part is that I want them to see us as a collaborative partner. We're focused on helping them accomplish their marketing and sales goals and we want to build long term growth plans with them that help them achieve those.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Awesome. Austin, I'm really. Go ahead.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So I want to talk to you about kind of the, how the sausage is made on the inside, particularly the organizational structure, because that actually has a relevance on how decisions are made and how collaboration occurs within the walls. There is the merchandising group, there is the marketing Group like, where does DGMN sit? And how do you formally interact with interactive marketing with merchandising to make sure that at a minimum, the messages aren't crossed and that everybody's singing from the same hymnal. When it comes to collaborating with suppliers that are coming to you to reach your shoppers, I think they sit on.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Ergonomic chairs with tables and floors.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Okay. Now I think we were getting a little too far.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Okay.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

But go ahead. Go ahead, Austin.

[Austin Leonard]

So this was another area that got me really excited as I learned more about how DG operates. We report directly into Tony Rogers, Dollar General cmo, and he reports directly into Emily Taylor, our EVP Chief Merchandising Officer. Okay. So that makes us part of the marketing team. And the marketing team is part of the merchandising Org overall, which really fosters greater collaboration and helps with communication across all the teams. And with this structure, we really have the ability to help brands natively integrate into Dollar General's enterprise marketing efforts and, and then harmonize their DGMN retail media campaigns within the overall marketing ecosystem that touches DG customers every day. So most. You want to double click on that.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

And good to hear that you're actually reporting into the merchandising leadership.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah. And I feel that most retailers would love to have their marketing and retail media teams operating as one team. And obviously we're, we're support teams to help the overall business and to help the merchandising Org.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

And that's, that's also a critical component. Your goal is to help Dollar General sell more products.

[Austin Leonard]

Absolutely.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

In their store. It's not, you're here to fit some financial margin profile. It is to actually be accretive to the overall business drive value to the consumer.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Which is equated.

[Austin Leonard]

Our job and really our vision is we want to be the most innovative, collaborative and consumer centric retail media network so we can bring the most value to DG shoppers and advertisers. That's a core part. That's a, that's a key thing.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So there are two constituencies.

[Austin Leonard]

Absolutely. Like, we support overall business and we want to sell more goods at Dollar General. But if our advertisers aren't happy and if it's not penciling out from an ROI standpoint, then this, this isn't a business that will deliver on.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

It's not sustainable. They won't, they won't continue to invest in the platform.

[Austin Leonard]

Absolutely. Yeah. So I think the other thing that is really exciting about how the org is structured is that most Retailers would love to have these teams operating as one team. They'd love to have marketing and retail media organized together. We sit on the same tech platform so we have the ability to do things a little bit differently. We're already leveraging this as a better way to deliver more relevant messages for our consumers and also better customer experiences. So for example, when it, when it comes time to deliver for summer, back to school or even cold cough flu season, we've built a new framework that makes it easy for brands to take part in these key moments. And these are the moments that matter most for DG shoppers. So if they're integrated into the customer experience and they're aligned with how DG is going to market, it's going to deliver better results.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You know Sree, I think back to the last time worked, I worked at a certain Rhode island based retailer and they would do annual business plans or joint business planning with with with suppliers. The digital component came in at the last minute as the plan was going up the chain to the chief merchant and a phone call would go from the merchant to the digital team and say can you send me your three pages that I can just tack on to the end of the deck? What I'm hearing is that's not how it works. You are not an afterthought. You're not attack on, you are part of. Because you're integrated into marketing and marketing as part of merchandising, you are part of the holistic process.

[Austin Leonard]

Yes, absolutely.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Again, I'm going to repeat the fact that you all are part of the merchandising team makes it very unique because that ecosystem doesn't exist at more than most other retailers causing useless conflict. Another comment I wanted to make after the previous question I had asked you about being at grocery shop and you had referred to reach and distribution CPG World. Externally the number one most important metric is category share because that's what's reported to Wall street measures on them. But internally the number one metric is not category share as in sales. Reach and distribution is the number one metric. What would happen when a brand lost its distribution? It would be the greatest disappointment for sales leadership. Share can always be made up quickly with offers and driving value. You lose distribution, you gotta wait for a reset, you're gone for six months. But we never see that publicly. So when you say reach and distribution, I think it's important for brands to know and acknowledge 500 plus stores, 20,000 distribution points. It's a moment that brands can truly leverage. So reminder to audience, I'M speaking with Austin Leonard, VP General Manager at Dollar General Media Network. So let's talk about best in class partnerships as you build this out. I'm sure in the upcoming year we're going to see more announcements from you guys and what the future holds for dgmn. But what does a best in class partnership today with DGMN look like? What advice would you have for brand advertisers looking to improve their relationship with DG customers? At the end of the day, unlike.

[Austin Leonard]

Most retail media networks, DGMN started as an off site first offering and managed service was our primary.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

And that was realistic, right? 100% because most started as an owned and operated product search because they had very vibrant e commerce businesses like lower funnel activity. That's not how you started and so you focused on where you could add value to the equation.

