Retail Media in India: Rapid Growth Driven by Criteo-Swiggy Partnership

Retail media includes the practice of advertising within the ecosystem of a retailer, often meaning any ads displayed on the website, app, or even in their physical stores. Retailers allow brands to actively promote a product directly to customers using the retailer’s own platforms. Many use the retailer’s first-party data to more efficiently target its audience.

Think of this like shopping online on Amazon or Swiggy. While you are browsing, you may come across sponsored ads for specific products—those are retail media ads. Experts believe that retail media in India is vigorously evolving as a space. Every agency today is trying to set up a retail media team within their organizations.

Medhavi Singh, country head, India, Criteo, a commerce media and digital advertising firm, mentioned that an e-retail platform advertising commanded a substantial chunk of nearly Rs 9,150 crore by the end of 2023, according to a Dentsu report, constituting 22.5% of the overall digital media spends. This has grown with a robust CAGR of 25% and makes it one of the fastest-growing segments in the digital space.

Singh cites, “The strength of Criteo’s retail media lies in its partnerships. Criteo has some 125 retailer partnerships across the globe. For instance, in the US, we have partnered with 65 percent of the top 30 retailers. In the APAC region, we are expanding our coverage and Swiggy is one of our key partners.”
Criteo X Swiggy partnership
Criteo said Sept. 18, 2024, it partners with Swiggy, an on-demand convenience platform to power its off-site retail media campaigns, so endemic and non-endemic brands can reach high-intent audiences across the open internet and OTT platforms.

The partnership will use Criteo’s advanced technology to drive full funnel marketing outcomes for Swiggy and brands outside its website.

On the collaboration, Singh says that Criteo and Swiggy have been strategic partners for quite some time, especially on performance solutions. So, it is a natural extension of their partnership.

This is a partnership driven by belief and trust, she claims. “So, every big move Swiggy makes, Criteo asks how it can be included. We knew Criteo could meet Swiggy’s expectations, combining our understanding of personalized communication and smart distribution with its expertise in understanding user behavior and delivering convenience. Together, we have created a seamless experience for users, making sure they receive the right message at the right time,” Singh explains.

Against this backdrop, retail media has come into play to become a significant player in digital marketing with the rise of e-commerce, which serves to focus on providing a personal touch in consumer experience.

According to Singh, retail and commerce media make the company capable of mapping the user journey correctly, thereby enlightening the parties about their users. The above understanding permits brands to serve their users in more relevant ways, which can then lead to everyone’s win as the overall customer experience is improved.

For me, at Swiggy, it is all about putting the customer at the center of everything we do. The better one understands users, the more streamlined and personalized their journeys will be, which in turn enables better service to them through brands,” says Kashish Vasandani, director, growth at Swiggy.

Retail media trends
Singh has been with the company Criteo for more than seven years now; she gives insights into the developing retail media ecosystem and its evolution. According to Singh, the most important offshoot seen in the retail media ecosystem is off-site retail media.

Off-site retail media is a method where targeting ads are taken outside the retailer’s site or even their app, but have the intention of moving customers back to the retailer’s site or application to make a purchase in some form. Examples of off-site retail media might be advertisements shown on social media or third-party sites, or even through email efforts.

“Users are spending far less time on retailers’ websites now, so it’s a matter of engaging with them at the right point in the journey and bringing them back successfully to digital points of sale,” says Singh.

She also points to greater alignment between retailer and brand insights to more robustly understand users. These include those that measure a brand’s share of voice and brand affinity-which enables one to classify users much better.

Are these trends specific to India, though? “Brands everywhere are trying to understand their users better to personalize experiences on a scale. While diversification in platform usage is still seen here in India, Criteo is already a unified platform for many brands on the global level.”. She believes this interfusion of on-site and off-site experiences will catch up in India too. “Retail media provides unmatched measurement capabilities, allowing brands to understand the entire consumer journey and the value of every rupee they spend,” she comments.