Tesco Media has announced several new retail media capabilities in the UK, including a self-service buying platform, AI-powered audiences and new shoppable video and display formats.
Its new Tesco Media Ad Manager will give advertisers one place to plan, book, optimise and measure campaigns. It will launch with sponsored products before expanding into display and video.
Tesco is also introducing AI Audiences, which will use Clubcard shopping data to recommend relevant audiences based on an advertiser's brief. These can include people who already buy a product as well as shoppers Tesco predicts could be likely to buy it in future.
There are changes coming to creative too. Creator content will be able to run across Tesco.com, the Tesco app and in-store screens, while new shoppable formats will let customers add products directly to their basket from an ad.
What does this mean for advertisers?
The interesting part is how far retail media is moving beyond the sponsored products we're used to seeing at the point of purchase.
Tesco has a huge amount of first-party shopping data and, increasingly, more places to reach those shoppers. Bringing the two together gives brands the opportunity to use purchase behaviour to inform who they reach, while also being able to see what happens at the till afterwards.
Tesco is putting a lot of focus on proving that impact too. It plans to have incrementality measurement across around 93% of its UK media spend within six months, helping brands understand whether advertising actually drove additional sales rather than simply reaching someone who was going to buy anyway.
For now, these new capabilities have only been announced for the UK, with no confirmed rollout in Ireland. Tesco does already have a retail media offering here though, so it will be interesting to see how much of the UK proposition makes its way across.
If it does, there will be more opportunity for Irish brands to use retail media beyond conversion and give it a bigger role across the customer journey.
