Now THIS is interesting. Meta has ‘got religion’ about retail media as it feels that if does not step up its retail media offering, it risks losing out on attracting those dollars.
What’s the TL:DR?
-> Retailers are already building out ‘off-site’ capabilities where their retail media audiences can be targeted on social, open web and CTV.
-> Meta has launched a range of products specifically for Retail Media Network.
-> New – an API that allows online marketplaces that sell products from third parties to run ads on Meta
-> The API collects data that lets both the marketplace and brand know whether those ads drove sales.
-> For example – you see an ad on Instagram, you click on and buy the product, the Meta’s API will let both the brand and the marketplace that you got a sale.
-> When Meta launched the API in 2021, it was initially only available to marketplaces with at least 20,000 unique sellers—a high threshold for nascent retail media networks. Meta dropped the 20,000 requirement in 2024.
-> Meta started sharing product-level reporting with advertisers that lets retailers match SKU-level data back to sales.
-> Meta has also begun sharing “impression logs” which use Meta ad impression data to help RMNs track how Meta users interact with ads and whether they lead to the sales of individual products.
-> Meta now allows retailers to run multi-product carousel ads driving users to both eRetail websites or physical stores.
My view:
-> when we (as in Grace & Co) work with RMNs around the world, we always point out that the best way to increase inventory and ‘fish where the fish are’ is to go offsite to socials. NOW, we can say hand on heard that the brand and the retailer will have full closed loop capability.
-> Analysing impression logs (which will be tedious) will also enable brands and retailers to work out which creative is working – and creative is the conversation that is missing on all retail media conversations.
-> Google do not really have a coherent story here – and Meta have got the jump on them. The phrase that pays here is this: « With retail media networks, we’re here to be their partner” according to Meta.
Viv Craske Michael Islip
Caroline Drain Anne Hallock
Great story by Kathryn Lundstrom – link in comments – a must read.