Tesco is ramping up its retail media operation with the launch of a series of new capabilities – including a new self-service platform, access to influencers and more accurate measurement – designed to help brands turn deeper customer understanding into more effective campaigns, more connected shopping journeys and clearer proof of growth.
At the heart of the overhaul is a new client facing platform, Ad Manager, designed to make planning, booking, measuring and optimising media simpler, more connected and more useful for brands.
The self-service platform gives advertisers greater control and transparency over how they work with Tesco Media, while helping them turn customer insight into action with less complexity.
Ad Manager currently delivers Sponsored Products and will expand shortly into Display and Video as Tesco Media builds towards a more unified experience across its media ecosystem.
Over time, AI powered workflows and recommendations will help advertisers reduce manual tasks, uncover new opportunities and make faster optimisation decisions, while greater interoperability will allow agencies and brands to connect the platform with the tools they already use.
Tesco says the aim is to make control feel “enabling” rather than “burdensome”, giving brands simpler ways to create media that is timely, relevant and genuinely helpful to customers.
The infrastructure behind Ad Manager is powered by Kevel, a specialist provider of API first ad technology for retailers and commerce media networks and designed to help Tesco Media deliver a seamless advertising experience across its digital channels.
Tesco Media is also launching a new influencer proposition, designed to help brands connect creator-led inspiration more directly with purchase. With data stating around 40% of shoppers under 45 actively follow influencers for suggestions on good brands and products, the proposition allows approved creator content to appear beyond social platforms in relevant Tesco Media touchpoints. This includes Tesco.com, the Tesco app and digital screens in-store.
The division will also begin testing shoppable video within search and shoppable display within Favourites, allowing customers to add advertised products directly to their basket. The feature has been developed in response to research showing shoppers highly value this ease of access, as long as it doesn’t disrupt the overall experience.
Following initial trials with brands, Tesco Media will also test new creator-led formats across Special Offers and Favourites, aiming to cut the journey from inspiration and discovery to purchase, while keeping the experience useful and relevant for customers.
Tesco Media managing director Tash Whitmey said: “Every Little Helps isn’t just Tesco’s retail promise; it’s how we think about media too. We start with the customer and ask how every interaction can be more useful, timely and relevant.
“These innovations connect what we know about customers with the moments and channels where brands can make a difference, from Tesco Media Ad Manager to creator content to smarter in-store experiences. Leveraging the unique customer insight and reach of Tesco, ultimately everything comes back to the same goal: making media more useful for customers and more effective for brands.”
Tesco Media is also launching Intelligent Store Orchestration, designed to enable a single campaign to adapt according to real-world context, including store location, time of day, product availability, promotions, weather and local events.
Powered by Barrows Connected Store technology, the technology has been trialled by a number of brands, including Costa. Its campaign ran across Tesco Express stores in January, resulting in a 47% uplift among customers that were new to the product, with brand repeat rate across all customers reaching 29%.
In addition, Tesco Media is also investing in measurement as it looks to help advertisers understand not only whether campaigns worked, but why. Over the next six months, it plans to expand incrementality measurement across Display, Video, Sponsored Products, Scan as you Shop and Meta, enabling deeper insights across 93% of Tesco Media spend.
It has also developed a new multi-channel geo-lift testing solution to help advertisers understand how media channels work together, including their combined impact on reach, frequency, conversion and incremental uplift. Further work will focus on making full funnel brand measurement faster and more scalable, alongside improving the Tesco Media insights available for advertisers’ own marketing mix modelling.
To streamline the process for brands, it is developing AI powered conversational audience recommendations designed to make those insights faster and easier to activate. Instead of advertisers navigating audience taxonomies themselves, recommendations begin with the objective a brand wants to achieve, reducing audience building time from five to ten minutes per segment to under a minute for multiple segments.
Tesco Media propositions and go to market director Nick Ashley said: “All these developments are targeted at streamlining the journey for shoppers and brands alike. Customers do not distinguish between ‘brand’ and ‘performance’ journeys: they encounter a series of touchpoints that collectively influence the decision to purchase.
“The opportunity for brands is to use that understanding to make media more helpful; whether that means inspiration, value, reassurance or simply making a decision easier. Our job is to turn the depth of insight Tesco has into something brands can use much more easily in their planning to drive relevance and foster long-term customer loyalty.”
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