Verizon Media Partners With Catalina to Enable Real-Time Decisioning for CPG Brands- a First-in-Market Integration

CPG marketers have long struggled to connect the dots between the impact of their digital campaigns along the customer journey and the metric that matters most – sales. That was true even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has only further disrupted the typical purchase cycle and radically altered consumer behavior multiple times throughout the past year.

As a result, advertisers have been challenged to keep up as they observed new trends in real time. During the early days of the pandemic, the frequency of in-store visits spiked as consumers panicked to buy essential goods. This was followed by a sharp decline in store trips during lockdowns, even though the basket value increased while consumers shopped in bulk to stock up for longer periods. Many brands suspended their digital campaigns in response disruption in maintaining supply, even though online sales soared. It was, and continues to be to some extent, a tricky time for CPG advertisers.

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If one thing has become abundantly clear through these constant shifts in behavior, it’s that traditional measurement solutions that connect digital campaigns with actual sales, such as closed-loop studies, are no longer the only tools needed to support today’s CPG Marketers. Advertisers need additional flexible, inflight measurement solutions that provide real-time, actionable insights into the impact of digital campaigns on purchases.

That’s exactly what Verizon Media is enabling in a new partnership with Catalina. We’re excited to be the first DSP to be integrated with one of the top CPG sales data providers in the US, allowing brands to link in-store and online purchases to digital media influences in real-time. Catalina has access to 170 million unique shopper cards and direct retailer relationships with most grocery stores, as well as value stores, mass general, and convenience.

Through this first-in-market integration with Catalina we’re bringing together the power of Verizon Media’s first-party data with Catalina’s sales insights to provide validated omnichannel sales conversions influenced by true media exposure. These solutions include:

• Inflight Sales Analysis matching media exposures to observed purchase events on a daily basis, powered by Verizon Media’s identity graph, to help advertisers understand the effectiveness of their media on a user-level in real-time. This allows for informed in-flight adjustments that enable advertisers to make the most of their media campaigns.
• Post Campaign Measurement through Catalina may also provide independent validation of incremental sales impact to verify effective optimizations through their Sales Lift measurement in partnership with Verizon Media.

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 This groundbreaking new partnership is a pixeless solution that directly matches Catalina’s sales data to Verizon Media’s cross-device ID graph, arming advertisers with future-proofed inflight and post-campaign measurement. This will allow for greater granularity at scale and provide teams with brand and product-specific purchase insights, including new products otherwise not measurable. At the same time, this solution connects Catalina’s unbiased, trusted measurement with Verizon Media’s transparent and enriched insights on the user and household level, empowering advertisers with an informed, holistic view of the consumer journey. This covers cases where the user exposed to the campaign is different from the actual buyer. For example, traditional measurement solutions will credit the head of the household on loyalty card purchases. Leveraging Verizon Media’s ID Graph’s power, the credit goes to the person in the household exposed to the campaign, providing a deeper understanding of the true high-value consumer.

“As the CPG and retail landscape evolves, we are pleased to partner with Verizon Media DSP to help marketers transform data into actionable insights to deliver better value to their customers.” said Brian Dunphy, SVP of Channel Sales & Strategic Partnerships for Catalina. “This first-to-market partnership enables marketers to understand media impact in real-time, allowing them to enhance every touch point throughout an integrated, end-to-end shopping experience.”

As consumers make new decisions and change their behaviors in the moment, CPG advertisers will be right alongside updating their campaigns in real-time to meet evolving needs.

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