Why shopper insights are a leader’s most powerful retail media asset

Great question. Retailers—big and small—often come to us saying they feel stuck with their current platform or provider. They want more flexibility and control. Many are looking to invest in their own capabilities and take ownership of their customer experience and first-party data.

One major pitfall is not being able to grow at the pace they want because they’ve outsourced too much. We’re an API-first provider, which means retailers can build on top of our tools, retain control of their tech stack, and scale without being limited by inflexible systems.

Marketplaces are fundamentally different from typical retailers. Some have huge product catalogs, which means they need robust product data setups to power product ads. Their margins are also different, so they often rely more heavily on retail media for revenue.

They typically have a wide range of advertisers—from large brands to a long tail of smaller ones—so self-serve ad tools become critical. That’s where marketplaces want to differentiate: by building capabilities that allow them to scale their advertising revenue effectively.

Smaller retailers also ask, “How can we compete with giants like Walmart who’ve invested billions into retail media?” That’s where our focus has been—building ad-serving and audience capabilities that let smaller players offer competitive and differentiated media experiences.

That’s a crucial balance. Retailers are in the business of creating great customer experiences first. Advertising is important, but it usually starts as a secondary revenue stream and becomes more critical over time. We’ve seen some generate 8–10% of their Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) through advertising.

But building that kind of retail media business means knowing your unique strengths. What’s different about your audience? What kind of customer experience do you offer? How do you create loyalty and repeat engagement? Those are the fundamentals that make a platform attractive to advertisers—especially if they give access to niche or hard-to-reach audiences.

It comes down to experience. Take Expedia, for example: you go there instead of booking direct because it offers a seamless, all-in-one experience. If a platform provides consistent value, people return—and that creates loyalty.

Loyalty programs and behavioural data become crucial here. You don’t want a database full of one-time buyers. You want loyal, repeat customers with rich transaction histories. That consistency builds trust, and advertisers love it too—because it shows engaged audiences.

For marketplaces especially, they need to differentiate from brand-direct sites. Better experiences, loyalty offerings, and trust are what convince shoppers to transact through you instead of going elsewhere.

The role of tech has definitely evolved. Ten years ago, technology platforms often functioned as black boxes. Retailers would outsource retail media completely and have very little control or visibility.

That’s changed. Now, retailers want to own the keys. They want control, transparency, and the ability to adapt quickly. That’s why being API-driven is so powerful – it lets you customise everything from ad formats to measurement and segmentation.

Retailers don’t just want standard solutions anymore—they want to build experiences that reflect their brand, audience, and objectives. That’s where tech comes in: it empowers them to offer unique value to both shoppers and advertisers.

Kevel is an API-first platform—we call ourselves a retail media cloud. We help retailers across three key areas: ad serving, first-party data activation, and self-serve advertiser tools.

Our product ‘Kevel Audience’ allows retailers to bring in first-party data like order history and loyalty data. One example is Sonae, who own Continente in Portugal – the country’s biggest supermarket. They’re bringing in rich customer data, layering on machine learning to build audience segments, and activating those in real time.

We’re a data processor, not a controller—so retailers maintain full control. They use our tools to activate that data both onsite and offsite. We also offer ‘Kevel Console,’ a self-serve platform where advertisers can launch and manage campaigns—especially useful for marketplaces and smaller retailers managing a long tail of advertisers.

There’s a clear move toward AI and agentic solutions. Our platform already uses machine learning to help build audience segments—like propensity models that predict whether a customer is likely to transact with a brand.

But we’re also seeing the rise of AI in ad operations—streamlining campaign setup, making it easier for advertisers to launch campaigns. We’re building tools into our infrastructure to automate parts of that process.

Measurement is another evolving space. There’s growing demand—especially from agencies—for standardisation. They want consistent metrics to compare retail media networks, like standardised viewability measurements.

But even with standardisation, brands still need to stand out. That’s where differentiated audiences, creative execution, and smart segmentation come in. If you can say, “We have an audience no one else can reach,” that’s a powerful proposition. The future’s heading toward automation, but uniqueness still wins.