CitrusAd Expands, Following Growth of Grocery E-Commerce
As more consumers buy groceries online during the pandemic, more retailers and their ad dollars are chasing them — and the latest evidence of that comes from CitrusAd, an e-commerce advertising platform.
On Monday, the Australian company with a North American office in New York said that it has expanded into media sales, and that its network “has catapulted from reaching 968 retail stores to 23,350 retail stores within just three months, representing nearly $180 billion in sales.”
Much of the fuel for this growth comes from recent increases in online grocery shopping.
“We were already growing rapidly before the pandemic, and once the e-commerce storm hit, everyone from retailers and CPG companies to media agencies took e-commerce a lot more seriously, not just in the U.S.A., but globally,” said CitrusAd CEO Brad Moran. “Brands shifted their advertising budgets to follow the consumer shifts online. Many mid- to large-size retailers that did not have robust ad solutions in place found the perfect fit with our easy-to-integrate, white-label platform backed by our experienced media sales team.”
Via the CitrusAd network, food retailers can serve up personalized digital marketing experiences for consumers. The platform relies upon “daily inventory data to avoid serving ads when an item is out of stock, reducing substitution costs and shopper disappointment.”
Indeed, personalization and related technology are helping food retailers deliver ever more precise marketing messages to consumers, a trend that started before the pandemic and that promises to continue well after the novel coronavirus outbreak subsides.
As for CitrusAd, it has expanded its ad network coverage by bringing more media partners on board and easily integrating with several retail e-commerce platforms including ThryveAI (a brand of Mi9 Retail). “We want our retail customers to be able to use their combined scale to better compete with Amazon and Walmart, and the expanded network will allow them to get their fair share of media spend,” said Neil Moses, CEO of Miami-based Mi9 Retail.
Additionally, earlier in July, Toronto-based Mercatus said it had launched the capability to combine the company's integrated e-commerce platform with a scalable and professionally managed native-advertising program, powered in partnership with CitrusAd. Weis Markets, Smart & Final, and Piggly Wiggly Midwest are among the first grocers to adopt the Mercatus Digital Advertising tool, which can drive additional revenue from their e-commerce storefronts and claim their share of national CPG digital ad dollars.
