Costco Furthers Offsite Retail Media Journey
Costco recently completed its first targeted media campaign through third-party media channels with one of its largest CPG brand partners.
The campaign achieved two to three times the return on ad spend typically expected, highlighting the value the retailer can create for its members and suppliers, Gary Millerchip, Costco executive vice president and chief financial officer, told investors during the company's first-quarter earnings call on Thursday.
"To use a baseball analogy, we are very much in the early innings with retail media, but we continue to believe this represents a significant growth opportunity in the future," said Millerchip, adding the Costco retail media team is now working with more than 25 suppliers eager to participate in the next wave of offsite campaigns.
The retailer is seeing a lot of the interest in retail media come from agencies, which signals an opportunity to tap into new marketing dollars, Millerchip said.
"I would emphasize it's very early days with retail media for us," he said. "It's something that we're just really embarking on that offsite journey."
Costco in the summer pointed to plans to leverage its first-party data from its members to power targeted advertising on and off its website. It enters a competitive and fragmented landscape with an estimated 200-plus retail media networks globally, according to Mimbi.