GCP – Accelerate retail media success with EPAM and Google Cloud

Retail media networks, a type of advertising platform that allows retailers to sell ad space on their digital channels to third-party brands, are nothing new. But they are about to change dramatically in the coming year. Consumers are increasingly privacy-conscious and desire more personalized ad recommendations.

EPAM and Google Cloud have been working on retail media solutions for a long time, providing you with data and insights to give you more comprehensive and refined views of your audiences, better measurements, and improved buyer experiences. Together, we have been active participants in the development of this promising “third wave” of digital media, and our experience tells us that the coming year is going to be significant. 

Companies that leverage first-party data most efficiently and use AI and gen AI will see a ROI in retail-media. That’s why we are excited to bring EPAM’s Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit to market now, helping retailers of most sizes capitalize on the promise of the coming year, no matter how mature their retail media operations. With the Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit, you gain customized, in-house retail media operations supported by Google and Google Cloud’s industry-leading digital advertising capabilities, and orchestrated with EPAM’s deep retail expertise. 

With Google Cloud’s AI and gen AI tools and expertise, you can supercharge your first-party data with a level of insight that was previously out of reach — and gain a significant advantage over your competitors.

Retail media profits remain elusive

While many retailers are aware of the revenue potential of first-party data and have implemented retail media operations, they still struggle to mature these initiatives. Common roadblocks to maximizing retail media profits include:

• Infrastructure unsuited to fulfill the increasing demand for data-driven insights: There are hundreds of retail media networks, so advertisers have an abundance of choice in selecting a network for hosting a campaign. Brands are eager to invest advertising spend in networks that provide detail-rich, data-driven insights, however, many retailers struggle to provide the depth of insights that advertisers seek to justify their retail media advertising spend. Retailers are first and foremost sellers of products — few are retail media experts. And the scale involved for many retailers magnifies the difficulty. 

• Inability to provide fast, accurate measurements: Providing closed-loop measurement of campaign performance — and particularly omnichannel measurement across disparate physical and digital customer interactions — requires a level of retail media technology, expertise and orchestration that few retailers possess. 

• Lack of technology and resources to provide data clean rooms: Customer data drives retail media. The more comprehensive and in-depth the data, the greater the advertising success. Given that detailed customer data is also often sensitive information, it’s important to protect that data to adhere to industry ethics, maintain customer goodwill and, quite often, adhere to regulatory requirements. Data clean rooms provide a safe environment to use and share customer data among multiple legitimate participants. But the technological challenges involved in maintaining a data clean room are significant, and many retailers have neither the resources nor the expertise to do so.

• Difficulties in standardizing workflows and data: Most retail media networks are made up of a patchwork of multiple independent software vendors (ISVs). They  utilize their own processes, procedures and reporting formats. The result is a never-ending stream of incoming reporting data that must be translated to match in-house formats before it can be relayed to advertisers. Many retailers attempt to handle this by manually managing incoming data, resulting in increased staff, degraded performance when reporting to customers, and deflated retail media profits. 

The Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit

Today, retailers can implement in-house, custom solutions for retail media, just as mega-retailers like Albertsons, Kroger, Tesco and Walmart have done.

The Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit was developed under Google Cloud’s Industry Value Network (IVN) initiative in partnership with EPAM and Google Cloud, and leveraging ISV solutions such as Moloco. The Toolkit lets retailers leverage their data to support their retail media operations and serve their advertising clients. 

EPAM has in-depth knowledge of retail media operations, earned through years of experience in developing custom, Google-Cloud-powered, in-house solutions for some of the world’s largest retailers. Google Cloud makes it possible to design and implement custom retail media solutions, offering a holistic, end-to-end platform and solutions for audience capabilities, measurement, media execution and innovation. Based on an innovative cloud-based data foundation known as Google Cloud Cortex Framework, EPAM’s Toolkit helps customers better utilize their data, wherever it is stored, including first-party data from tools like Google Ad Manager, Google Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360 and others — making a true in-house, custom retail media solution a realistic option. As part of Google Cloud’s Industry Value Network, the solution also leverages ISV solutions to provide a comprehensive and repeatable solution through the pre-built connectors and accelerators.

Retailers that deploy the Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit gain:

• A fully owned, customized, in-house retail media solution that can easily be scaled as needed

• The ability to simplify, standardize and automate retail media operations

• Fully automated processes that replace costly, error-prone manual processes

• Omnichannel measurement capabilities so they can provide proof of campaign performance and ROI delivered for advertisers

• Better informed, data-fueled decision making for maximizing campaign performance across different and disparate platforms

• Guidance in developing a solution that  serves their current needs while leveraging the potential of emerging technologies such as AI/machine learning (ML)

Retailers implementing the EPAM and Google Cloud retail media solution are already experiencing significant, quantifiable benefits, including:

• 15-20% increase in retail media revenue and advertiser demand

• 2x increase in campaign performance

• 40% time savings

• 12% reduction in retail media operations costs

The four phases of retail media success

Designing and implementing an in-house solution with the Retail Media Orchestration Toolkit consists of four phases:

1. Multichannel measurement: Merge, standardize, automate, analyze and visualize multichannel campaign delivery data and transactional data.
2. Advanced omnichannel measurement: Track, report and analyze data from user-level interactions across channels and platforms. 
3. Audiences: Create high-value predictive audiences based on your transactional data using custom segmentation models deployed within your own cloud environment and syndicated to your retail media partners.
4. Insights: Use analytics to generate and enhance new revenue streams based on consumer and brand insights.

This phased design was developed to benefit retailers, regardless of their level of retail media maturity. Your solution can be installed and configured to meet your specific needs to deliver almost immediate benefits — and, when you’re ready, you can leverage the insight-boosting value of Google Cloud’s AI and ML capabilities. 

Get ready to grow your retail media operations

Retail media is young enough that few, if any, organizations have achieved true maturity in their retail media operations. Even mega-retailers that have developed their own in-house retail media solutions have some tweaking to do: streamlining workflows, developing full and complete automation of retail media operations, and fully leveraging emerging capabilities with AI and ML are just some areas that typically lack technological maturity.

But where does your organization stand? How far are you from fully maximizing the potential of retail media within your organization? And what steps must you take to reach that point?

A maturity assessment provides answers to those questions. Just two to three sessions with key stakeholders in your organization will provide us with a high-level understanding of your retail media operation. And, based on that knowledge, we’ll develop a tailor-made action plan for you, including:

• A multi-year roadmap, personalized to your business and maturity level, that covers technologies, processes and partnerships

• A retail media profit and loss forecast that highlights key dependencies

• A resource and investment framework that supports your accelerated growth

Quite simply, your maturity assessment provides a roadmap for progressing from where you are to where you want to be, illuminating a pathway to maximizing the potential of retail media for your organization.

Learn more: Discover how EPAM and Google Cloud’s solution empowers retailers to maximize revenue and gain a competitive edge.