To learn more about what's needed to build a successful retail media network today, be sure to check out our latest infographic. Find out the winning recipe for rapid merchant performance.

Retail media is a great way for you to open a whole new revenue stream, drive sales for your merchants and, most of all, help your shoppers discover new products they’ll love.

Ready to cook up a plan to grow your marketplace? Here are the key ingredients essential to a successful retail media business. 

‍1. Clear purpose

Some wing it in the kitchen, but creating a scalable, sustainable ad business requires a clear vision. You need to know what you want to achieve, who the key stakeholders will be, and how success will be measured.

‍2. Method

There are two main options for incorporating ad serving in your marketplace: cook everything from scratch (building your own platform) or hire a catering service (partnering with a tech solution). Which one is right for your business? 

‍3. Your team 

Assemble your cooks in the kitchen based on their roles, areas of expertise, strengths, and weaknesses. Your crew should include professionals specializing in: 

• Ad strategy and operations
• Merchant account management
• Software development
• Legal
• Analytics

‍4. Advertiser acquisition

Turn your merchants into advertisers who can better reach their audience and increase purchase frequency and size. Your marketplace’s first-party data — your secret sauce — will be a tremendous resource for surfacing ads at the right time to the right customers. 

‍5. Measurement

All great recipes involve precise measurement of ingredients. The same is true for your ad business, including setting appropriate KPIs. Here’s a taste of things you can optimize for:

• Ad-attributed gross merchandise value (GMV)
• Percentage of active advertisers from merchant pool
• Ad revenue per advertiser (ARPA)

‍6. Contracts

The best chefs operate under a set of standards and values in terms of food and presentation. To keep your ad business compliant and on track, set advertising policies and best-practices guidelines, stay current on data security regulations, and review and update merchant ad contracts.

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Download the 6 Key Ingredients for a Retail Media Network ebook to learn what you’ll need to build your retail media business.

And learn more about Moloco Retail Media Platform, a machine learning-powered platform that drives revenue, optimizes merchant performance, and boosts lifetime value through targeted, personalized, and timely ads.  

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