Dollar General picks Criteo to boost retail media offering

Dive Brief:

Dollar General Media Network (DGMN), the retailer's media arm, has partnered with commerce media company Criteo to help drive its onsite sponsored ad offerings, according to a press release.
The deal will provide brands with access to premium inventory through Criteo's self-service DSP, Commerce Max, and DGMN's private inventory via Criteo's retailer monetization platform, Commerce Yield.
Dollar General can onboard first-party data, in-store sales data and shopper signals to the DSP, helping brands and agencies better reach its base of rural shoppers — the retailer's differentiation in the rapidly growing retail media space.

Dive Insight:

The partnership between DGMN and Criteo demonstrates how early entrants into the retail media space continue to beef up their offerings with data-driven integrations that help brands and agencies target and measure their campaigns. The deal will support Dollar General's onsite sponsored ad offerings and newer ad formats expected later this year.

Dollar General, the largest retailer in the U.S. by store count, per the release, sees most purchases in-store, but receives "significant" web traffic from customers making their lists in advance. The partnership will help brands and agencies reach consumers at this step of the purchase journey, and provide insights into whether sales take place in-store or online.

The company launched its retail media network in 2018 and has continued to invest in the offering. After initially working with LiveRamp, Dollar General in 2022 expanded its partnerships to include the Trade Desk, Google Ad Manager and ad agency The Goodway Group and in 2023 launched a new capability backed by Meta.

“Since launching Dollar General Media Network in 2018, we have made notable investments to continually evolve and grow,” said Charlene Charles, head of DGMN operations, in the release. “Our partnership with Criteo is an extension of our commitment to our customers, particularly those in hard-to-reach, rural areas, creating more meaningful connections to better serve the communities in which we operate.”

Criteo’s retail media footprint includes 200 retailers worldwide and the firm activates around $1 billion in media spend, per details shared with Marketing Dive. It has continued to work to unify the retail media ecosystem across online and offline channels, per the release, which speaks to the market's continued evolution.

In-store retail media spend will top $1 billion by 2028, but will still only represent less than 1% of total retail media spend, per a recent eMarketer report. Overall, retail media is expected to hit $81.6 billion in ad spending by 2025 to represent 23.5% of the total U.S. digital advertising market, per Advertiser Perceptions.