Nectar360 partners with CitrusAd to launch world leading retail media platform to brands

Nectar360, part of the Sainsbury’s business, is working with market-leading retail media technology company, CitrusAd, to launch a retail media platform that enables brands and ad agencies to launch targeted sponsored product, banner advertising and return on investment (ROI) reporting and analytics across Sainsburys.co.uk.

Nectar360 builds loyalty and personal connections with customers for the biggest UK and global brands. They own and operate Nectar, the UK’s largest loyalty programme, helping some of the UK’s biggest brands to build impactful relationships with their customers. Nectar360 manages Sainsbury’s and Argos shopper marketing services, utilising insights, and media expertise to connect the Sainsbury’s businesses, FMCG brands, GM brands, and their customers.

The Nectar360 partnership with CitrusAd technology empowers an enhanced understanding of Sainsbury’s ecommerce space. Through the Nectar360 Ecommerce Media Platform, brands can create customer-led ecommerce campaigns with real-time reporting that allows for insight, learnings, and in-flight campaign optimisation. Previously advertisers could pre-buy a tenancy slot for sponsored products, but without the data and metrics to measure the effectiveness of a campaign.

Brands can now fully maximise their presence online with tailored sponsored product campaigns, ensuring they reach the right shopper in the right place at the right time. The system also provides flexibility to edit campaigns on the fly, be more reactive and ‘in the moment’, for example to take advantage of seasonal weather changes or events. It will also bring its onsite display media into this format from 2021.

Using performance-based metrics in the live reporting dashboard, brand managers and advertisers can measure the ROI of their campaigns at any time of day down to an individual product level and even by search term – providing more analytics and a greater understanding of how products perform on an ecommerce platform.

With a significant increase in online shopping during the COVID crisis and growing demand for delivery slots and click & collect, Sainsbury’s has continued to invest heavily in its ecommerce and contactless shopping capabilities to help adapt to new shopper behaviours. The retailer recently announced plans to increase its weekly online grocery orders to 700,000^[1].

James Moir, Managing Director at Nectar360, comments: “We set out to create an easy to use, self-serve performance-based retail media platform that offers our brands the best in terms of digital campaign design, delivery and measurement, whilst enhancing and maintaining our customers online shopping experience. The end result is a platform powered by Nectar360 data in partnership with CitrusAd.”

Brad Moran, CEO at CitrusAd, comments: “COVID lockdowns and ongoing restriction measures, particularly in the UK, has led to a change in consumption patterns and the way we shop that are unlikely to go back to the way they were before the pandemic. In the last few months retailers have seen online orders increase four or five-fold and are investing heavily in ecommerce capabilities to meet demand now and in the future. By partnering with leading retailers like Sainsbury’s, we can help them to more effectively monetise their digital platforms and support them in delivering the true value of ecommerce to their suppliers – and customers.”

Moran adds: “Retail media in grocery ecommerce is becoming an interesting place where brands and agencies can play and invest their digital advertising dollars. The results speak for themselves with some of world’s leading grocery retailers utilising the CitrusAd platform, consistently delivering average conversion rates of 60% to 70%, average ROAS of 300% to 450%, not to mention the influence online shelf space has on in-store sales. Retail media in grocery is rapidly becoming a very exciting proposition in a brand’s digital advertising mix.”

Nectar360, and the Sainsbury’s business, is the latest company to partner with CitrusAd as the retail media platform of choice, joining major international retailers, including Ocado in the UK and Coles and Woolworths in Australia. Citrus is currently providing retail media technology and support to leading retailers across 22 countries, serving 28 billion ad requests annually and has recently opened a third office in the US, together with offices in the UK, Netherlands and Spain.

For brands that want to find out more about this partnership they can can reach out to their Nectar360 contact. If they do not currently work with Nectar360 they can email [email protected] or speak to a contact at CitrusAd.

^[1]https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/news/latest-news/2020/28-09-20-sainsburys-dials-up-digital