The Kroger Co. wants its CPG partners and its customers to know each other – in the right way.

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Cara Pratt, senior VP, Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), about KPM’s mission and how it provides benefits to both advertisers and customers.

KPM is the retail media business of Kroger, supported by the grocer’s 84.51° data analytics subsidiary. The network features nearly 2,000 participating brands, with Pratt leading a team of data scientists using 45 machine-learning models tapping purchase data from 60 million households. KPM has delivered an average 25%-30% household penetration lift and 35%-40% sales lift on campaigns, according to Kroger analysis.

When asked what general benefits retail media networks offer retailers and customers, Pratt said there are two distinct areas where benefits are provided.

“First, retailer media networks provide visibility into customer behavior over time,” said Pratt. “In the case of Kroger, we capture 96% of all transactions.”

As a result, Pratt said Kroger can let advertisers deliver the right promotions for the right products at the right time in a customer’s shopping journey, benefiting both brand and shopper.

“You can advertise without waste, on property and off, continuing (digitally) with the customer at home and seamlessly influencing their purchase,” explained Pratt.

In addition, Pratt said retail media networks provide advertisers with the ability to increase the effectiveness of their media spend by letting them learn more details about customer preferences and behaviors.

According to Pratt, 84.51° launched KPM with straightforward goals in mind.

“We simply wanted to focus on making CPG advertisements more effective,” she stated. “KPM is designed to remove the opaqueness to understand the performative nature of ad spend. Customers drive change, and standards for media change accordingly.”

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