Walgreens Advertising Group to Launch Self-Serve Programmatic, Clean-Room Solutions

Walgreens Advertising Group continues to cater to its advertising clients by announcing the launch of self-serve programmatic and clean-room solutions that allows brand advertisers to run campaigns more openly on their own terms. The new self-serve programmatic solution will offer the ability to target consumers by applying audiences based on Walgreens first-party data to campaigns run on each advertiser’s preferred demand-side platform (DSP).

Advertisers can access the new self-serve solution through The Trade Desk or OpenX, with more connections being added in the future. Walgreens Advertising Group’s connection with The Trade Desk leverages the power of closed-loop reporting, where advertisers tie campaign performance to Walgreens sales data and optimize in real-time to drive efficiency, results and learnings for future campaigns.

With the addition of the clean room, powered by Epsilon, brand advertisers will be able to measure customer overlap while maintaining confidentiality of their first-party data.

Epsilon describes clean rooms as a new essential tool in marketing, driven by a need for privacy compliance and cross-media attribution. A data clean room is a secure, isolated platform that links anonymized marketing and advertising data from multiple parties. According to the company, data clean rooms are distinguished from other data-sharing methods by the inclusion of detailed advertising impression data, with privacy-safe restrictions on outputting user-level results.

Walgreen's new services will allow brand advertisers to maximize the reach and scale of campaigns across all digital channels. With more than 95 million myWalgreens members and Walgreens roughly 1 billion touchpoints daily with customers, the service can target purchasers of more than 70 key categories and advanced customer targets.

“We’re excited to bring our advertising clients more flexibility in managing the reach and frequency of campaigns on their preferred DSP, while dually building a better consumer experience through more relevant and optimized advertising,” said Luke Kigel, VP of Walgreens integrated media and head of Walgreens Advertising Group. “This solution allows the relationship between brand advertiser and retailer to be more transparent than ever and deliver a more integrated, human experience to the consumer."

The new self-serve programmatic offering will launch broadly in second quarter. Brands interested in exploring Walgreens Advertising Group’s self-serve programmatic offering, clean-room solution and other advertising services can contact [email protected].

The Walgreens Advertising Group also recently announced that it is leveraging the advertising function found on Volta Inc.'s DC (direct-current) fast-charging electric vehicle stalls, which will be deployed at more than 500 Walgreens throughout the United States. Featuring high-impact, large-format digital screens, Volta stations provide a digital out-of-home advertising opportunity, enabling brands to reach shoppers seconds before they enter a store to make a purchase.

Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens is included in the Retail Pharmacy USA division of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. The drug store chain operates nearly 9,000 retail locations across the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, serving about 9 million customers daily. Walgreens is No. 5 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.