Sam’s Club introduces a host of new measures amid retail metrics scrutiny

Even as retail media continues to grow at double-digit percentages, it still draws plenty of scrutiny from marketers about the measurement tools retailers provide. Sam’s Club is out to change the narrative with a new suite of metrics aimed at giving brands unprecedented visibility into how their spending has impact beyond the initial sale. The move comes in part because Sam’s believes its offerings are growing far broader and more sophisticated than what others provide. The Walmart sibling is repositioning its retail media offering as a “retail experience network,” in part because it’s going well beyond the retail search and shoppable display and video ad staples of most retail media offerings, said Harvey Ma, VP and general manager of the Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP). That’s driven in part by Sam’s Club adding a growing number of sponsored activities, including concerts, tailgating and smaller brand-led events in and near its stores. Each store this year is expected to hold at least 25 events annually, Ma said. Also, because a growing number of transactions occur with shoppers using its Scan & Go app to log purchases as they put them in their carts, Sam’s has an in-store digital format backed by display ads that pop up during the in-store trip, a format other retailers generally lack. Scan & Go is one reason Sam’s gets about 40% of its sales digitally in some form, including Scan & Go, said Ma. It’s also a reason Sam’s Club is growing with what it calls “Zillennial” shoppers, the rollup of millennials and Gen Z, in a club format that tends to skew older, he said. Scan & Go Display Ads have driven an average sales lift of 15.5%, according to Ma, with 71% of members reached being incremental to other tactics. The growing breadth and complexity of MAP’s offerings is one reason the network needed a more sophisticated metrics lineup, Ma said. Recent news: Sam’s Club picks Publicis Groupe as its integrated agency of record Brand lift, customer lifetime value Among new metrics reports for advertisers is a brand lift measure, which incorporates “upper funnel” branding metrics such as brand preference, favorability and purchase intent from customer surveys into existing sales-focused conversion reporting. The idea is to optimize MAP campaigns around long-term focus, not just the initial sales impact. Sam’s is also launching a customer lifetime value measure to help estimate the long-term value of new consumers won by a brand campaign, based on historical patterns of purchase behavior of shoppers. This, too, aims to measure long-term value as opposed to the generally short-term performance measures for retail campaigns. A new multi-touch attribution measurement tool Sam’s is adding aims to provide credit for each part of a MAP campaign, a necessity given the increasing complexity of the network’s offerings. It doesn’t incorporate the impact of marketing elements outside the Sam’s Club network, Ma said, though marketers can try to accomplish that through the retailer’s partnership with Circana. Sam’s also is deploying AI and machine learning to predict which members are most likely to engage with campaigns via a propensity modeling and signal fidelity tool. The system uses such data as past purchases, product preferences, demographics and shopping behavior to predict who’s most likely to respond and help advertisers target their messages. Data-driven Marketing Playbook: Join industry leaders on May 22 to explore how data can drive marketing strategies, optimize media buying and improve customer engagement. Learn more here.

Sam’s Club introduces a host of new measures amid retail metrics scrutiny

Featured Stories