Albertsons Media Collective delivers stronger brand and customer experiences with data collaboration

The Challenge

Companies focused on maintaining or growing relationships with their customers face an uphill struggle for better insights. Google Chrome is following the path of Firefox and Safari by deprecating third-party cookies; and brands are searching for new solutions to connect data across advertising channels for a complete customer picture.

Even in an era of signal loss, one-to-one relationships and data-driven marketing can exist – and thrive – with customer identifiers that outperform cookies in data connectivity, campaign results, and ROI.

Albertsons and its growing retail media arm, Albertsons Media Collective, are leveraging a best-in-class alternative to third-party cookies. It starts with a privacy-centric loyalty program and ends with a modern, future-ready communication platform powered by modern data collaboration tools. 

This high-fidelity solution is a keystone for Albertsons’ media network performance – and, by proxy, the media performance for the hundreds of CPGs and agencies that leverage its services. 

By offering a direct relationship to shoppers, Albertsons Media Collective has connected brands to over 100 million customers across the US, fueling partnerships, as well as brand-specific targeting and measurement, with the LiveRamp Data Collaboration Platform since its inception. 

To provide brands solutions for creating meaningful customer experiences with display advertising, Evan Hovorka, VP Product and Innovation, Albertsons Media Collective, began exploring alternatives to third-party cookies such as the durable solutions from Google’s Display & Video 360 and LiveRamp. 

Hovorka is adamant that retail media owes clients elevated media products – specifically, products that don’t rely on traditional IDs, contextual targeting, modeled audiences, surveys, samples, or receipt scans. Albertsons Media Collective’s sophisticated client base knows and expects better, spurring passion and investment in this next-gen solution.

The Solution

With consumer privacy as a key consideration, Hovorka selected Google’s Display & Video 360 Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR) solution for publishers and advertisers to securely reconcile their first-party data and enable better audience reach.

To build the right foundation for PAIR, Albertsons Media Collective leveraged LiveRamp’s ecosystem powered by the Authenticated Traffic Solution to securely reconcile their data with authenticated publishers. Publishers in LiveRamp’s global ecosystem implement LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution for worldwide connectivity. With an add-on module, these publishers can seamlessly access advertiser demand via PAIR, enabling scale and flexibility for both sides.

Leveraging the foundational work Albertsons has already done with LiveRamp’s RampID, the privacy-centric connector for the digital ecosystem, Albertsons was able to benefit from PAIR’s added scale.

PAIR enables Albertsons to further expand its ability to connect first-party data in a privacy-conscious way during a time when data collaboration is crucial for mitigating signal loss. Both sides of the ecosystem can seamlessly activate scale via PAIR; and in the case of CTV, a non-cookie channel, this future-ready privacy solution maintains its value with or without cookies.

Using the LiveRamp Data Collaboration Platform and PAIR, Albertsons Media Collective securely tapped into its first-party data to take a groundbreaking audience-driven approach to advertising.

With this new integration, Albertsons Media Collective launched a national campaign for Campbell’s Snacks on a popular streaming service, enabled by FreeWheel’s integration with Google’s Display & Video 360. 

“PAIR is giving us more hope for multiple channels to reach customers after the end of the third-party cookie. Our work with LiveRamp, our work with PAIR, and beyond is bringing more reach and interoperability with third-party cookie deprecation, which will be critical for developing scale,” said  Hovorka.

The Results

Albertsons’ work with PAIR builds on current partnerships with LiveRamp to drive more value from its first-party data. Both companies are committed to building sustainable identity solutions that work in all the places brands desire. Albertsons uses LiveRamp’s enterprise identity framework to stitch together rich first-party data for data collaboration use cases such as generating clean room–powered customer insights with publishers like Pinterest.

“Enterprise identity is the center of a defensible retailer relationship with the consumer, and why a retail media network can be successful,” said Hovorka.

By leveraging enterprise identity, Albertsons Media Collective can glean powerful insights and measurement metrics across its first-party data. Extending this connectivity to the ecosystem through LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution and PAIR allows Albertsons to collaborate with hundreds of partners to reach even more consumers in all the places that matter.