Harness the power of the Digital Shelf and enhance your Retail Media strategy by combining data

E-commerce isn’t just growing; it’s evolving. From the rise of digital platforms to the personalisation of the customer experience, brands face a revolution in how they present and sell their products.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for brands to reach shoppers through advertising campaigns. High prices have weakened consumer purchasing power. This has pushed them to scrutinise cost differences and shift their loyalty to brands offering better value for money. According to a McKinsey survey conducted during Q1 2024, 40% of European shoppers tried a different brand if it was cheaper than their favourite brand or offered them a discount. On the other hand, retailers are rushing to meet the demands of cash-strapped consumers through widespread price cuts and a strengthening of own-brand offerings. Up to 60% of consumers surveyed by McKinsey believe that own brands offer products of equal or better quality. In this context, even the most inspired campaigns fail to reach consumers solely concerned with prices.

The rules of the game have changed. It’s no longer enough simply to “be online”. Brands need smart strategies that allow them to stand out from thousands of competitors, offer optimised shopping experiences and capture consumer attention at the right moment. This is where two key tools have emerged as fundamental elements for mastering this landscape: the Digital Shelf and Retail Media.

In this article, we will explore in depth the role of each and the synergy between them. There can be no Retail Media campaigns that convert without 100% control of Digital Shelf data.

Digital Shelf: Discover its Power Beyond Online Presence

The term Digital Shelf may sound abstract, but essentially, it’s the virtual equivalent of the physical shelves in a shop. In the past, a product’s position in a shop depended on agreements with retailers or a good strategic location. In the digital realm, positioning depends on factors such as content optimisation, keywords, reviews and even inventory availability.

The Digital Shelf includes everything that affects how consumers find, evaluate and ultimately buy your products online. In this sense, it encompasses much more than simply having a product page. Elements such as clear descriptions, high-quality images, competitive prices and titles optimised for search engines are essential to maximise visibility and conversion.

The 81% of retail shoppers research online before making a purchase. This means that if your product isn’t well-positioned in those searches, you’re missing the opportunity to capture the attention of a large number of potential customers. Furthermore, a high percentage of consumers abandon their purchase decision if the product lacks sufficient detailed information or high-quality images.

In this context, the Digital Shelf isn’t just a visibility tool; it’s a comprehensive strategy that affects every stage of the customer journey, from initial consideration to conversion. However, optimising it isn’t a single or simple process. It requires continuous adjustments based on data, consumer trends and changes in market dynamics.

Retail Media: the New Frontier Revolutionising Advertising

The rise of e-commerce has given way to a new form of digital advertising: Retail Media. Unlike traditional advertising, which seeks to capture consumers’ attention in the early stages of their buying journey, Retail Media focuses on impacting them at the point of decision. That is, at the point where they are exploring, comparing and evaluating products within e-commerce platforms.

Retail Media is not just about reaching the consumer, but doing so with unprecedented precision. This is possible thanks to the wealth of data offered by e-commerce platforms. Retailers have access to detailed information on purchasing habits, user preferences and browsing patterns. This allows for the creation of highly targeted and personalised advertising campaigns that reach the right audience at the perfect moment.

Retail Media campaigns can take various forms, such as sponsored ads on retailer websites or exclusive promotions targeted at specific segments. For example, a banner displaying your product on the homepage of a platform like Amazon can be decisive in influencing consumers who are still exploring options.

As brands adopt these strategies, it becomes clear that Retail Media is not just a complementary option; it’s an essential engine for driving sales and building customer loyalty in the digital environment.

Connecting the Digital Shelf and Retail Media

While the Digital Shelf and Retail Media have different objectives and approaches, their relationship is symbiotic. No Retail Media strategy will be effective if the Digital Shelf is not optimised, and vice versa, the performance of the Digital Shelf can be significantly enhanced through well-designed Retail Media campaigns.

Using digital shelf data increases the effectiveness of Retail Media advertising, as it allows for informed and real-time adjustments to campaigns. To be effective, this data must meet specific criteria:

• Give you visibility (in terms of pricing and availability) across the entire category, including your competitors.
• Be granular: daily and at the store level, to optimise campaigns.
• Must be reliable, very accurate data with the shortest possible time lag.
• Be accessible, through dashboards, integrations or API connections.
• Be able to integrate into your workflows and processes in the appropriate way to apply key information to your Retail Media campaigns immediately.

Let’s see what kind of improvement is possible for your brand when robust Digital Shelf data is combined with Retail Media.

How they work together

Imagine launching a Retail Media campaign to promote a product on a platform like Walmart. Your ad drives traffic to the product page, but if this page has low-quality images, unclear descriptions or negative reviews, the campaign will hardly generate conversions. On the other hand, an optimised Digital Shelf will ensure that every click generated by your Retail Media has a higher probability of converting into a sale.

In addition, the data generated by Retail Media campaigns can feed back into your Digital Shelf strategy. If you discover that certain keywords or ad formats generate more clicks, you can apply them directly to product pages to improve their organic performance.

Specific Cases of Retail Media Optimisation with Digital Shelf Analytics Data

The key to leveraging the Digital Shelf is not just optimising it, but constantly monitoring its performance. What happens if a leading competitor’s product suddenly becomes 27% more expensive in several stores? Or if they run out of stock? Often, nothing. This is a missed opportunity to win sales from a direct competitor that happens much more often than it should be.

Having daily, store-level data allows brands to locate these gaps in the assortment and increase their bids (to conquer keywords from competitors, for example) precisely when shoppers are closest to having a positive experience with the brand’s products. And convert thanks to your Retail Media.