[Austin Leonard]

Exactly. Yeah. Our digital ecosystem has been building and we have a national footprint across markets where sometimes it's really hard to reach our customers. And that was the first natural thing. That is the exact right place to start. If I was in their shoes, I would have started the same place.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You played your strengths, you had strengths in terms of an audience, a very unique audience, and you could best apply that unique audience towards the upper end of the funnel and the capabilities around awareness and discovery.

[Austin Leonard]

Exactly right. And most advertisers will tell you that for driving in store sales, as long as it's done well, the most effective channel is off site advertising because it's efficient. You can reach the specific markets you want to reach. You can be very targeted about who you reach. So starting there was a very natural place to start. And there was also a couple things we'll talk about in store that have been in the ecosystem for a while around signage and shelf placements. But the big part of it is we really needed to grow a lot of the digital engagement, which they've been doing really well for the past couple years. And this year we've really invested in growing our on site inventory, both in the tactics that we're offering and also how they're woven into the customer shopping journey. So we're bringing a more sophisticated approach to how we plan and how we help advertisers reach our customers. And we're having great conversations with our brand partners about how we partner differently heading into 2026. I think that's an important part. We really want them to think of us as that growth partner. And so when we're thinking about, you know, best in class partnership and I'm asking what they're looking for. One of my biggest priorities that I saw very clearly and heard very clearly from a lot of our customers was we need to meet brands how they want to buy media. So we've got great self service tools for off site already. We need to help scale those up. We also need to ramp up some tools that will tap into the new and growing inventory that we have in our app and in our website and that will really help from an on site display standpoint to create more self service tools. And then finally, it just needs to be easier for them to buy according to their existing workflows and processes as much as possible.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

The less you have to train them on new workflows, the more likely they are to adopt your mechanism because they already know how to do it to a large degree.

[Austin Leonard]

100%, yes. And the easier you make it, the more friction that you take out of the process. The easier is for them to accomplish their goals in alignment with our goals as well.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So we talked about when SRI and I talked to brands about the decision that they make on which platforms to invest in, the two things that always come up, I already touched on one of them, which is scale. I need scale. The other one is around measurement. Right. We talk about this constantly on the CPT guys. They're looking for transparency. They want to understand how the sausage is made because that allows them to compare their investments across the different platforms that they're looking at. Right. So can you share, particularly around from dgmn, the metrics and ROI reporting that brands and advertisers can expect to receive when they work with DGMN and that level of transparency, they get to understand how you arrived at those calculations.

[Austin Leonard]

We've got a great foundation here. Peter and Cherie. Our measurement was built according to IB standards, so we looked at the industry guidelines and so this is the, this.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Is the industry association iab. We came up with some standards on how the retail industry should strive to adopt. So there's commonality and everyone can expect to get that level of certainty.

[Austin Leonard]

Yes. Definition of clicks, attribution, windows.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

It's amazing that you have to actually define what a click is, but you do, because there are people that define it differently.

[Austin Leonard]

There's also people who are defining new buyers differently. So just making sure that there's a common language should help make it easier for brands to easily understand our methodology. So it allows us to report roas, return on ad spend, clicks and all the standard media metrics according to accepted industry standards. But it also builds confidence that when we report on incremental roas which is what we know most brands are looking for. They, they, they need incremental sales.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

That's the promise of performance marketing. It's getting the incrementality measure.

[Austin Leonard]

They, they need to know exactly how we're calculating those success metrics. So, so working with IB and following those has been really important. We, we do recognize that again why we've leaned in here is we do recognize that brands are dealing with ever growing complexity especially as retail media has grown so fast. And we know that the CFOs are very tuned into their retail media investments. We means we know we need to show that our efforts are driving incremental sales and new customers with every campaign and, and every dollar. It's, you know, obviously there's, there's a lot of work to do overall so we're investing to continue to get better here every day. But we're, we're aligned with retail media market and we believe we've got a great measurement and insights foundation.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

You know one of the terms we hear a lot from brands even here at grocery shop, you know as we've hosted a couple of dinners here is new to brand. What do you feel about that metric?

[Austin Leonard]

I think it's an important one. I think they're, they're looking to grow households and drive sales and helping them see where they're growing. Their category share is an important one.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So national brands have lost a lot, A lot of brands have lost households since the beginning of the pandemic. So that is very top of mind to them.

[Austin Leonard]

So they should look at retailers that are growing households and find a way to partner more closely.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

500 new stores.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

500 new stores.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

That's new reach, new audience.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

That is big.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

So I'm sure you've been thinking about in store media, you know, with that.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

20,000 points of distribution.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Exactly. I want to get a full scoop from you man. What can brands expect from DGMN and how does it tie back to the merchandising or you report in already. So how does that work when merchandising is thought off?

