First post since jumping into the retail media space! A few weeks ago, Ari Paparo wrote his Marketecture Media post on geography as an identity alternative and it reminded me of one thing us ad tech people are often guilty of – forgetting what matters to the brands.
Ari’s point about geo being a solid identifier shouldn’t be dismissed and in fact, it’s only half the story. In addition to the concept of identity mapping he laid out, it’s also important for the one-to-many advertising initiatives, particularly for in-store media.
Geography is the universal data point that’s (almost) always available. That’s why the vast majority of sales data that brands use to measure media efficacy defaults to location — DMA, zip code, state, radius — these are the standards when marketers are managing their P&Ls.
Additionally, every media format normalizes to geography:
Web: IP-based targeting
Mobile: Device ID to lat/long
CTV: Household addresses
Linear TV: DMAs
In-store: Store coordinates
Location data maps to how brand managers actually run their businesses. Forget cookies, device IDs and MAIDs. They want: “How much did I spend in Dallas, and how much did I sell there?”
In-store media already operates this way by default. You can draw direct lines between ad spend in specific markets and sales performance in those same areas. That’s the same measurement framework brands use across every other channel. And despite all the focus on 1 to 1 measurement, after 20 years in this business, I have yet to find a measurement framework that I couldn’t game to my advantage. I can’t say the same for dollars in and revenue out, as measured by a specific geo.
At In-Store Marketplace, we’ve seen this play out repeatedly. Brands want to target by store lists, measure by DMA, and understand performance at the geographic level that matches their business reporting. Brands need consistent measurement across channels, not perfect measurement in isolation.
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Take the first step toward maximizing your in-store media potential — request your personalized readiness assessment today at https://instoremarketplace.com/.
Written by: Dave Simmon
