Kroger Precision Marketing celebrates 5 years of transforming media

Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) recently reached a major milestone: five years of transforming the media advertising industry.

To mark the occasion, the full KPM team shared an afternoon together for celebration, inspiration, and education. It was a fantastic pause to refresh our perspective, remind ourselves of what we have accomplished, and focus on our opportunity – and responsibility – ahead.

We have a lot to celebrate. We have had hundreds of milestones on our journey – but I think we can summarize them in three big accomplishments:

1. We are thriving.

We are exceeding every expectation we had at the outset, making a meaningful impact on customers (through relevance) and advertisers (with business outcomes). And, our team is thriving. We’re adding new people. We’re growing people’s careers. We’re learning from each other and excelling at what we do.

Our people are being recognized in the industry with awards for demystifying data, spearheading innovations in programmatic ad tech, and leadership in the omnichannel marketing space.

In 2017, KPM started with a small, passionate team and a portfolio of expected retail media products. Today, we’re transforming the media industry with a full suite of top-rated full-funnel retail media solutions for thousands of brands. The Path to Purchase IQ 2021 Trends Report rated KPM as #1 in targeting effectiveness and measurement capabilities, and Kantar/Catalyst State of eCommerce 2021 report ranked us as #1 on ROI.

With a continued focus on targeting science & optimization recommendations, KPM generates billions of household model scores every month. As our models improve, so does our media effectiveness — which increased 12.9% over the course of 2021, and since then has improved another 13.3%.

As proud as we are of our accomplishments so far, we’re also building for the future.

That’s why we’re evolving our business model and investing across technology, operations, and commercial capability — to make KPM easier to plan, activate, and measure. All in a way that also ultimately makes the lives of our shoppers easier through relevant, seamless advertisements.

Our business model evolution focuses on four strategic themes:

• We’re expanding our ecosystem – with new inventory and touchpoints.
• We’re making execution easier – by streamlining activation processes.
• We’re optimizing business impact – with new campaign levers, sciences, and measurement tools.
• We’re scaling solutions – with capabilities that can be continuously improved to better support client needs.

2. We are transforming the media industry.

KPM is at the center of a revolution in media advertising.

We are a leader in what eMarketer calls the “third wave” of the digital advertising industry. Each wave builds on the successes of the past. The first wave was driven by search marketing. Search marketing pushed the industry to think about content relevancy. The second wave of digital advertising was driven by social media. Social media helped the industry incorporate user-generated content and social sharing.

Today, retail media is driving the third wave of digital advertising. This wave is about results. For too long, the industry has relied on outdated vanity metrics. But KPM—and a handful of top retailers—have been changing expectations for digital media. We’ve made a conscious effort to build trusted bridges between partners, so we can all move together into the third wave of digital advertising with a more accountable media ecosystem. 

For five years, we’ve proved that retail media can make advertising more effective through better targeting and measurement standards. And now the entire industry wants to follow in our path. We are pioneers.

3. We are uniquely positioned to win.

Every retailer has data. And many retailers have retail media networks.

But NO other retailer has anything like 84.51°. This is a unique place—born at just the right moment to impact the retail and media industries.

Data alone is powerless.

Each team member brings experiences and skills which unleash the full potential of our dataset.

KPM combines multiple disciplines under one roof: data scientists, analysts, engineers, product strategists, sales, marketing, media planning, media activation, experience design, commercial ops, recruiting, finance... the list can go on. What’s most important? Appreciating that it takes a cross-functional team of experts to be at our best and getting that right makes you unbeatable.

We have the right data & science. We have the right people. And we have the right plan.

The first five years were amazing – but we’re just getting started.

The world has changed so much in five years.

The good news: KPM was built for this new world. All of our strengths and assets are more important today than they were five years ago.

But that doesn’t mean we’re standing still. We’re working hard to drive success in the NEXT five years.

KPM 5th Anniversary Photo Collage

Kroger Precision Marketing is making an impact on two industries—retail and media. We’re inspiring customers and elevating the accountability of media investments. That takes vision, discipline, talented people, and a growth mindset. I’m thankful to be surrounded by the best and brightest, each of whom has made KPM what it is.

And we’re not alone. We’re grateful to the many talented brands and agencies who have been with us on the journey. Their collaboration and partnership have made us better every day.

Retail media is just beginning to transform the advertising landscape. Keep your eyes on this team. The next chapter will be even better.