Not only does conquest become smarter. By knowing exactly where and when your brand is losing competitiveness on price or experiencing out-of-stocks, you can lower bids to reduce campaign spending, preserving your budget for more opportune moments.

The right metrics will allow you to identify areas of opportunity and make data-driven decisions. Some of these indicators are:

Visibility Rate and Share of Shelf

This is the first step in capturing consumer attention. If your products don’t appear in the top search results, they are unlikely to generate clicks, let alone sales. Not all Retail Media platforms tell us the exact placement our ad will appear in, and this can be provided by a Retail Media Monitoring solution.

Conversion per Content

Content plays a crucial role in conversion. A good practice is to assess which descriptions, images or even video formats generate the best results and replicate these elements in other products. As well as having quality KPIs related to your sponsored products in Retail Media to avoid losing conversions.

Out of Stocks, Availability and Buy Boxes

Inventory is one of the most critical elements of the Digital Shelf. Campaigns targeting out-of-stock products not only waste budget but also frustrate consumers. Similarly, this can happen in marketplaces like Amazon where we launch campaigns on products for which we then lose the Buy Box to a third-party seller. Monitoring the Digital Shelf allows us to detect and correct these inefficiencies or explain why Retail Media campaigns have not had the expected results after a large investment.

Competitor Data Acting at the Same Time

Brands don’t advertise alone, but in the context of other organic and paid competitor results, which are also running their campaigns and discount and promotional strategies. No matter how much we optimise our brand position and look at performance metrics, the explanation for why something works or doesn’t work may lie in direct competitors. Having this data gives us agility and allows us to create strategies with a higher return.

Challenges, Considerations and Trends that will Define the Future of Retail Media

The path to effective integration of the Digital Shelf and Retail Media is not without its challenges. However, brands that understand these obstacles and are prepared to adapt to emerging trends have the opportunity to position themselves as market leaders.

Current challenges

1. Fierce competition for visibility on the Digital Shelf

In an ecosystem where thousands of brands compete to appear in the top search results, standing out has become more difficult than ever. On platforms like Amazon, consumers rarely browse beyond the first page, which forces brands to constantly invest in optimising their Digital Shelf and in Retail Media campaigns to maintain their relevance.

2. Dispersion of Retail Media performance data across multiple platforms

Not all brands sell exclusively on a single marketplace. Many operate on multiple platforms, each with its own rules, algorithms and requirements. Efficiently managing content, campaigns and data across multiple channels can be overwhelming and costly without specialised tools or teams. At flipflow we offer you our Retail Media Data Analysis tool. In it you can integrate the performance data of all your campaigns and cross-reference it with Digital Shelf data or market data to get a global view of what’s happening with your brand in real time and through a single panel.

3. Privacy and data limitations

Privacy regulations such as GDPR in Europe or CCPA in California have drastically changed access to consumer data. Although data from Retail Media platforms still offer valuable information, new limits on the use of cookies and trackers make it more difficult to personalise and target campaigns.

Trends that will shape the future

1. Artificial intelligence and machine learning

The use of AI tools is revolutionising both the Digital Shelf and Retail Media, something we have already explained in some of our recent articles. These technologies allow for the analysis of enormous amounts of data in real time to identify consumption patterns, predict behaviour and automatically adjust strategies. For example, AI tools can suggest changes to product titles to improve their ranking or adjust Retail Media campaigns according to the time of day with the highest traffic.

2. Extreme personalisation

Consumers expect increasingly personalised experiences. Leading brands are adopting technologies that allow them to create campaigns and content specific to micro-segments of the audience, using behavioural data and preferences to deliver hyper-relevant messages.

3. Omnichannel as the norm

The future is not just about e-commerce, but how to integrate digital and physical experiences. The average interaction rate with campaigns using 3 or more channels is 18.96% across those channels, while campaigns launched through a single channel only achieve 5.4% interaction.

Therefore, it is practically essential to succeed in this environment that brands use Digital Shelf data to optimise their online presence and, in addition, to create promotions in physical stores or other channels based on these insights.

Final Thoughts: Boost your Strategy with the Alliance between the Digital Shelf and Retail Media

The Digital Shelf and Retail Media are more than tools; they are the cornerstones of success in modern e-commerce. However, it is not enough to understand them individually: the true value lies in their strategic integration.

It is crucial to adopt a solution like flipflow, which encompasses the entire digital ecosystem. The Digital Shelf should be seen as the foundation upon which to build effective Retail Media campaigns, and the latter should act as the engine that enhances the opportunities created by a strong presence on the Digital Shelf. This synergy not only improves product visibility, but also increases conversions and optimises return on investment.

Today’s consumers don’t just look for products; they look for experiences. They want to find clear information, see attractive images, read reliable reviews and receive personalised recommendations before converting both online and offline. Every aspect of your strategy must be designed with these behaviours in mind. The Digital Shelf allows you to offer this experience and guarantee maximum market share and visibility, while Retail Media reinforces that your products reach the right audience at the right time.

Finally, to maximise the potential of the Digital Shelf and Retail Media, brands must foster collaboration between teams. Marketing, sales, logistics and data analysis departments must work together to ensure that every aspect of the strategy is aligned.

Retail is a dynamic environment, and those who wait too long to adapt risk falling behind. The time to act is now. With the right combination of technology, creativity and analysis, brands can leverage the power of the Digital Shelf and Retail Media to not only compete, but to lead.