As one of Kroger’s first approved advertising partners, Pacvue’s partnership through Q2 2022 has been a successful, including helping brands take advantage of Kroger.com on-site advertising as well. This addition to the media portfolio presents a new opportunity for advertisers to boost their revenue and plan for the rest of the year.  

To discuss this, Pacvue recently hosted a webinar hosted by speakers Ben Ryan Schwartz, Director of Retail Partnerships at Pacvue, and Jason Comack, Owned & Operated Advertising Product Director, Kroger Precision Marketing.  

This blog will discuss the key takeaways from the insight-fueled session, which includes an overview of Kroger, its advertising opportunities for brands, and the collaboration with Pacvue as an API Partner.

Overview of Kroger Precision Marketing

Kroger Precision Marketing is an expert in CPG, media, and retail with a strong belief in outcome-based marketing. It is the top grocery retailer around the country across 2,800 locations in 35 states. Their business model is heavily reliant on the value exchange simplicity in building customer relationships, with benefits like their popular loyalty card.  

With attractive deals and daily opportunities for savings, the platform attracts over 11 million customers daily. Combine this with the fact that 85% of their top 500 searches are non-branded keywords, and you immediately know why it is a must-have in every retail advertiser’s strategy.  

Kroger also implements relevant targeting based on first-party data to calculate about 3,000 variables and recommend a customized audience based on your campaign objective, timing, and budget. This has changed the game and influenced the digital shelf to present many advertising opportunities.  

Advertising Opportunities

This platform’s ecosystem uses a CPC pricing model that uses a second-price auction for Product Listings Ads (PLA). Here you can choose from 3 types of PLAs:

  1. Basket Builder that lets you use personalized, science-driven carousels on the site
  2. Savings to improve ROAS via a sale price or digital coupon to reattract a previous buyer or win over a new household, and
  3. Search & Browse to boost visibility in front of active shoppers and get your products added to the cart

The average advertiser witnesses a 3-7x return on their ad spend when using Kroger’s 14-day click attribution window. PLAs have understandably become the popular choice for advertisers looking to increase engagement and conversion rates.

On Kroger, bids are set at the product level and targeted at the SKU level, with minimum bids starting at $0.30. Moreover, 1 in every 4 new shoppers that click on a PLA (product listing ads) purchased two or more times within 10 weeks after clicking. This has created a site that both attracts new consumers and keeps existing consumers loyal for 2,000+ brands consistently.

Working with an API Partner

When trying to revolutionize the retail industry with the power of data, every advertiser must look for four key qualities in an API partner like Pacvue:

  1. Stay ahead of your competition: This means your API partner should provide you with benefits like competitive insights, Share of Voice monitoring, and rapid product development to ensure that you thrive in cut-throat competition.
  2. Save time without sacrificing performance: Time is money, so your API partner should help you double down on results while reducing the time you spend getting there. Rule-based automation, AI optimization, and keyword recommendations are all ways to do just that.
  3. Increase sales while lowering costs: Your mission is to effectively regain control to manage all your seasonal campaigns with the support of your API partner. This includes daypart bidding, auto-budget tracking, and budget pacing.
  4. Leverage flexible & robust reporting: By bringing together sales, inventory, and advertising data together, you can customize dashboards and even have the option to work directly in Excel.

Pacvue’s first-to-market features will now integrate with Kroger Precision Marketing and work together. The early adopter advantage also lets you optimize your strategy with an average 65% conversion rate and lower CPCs.

The case study of a popular food pantry brand on Kroger also showed that campaigns that remain live for 18+ hours serve 3x more impressions, with improved ROAS for large case packs at about $6.62 with a CPC of only about $0.50.

The 30-minute webinar had the hosts talk about Kroger Precision Marketing, the most notable advertising opportunities, how Pacvue will work together with Kroger as an API partner, and what brands can expect to gain from this partnership in the coming quarter.

The session ended with a live Q&A round where Ben and Jason answered questions about search, bidding, product data, and more.

You can learn more about this partnership and access the recording of the webinar for free here.

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