News Briefs

Casey’s is growing its retailer media network, Casey’s Access, through a strategic partnership with GSTV, whose video platform plays across more than 29,000 fuel retailers and sites nationwide. 

The collaboration will bring a branded, managed-service video solution to Casey’s forecourt/fuel dispenser media screens, enhancing its ability to engage customers across thousands of locations. 

“Our retail media journey began in 2023 with the launch of Casey’s Access, and we’ve been strategically expanding our ad inventory ever since,” Justin Coaldrake, senior director of omnichannel guest experience and media at Casey’s, said in a media release. “By combining this new GSTV partnership with our existing in-store offerings, we’ll have over 30,000 digital screens across our ecosystem.”

Related: Invenco by GVR, GSTV Launch Retail Media Managed Service Offering

The rollout, starting this fall, will integrate GSTV’s turnkey video platform with Casey’s existing digital and in-store channels, giving advertisers access to shoppers at more than 2,900 convenience store locations in 19 states. 

GSTV’s solution includes customizable forecourt video content, family-friendly programming, dedicated account management and creative support through its Ignite in-house production team, according to the release.

The expanded media capabilities are designed to strengthen Casey’s existing multipronged approach, which includes digital, on-premise and off-site channels.

Topsort, an AI-based retail media infrastructure company, and Skai, an omnichannel advertising platform, have teamed up to give global advertisers broader access to retail media inventory across hard-to-reach markets.

Through the collaboration, Skai becomes the first API partner to integrate Topsort’s retail media infrastructure, which supports retailers, marketplaces and delivery apps in more than 40 countries. The move enables brands to manage Topsort campaigns alongside broader commerce media investments within Skai’s platform.

Topsort’s auction-based system and self-serve interface, Toppie, leverage AI to automatically reallocate budgets to the highest-performing placements across a region. Skai’s platform, powered by its generative AI marketing agent Celeste, combines digital marketing capabilities with commerce insights, enabling advertisers to streamline workflows, optimize spend and measure performance across channels.

“This partnership creates an opportunity for brands to engage with entirely new audiences in the fastest-growing commerce markets worldwide,” Matt Vignieri, chief growth officer at Skai, said in a media release. “With Topsort’s reach now available through Skai, advertisers can discover fresh growth opportunities.”

“Skai shares our mission of making powerful retail media accessible, efficient and privacy-safe,” added Regina Ye, CEO and co-founder of Topsort. “We’re excited to partner with them to open new markets worldwide and support a new wave of advertisers ready to grow.”

The integration gives Skai clients access to Topsort’s global network while benefiting from bulk campaign creation, automated auditing and alerts, cross-channel reporting and rules-based optimizations — all within a single interface.

DSW, Designer Shoe Warehouse, has launched a retailer media network called Front Row Connection, giving footwear and accessories brands additional opportunities to promote products on DSW.com.

The self-service platform offers “high-impact placements,” including sponsored product ads and banner ads designed to boost visibility on the digital shelf, according to a media release. The goal is to help brands highlight new arrivals and best sellers while making product discovery easier for shoppers.

Front Row Connection is operated by the Epsilon Retail Media platform, which applies AI-driven identity resolution in the ad server to connect brands with shoppers. It also provides “unified omnichannel attribution,” giving brands visibility into performance metrics and the ability to measure outcomes across digital and in-store channels.

“Front Row Connection gives our brand partners smarter, more direct access to the customers they care about most,” Mike Donk, senior vice president, digital at DSW, said in the release. “It’s designed to make discovery easier for shoppers and deliver measurable results for advertisers. This is about meeting consumers where they are and making the most of every moment on the digital shelf.”

“Brands like DSW are showing how retail media can evolve from static placement to smart performance,” added Adam Skinner, managing director of global unified retail media at Epsilon. 

DSW, which operates about 525 stores in the U.S. and Canada, is the flagship retail brand of Designer Brands Inc.

Criteo has unveiled a new integration with Google, becoming the search giant’s first on-site retail media partner.

The integration, initially launching in beta with select customers in the Americas, will allow advertisers to manage campaigns across Criteo’s retail media network directly through Google’s Search Ads 360. Plans are in place to expand the program globally and into additional Google Marketing Platform tools.

Criteo’s network includes more than 200 retailers worldwide. Through the first phase of the partnership, retailers can opt in to receive demand from advertisers running campaigns in Search Ads 360, while brands gain access to scaled on-site inventory and unified measurement capabilities. According to the companies, the collaboration is designed to help advertisers optimize spend, measure incremental impact and improve campaign performance.

“With Criteo’s expansive network of retailer partners, we’re helping advertisers connect with customers at a critical moment in their shopping journey: on-site, through sponsored product ads,” Bill Reardon, general manager, enterprise platform at Google, said in a media release. He noted that the integration complements Google’s existing off-site advertising solutions, including Performance Max and Shopping Ads.

“Our goal is to empower advertisers and agencies with a more complete view of their advertising performance,” he added.

Sherry Smith, president of retail media at Criteo, said that the partnership will bring “scaled brand advertising to retailers on the Criteo platform,” while helping retailers maximize the value of their ad inventory.

Industry forecasts project retail media spend could reach $204 billion by 2027. While much of that spend is currently concentrated among a handful of major platforms, Criteo and Google said the new integration will help broaden opportunities for both retailers and brands across the ecosystem.

The beta program is available to select advertisers through their Google account teams.

Market research firm Circana has finalized its acquisition of Nielsen’s Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) business, expanding its global footprint in marketing analytics and strengthening its measurement capabilities.

MMM specializes in advanced statistical modeling designed to help brands understand the incremental impact of their marketing investments across channels and touchpoints. The unit will be integrated into Circana’s Media team alongside NCSolutions (NCS), which Circana acquired in June.

Stuart Aitken, Circana president and CEO, said the addition underscores the company’s commitment to building the industry’s leading media measurement business. 

“Marketing mix modeling is fundamental to understanding true marketing effectiveness, and MMM's sophisticated analytics — combined with our existing assets — are expected to provide unparalleled insights into optimizing our clients’ marketing investments across every channel,” he said in a media release.

The integrated Circana Media team, led by Cara Pratt, president of global retail and media, will now offer a comprehensive measurement platform spanning media planning, targeting, in-flight optimization and post-campaign analysis. 

“This combination gives our clients the ability to understand not just what happened, but why it happened and how to optimize future investments for maximum impact,” Pratt said.

Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said Circana is the “ideal owner” for MMM and NCS. “These best-in-class assets and teams can now unlock immense opportunity for customers as part of a fast-growing data, science, and technology powerhouse on the leading edge of the industry,” he said.

Costco Wholesale has partnered with GrowthLoop to bolster the operations of its growing retail media business. 

Costco will leverage GrowthLoop’s Compound Marketing Engine, which uses agentic AI and enables marketers to build and activate audiences directly from the data cloud. 

The platform is designed to enhance personalization, increase speed to market and improve campaign performance while maintaining privacy and governance standards, according to a media release.

This partnership will equip Costco with a centralized system designed to help its retail media team work more efficiently and provide better service to advertisers seeking to provide relevant messaging (or content) to Costco's member base.

The system also aims to streamline campaign workflows, shortening months-long marketing cycles to just days. This gives Costco the ability to provide advertisers with more relevant and timely messaging opportunities targeted to its loyal member base.

The partnership underscores Costco’s continued investment in its retail media network, which — like other major retailers — has become an increasingly important driver of growth and a way to better connect brand partners with engaged shoppers.