If anything, a downturn is a moment when marketers rationalize where they spend their dollars and invest in the things that really work. Enter Kroger’s Retail Media Network.

It makes sense then that Cara Pratt, svp of Kroger Precision Marketing at retail media company 84.51, is optimistic about the retailer’s chances during the ad slowdown. After all, here’s a business built on the back of on-site search and product listing ads within search results on Kroger.com and the mobile app — i.e channels with strong commercial intent. So chances are this slowdown is more of a correction and brings advertising more inline with pre-pandemic numbers — i.e still growing.

“There’s no doubt that there’s an influx of interest and investment — the vast majority of those investment dollars are coming from national investment teams at agencies,” said Pratt. That interest is primarily thanks to the private marketplace Kroger launched last October, she continued. And the hope is that interest holds up. Not least because marketers will be able to buy CTV and video inventory from those marketplaces as well as display.

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