[Austin Leonard]

So it's great that Insta Media is such a hot topic at a time when I had the opportunity to go to a place that 21,000 stores. When you talked with Heather Land she talked a lot about the important role that our stores play in our shoppers lives and within their communities. So that's an important piece of how we think about how we're communicating them with them, how we adding value to their shopping experiences right now. We've got great tools to reach shoppers in our stores and at the shelf with traditional shopper marketing tools like shelf talkers and in store signage supported by our partners at Neptune and Vescom. There are also connected shelf offerings that link the physical shelves to the digital incentives. So it makes it easier for our shoppers to be more digitally engaged and to really help them save even more money. So there's, there's plenty of great signage opportunities and really a way to talk within the box. We've also invested in the equipment to deliver in store audio ads, the in store radio that can really help brands tie some of their national messaging, especially some of the audio work that they've done into our customer store visits while also driving incremental sales by accelerating new products, communicating offers and all doing that close to that purchase as, as our shoppers are making some decisions. You know, with, even with all the progress, you know, in store advertising is still in its early stages and Obviously with over 20,000 stores, we have a really unique opportunity to innovate at scale. And really what we're seeing is brands are very excited about that. They're leaning in to understand how we can, how we're going to grow that.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

You know, it's very important because we've had on the podcast in the past our friend Andrew Lipsman from Media Ads Commerce and, and he shared a really interesting stat. He was talking about this consumer audience called the unreachables. They are consumers that have cut the cord on traditional cable television, don't use the antenna. Everything they do is streaming. So they're no longer reachable by mass mechanisms like linear television or print media. I can't even find newspaper to fuel my fireplace for the winter. That's how hard things are getting. Like I can't even find it anywhere. There's no. So there's no. You know, you used to get those flyers from the town newspaper with advertising. You can't even get those anymore. It's all digital.

[Austin Leonard]

You gotta throw your phone in there to get it started.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

So unreachables are people that you can't reach those mechanisms but they're still going into your store and shopping, aren't they? There is a huge opportunity for you to help brands reach your shoppers through there. Just walking the physical store and creating those kinds of inspirational awareness and discovery moments.

[Austin Leonard]

There really is. Yeah. And that, that gets me really excited both from a. How do we measure it different? Cause I think that's a big question. The brands will just say great, how is it going to be different than what you have today and how does it drive incremental sales but also with the, with the scale that we can bring to the table and how do we make those shopping experiences better?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

All right, let me close our questions with more looking to the future. Right? What have you got in store for 2026? If, if, if you were to tell our you could tease us, give us a little bit of future forward look, we'd love to understand what you you're trying to focus the innovation with DGMN on to further serve the needs of your advertisers and further delight the moments of experience for your shoppers.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah. So DGMIN is evolving into a strategic growth lever for Dollar General and for our brand partners. So we've got a clear mission to really spark change and accelerate opportunity in underserved markets. So that part is a really big part of what we're working on. How do we do that better for next year? I'll repeat it again. Our vision is to be the most innovative collaborative consumer centric retail media network so we can bring the most value to DG shoppers and advertisers. And that's what we're going to continue to build for. We're really focused on things like automation, more self service tools for our brands and advertisers and that's to give them.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Choice and to give them choices. Right. Some of them want IT man service, some of them want IT sellers, some of them want third party agency. You want to manage, enable, however they want to work with your platform.

[Austin Leonard]

Yeah. For the partners that are leaning into us, we want to make it as easy as possible for them to really take advantage of this unique audience and this unique ecosystem. And we're also working on enhanced performance measurement. How do we make sure that as they're leaning in, they continue to get the insights they need to help show the organization where things are growing. And then finally we're really placing an emphasis on AI integration in store innovation as we talked about and serving the last mile of America digitally and physically.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Awesome. What a terrific conversation with of course a terrific leader. Let me now thank audience for listening to this wonderful episode. Do leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or whatever your favorite listening platform is because it informs us how we're doing as well as if we're having the right conversations with the right guests. To all of you listening in sincere thank you from Peter and me, you make the show happen to all our sponsors, whether this podcast or parties, events, hosted dinners having us at panels. Thank you, thank you, thank you to our nearly 40,000 followers on LinkedIn, every single one of them organic. Because Peter and Sree have never done paid marketing, I can't thank you enough for being ardent followers of the show. Peter. Fun doing this with you live.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

What's your big takeaway today from what Austin had to share with us?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

The big thing for me is DTMN is part of marketing, which in turn is part of merchandising. And their core mission is to deliver more meaningful experiences and delight their customers and help their advertisers speak to their shoppers in more meaningful ways and that will ultimately grow Dollar General's business. This is not about a margin play or monetizing media for the sake of doing that. It is truly about the core focus of the business. It aligns with the mission.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Awesome. I'll tell you what mine is really learning that he took a plane to come here and he didn't take a ship.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Knowledge groundbreaking.

[Austin Leonard]

Jokes apart.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

I think for me it's winning the last mile of E. Com for the last mile of America by enabling, by being an enabler, the only source of E commerce for consumer staples to many 500 new stores and the closeout that said consumer Centric Media Network.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Thank you Peter. Always fun doing this with you.

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

Always.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

Austin Leonard thank you for coming back on the CPG Guys guys, thanks so.

[Austin Leonard]

Much for having me. So much fun as always and really appreciate you having me on.

[Sree Rajagopalan]

That's a wrap of this episode off who is it Peter?

[Peter V. S. Vaughn]

The CPG Guys Podcast. Goodbye.

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