How Amazon Is Changing the Grocery Advertising Playbook

During its annual unBoxed advertising conference last week, Amazon launched a bevy of new advertising solutions, one of which will have a direct impact on food retail. The Digital Signage Ads product allows brands to run digital advertisements in physical store signage, allowing customers to view or engage with a brand in a physical environment at the time of purchase. 

The Amazon Ads product works through Amazon DSP, the company’s demand-side platform that allows brands to programmatically buy ads to reach audiences on and off Amazon. This marks the first time brands can programmatically advertise within Amazon’s physical stores.

Brands have the opportunity to optimize campaigns via an impression report and sales lift analysis for Amazon Fresh stores. According to Amazon, this will allow customers to see a wider variety of ads that are more relevant, which will translate into more brand discoveries and an enhanced customer experience.

According to a video demonstration of the service: “Brands can plan their campaigns based on position in the store, location, nearby product categories and daypart. With Amazon Ads, you can leverage a variety of flight dates, budgets and bidding strategies.”

Amazon launched its Store Analytics service in June in an effort to provide brands with aggregated and anonymized insights about the performance of their products, promotions and ad campaigns at Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores in the U.S. with either Just Walk Out technology or Amazon Dash Carts.

The data that brands receive from Store Analytics will never include details such as shoppers’ names, individual browsing data, or individual session details like the time of day they shopped or the store at which they shopped. Additionally, no video or images of shoppers will be shared with brands as part of the service.

Seattle-based Amazon is No. 2 on The PG 100,  Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.