Lauren Livak Gilbert is the Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute (DSI), which shapes the future of digital and advances commerce through community, content, and education. In her role, she defines the strategy for creating a global industry commerce community to support brands, retailers, and future leaders in the complex digital environment. As a thought leader in digital and design, Lauren has experience driving impactful multi-channel design content, transformative digital shelf solutions, and high-conversion web UX designs across multiple regions. Before DSI, she held numerous roles at Johnson & Johnson, where she owned the digital shelf for consumer products in North America.
Nate Pinkston is the Head of Growth for Retail Media at Microsoft, where he manages end-to-end ownership of sales, customer success, and account management for the world’s largest retail media networks. As a digital marketing and engagement leader, he uses analytics to develop innovative solutions in the AdTech, MarTech, and retail industries. Nate has led teams to design and launch new products, reach new customer segments and markets, and work with C-suite executives to drive growth.
With more companies adopting retail media advertising, joint business plans (JBPs) between retailers and brands have become a requirement. Yet these plans are still in the initial stages, with both parties unsure of how to proceed. What steps can you take to collaborate with retailers and ensure your JBP reflects your business goals?
As early adopters of retailer media, Lauren Livak Gilbert and Nate Pinkston have invested countless hours and resources helping brands and retailers navigate JBPs. Industry standards for joint business plans haven’t been established yet, so Lauren and Nate recommend formulating recurring cross-functional meetings with internal teams and retailers to collaborate on strategies. This should be an integrated, holistic process that aligns the practices and goals of each team and party. Additionally, retailers are open to brand insights and ideas, so offering data and innovative approaches is crucial for establishing standardized business practices.
In this week’s episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant hosts Lauren Livak Gilbert of the Digital Shelf Institute and Nate Pinkston of Microsoft to discuss the ins and outs of joint business plans. Together, they explain how to optimize this digital strategy session, the importance of data-sharing and cross-functional collaboration, and the eCommerce team’s role in JBPs.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to Aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
Marc Walkin is the Co-founder and Head of Marketing and Growth at Turbyne, a vertically integrated B2B SaaS platform that simplifies retail media. With over 15 years of experience as a marketing leader, he has built modern retail and CPG brands, including Stop & Shop, Popcorners, Beech-Nut, and Staples. Marc specializes in brand transformation, corporate strategy, and shopper and digital marketing playbooks.
Nate Pinkston is the Head of Growth for Retail Media at Microsoft, where he manages end-to-end ownership of sales, customer success, and account management for the world’s largest retail media networks. As a digital marketing and engagement leader, he uses analytics to develop innovative solutions in the AdTech, MarTech, and retail industries. Nate has led teams to design and launch new products, reach new customer segments and markets, and work with C-suite executives to drive growth.
Paul Brenner is the SVP of Retail Media and Partnerships at Vibenomics, an in-store advertising audio and display media publisher for retailers. With 30 years of experience in retail media technology, he has worked across areas, including media and entertainment, advertising, manufacturing, pharma, retail, and automotive. Paul specializes in helping brick-and-mortar businesses enhance their in-store shopping experiences by leveraging retail media.
Retail media is gaining traction in the digital advertising ecosystem, and retailers are leveraging it to drive in-store conversions. Yet with multichannel advertising a growing necessity and ad dollars spread thin, how can you incorporate retail media seamlessly into your strategy?
Digital impressions drive many point-of-sale conversions online, but with 80-85% of these conversions occurring in-store, retailers must engage shoppers through visual and auditory mediums. However, retail media mavens Nate Pinkston and Paul Brenner say you must combine in-store and digital advertising and retail media to generate conversions across multiple channels. This requires attributing impressions to specific campaigns and retail media networks through transparent data analytics and distributing ad spend across corresponding channels. A strong relationship with retail media networks is the foundation for an effective strategy.
Join Aaron Conant in this episode of The Digital Deep Dive as he chats with Nate Pinkston of Microsoft’s retail media department and Paul Brenner of Vibenomics about developing a retail media advertising strategy. Together, they share best practices for adopting retail media, how AI enhances retail media effectiveness, and how to leverage retail media for creative ad campaigns.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to Aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
The search marketing landscape has shifted, with Google and Bing competing for market share following ChatGPT’s release by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The chatbot’s immediate acclaim caused Bing search to experience a 40% overall user growth rate, compromising Google’s place as the leading search engine. In response, Google launched Bard, a conversational, generative AI chatbot that fell short of Microsoft, furthering the possibility of Bing dominating Google.
The search engine’s recent success allows brands to diversify their ad spend to reach various audiences. So how does Bing advertising differ from Google, and how can you optimize the search engine to expand your marketing efforts?
When evaluating advertising platforms, it’s crucial to note that Bing’s value outperforms Google’s in multiple areas, including ROAS. As Bing search gains recognition and popularity, keyword bidding has increased on the platform. Consequently, Bing advertising is more cost-effective, with a 70% CCP (cost-per-click) discount compared to Google’s 35% discounted rates. Additionally, although Google is the prime search engine on mobile devices, most desktop users run Windows applications where Bing is preinstalled, so brands with products that must be purchased on a desktop should pursue Microsoft advertising.
Marketing varies considerably between each search engine, with key considerations for SEO optimization. Bing and Google have exclusive methods for analyzing users and available websites in categories, including search drivers, performance, frequent keywords, experiences, and rankings. The primary distinction in assessments between these search engines is their emphasis on indexing and social signals. Google prioritizes search engine indexing to accumulate and store large amounts of data, producing accurate information to remain informed of comprehensive online activity. Conversely, Bing places significance on social signals by evaluating websites’ likes, shares, and visibility to rank meaningful content in various categories. Brands must focus on social performance to advertise on Bing effectively.
Generating social engagement through content creation is key for optimizing SEO on Bing. Some brands produce content for specific categories in select online communities, initiating adequate involvement within those groups and classifications. But Microsoft adjusts rankings based on social performance, favoring profiles with multiple tags, links, and shares, so it’s essential to create and launch content related to your brand or products. This may involve optimizing product detail pages (PDP) for specific search terms and generating content highlighting those PDPs. You can also develop influencer campaigns to grow your social presence.
However, brands sometimes struggle to grow their following organically, so you can assess campaigns and relationships to select ideal influencers based on value offerings.
Bing can be used alongside Google ads to diversify your reach and revenue and experiment with Microsoft campaigns. Microsoft’s auto import function allows you to transfer data from Google ad campaigns to a Bing advertising account. Once you’ve launched campaigns on Bing, you should disable recurring imports to operate ads separately on each search engine, allowing you to gain distinct and precise insights and metrics.
President of Coalition Technologies, Jordan Brannon, lists best practices for launching and managing Bing campaigns following a transfer, “Make sure that your conversion counts match up to what you’re seeing in your store…Make sure that your landing page URLs made their way over correctly. Make sure you have the right landing page for the right ad group…Make sure you’re running the right targeting.”
Although Bing is not likely to surpass Google in the near future, Microsoft advertising can be a profitable long-term investment when considering its growth trajectory and influence on various users and businesses.
Gautam Kanumuru is the Co-founder and CEO of Yogi, a product sentiment analysis platform that enables brands to gain deeper visibility into customer feedback and voice-of-customer. With a background in AI and natural language processing, he played a crucial role in developing Microsoft products, including Cortana and Xbox. Before co-founding Yogi, Gautam was the Vice President of Engineering at Clarke.ai and a Program Manager at Microsoft.
As the digital space becomes increasingly competitive, brands are harnessing customer-centric, data-driven growth strategies. Reviews and ratings have unexplored potential to implement rich feedback from shoppers, but this data source is underutilized as most brands emphasize insights from potential purchasers rather than existing customers. How are leading brands capitalizing on customer sentiment analysis to optimize products and drive sales?
According to product sentiment specialist Gautam Kanumuru, reviews and ratings are more than a measurement of volume. Rather, these data sets provide insight into your products, enabling you to develop and improve PDPs, reframe product messaging based on majority feedback, and create ad campaigns for new product launches. A robust customer sentiment analysis approach involves utilizing automated platforms like Yogi to aggregate, prioritize, and disseminate data to meet customer expectations effectively.
Join Aaron Conant in this episode of The Digital Deep Dive as he hosts Gautam Kanumuru, Yogi’s Co-founder and CEO, to address the value of reviews and ratings for product innovations and brand growth. Gautam shares best practices for evaluating reviews and ratings, how to experiment with AI for review analytics, and how data aggregation facilitates business growth.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to Aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
