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Unlocking Retail Media is the essential podcast for leaders and marketers navigating the rapidly evolving world of retail advertising. We move beyond day-to-day operations to explore the strategic future of the industry, covering major investment trends, the shift to hybrid marketplace models, and the existential disruption posed by Agentic Commerce. Host James Avery brings in top industry veterans and visionary founders to analyze how ground-breaking technology is transforming customer journeys, influencing product catalogs, and forcing retailers to rethink on-site, in-store, and digital media strategies to remain competitive in the modern age.
Ben Johnson: Be very deliberate in the expectations you have when you're sourcing candidates. Ensure that you're not looking for people that are only just good on paper, but you're asking the hard questions about how they synthesize ideas, how they deal with a large cross-functional mess that is created when you're a new org that is very new.
Trying to work with established teams. Now, there's not like a perfect template to this, but I think there's a, a decent formula, which is. Figure out if they're gonna think 'em about more than just the ads themselves.
James Avery: Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media, the podcast where we explore the evolving world of retail media from data strategy to monetization and everything in between. This is the podcast that breaks down how retailers can build smarter data-driven media networks by aligning with what brands truly need from scalable ad solutions and meaningful metrics.
To cross channel attribution and programmatic strategy [00:01:00] Today, I'm excited to welcome someone who's been shaping retail media long before it was the buzzy category, uh, that it is today. Uh, my guest is Ben Johnson, the senior director of Chewy Ads. Uh, before Chewy Ben spent several years at coupon leading sponsored products at a time when many global marketplaces were just beginning to, uh, build ad businesses.
Uh, and before that he built a career in ad tech, uh, at places like OpenX and, and 33 across. Uh, Ben was actually one of the first people to work with Keble, uh, on building a retail media use case way back in 2018. Uh, and so he's been pretty instrumental in, in helping us build our product in the direction that we built it.
Uh, today we're gonna talk about how retail media has evolved, what maturity really looks like, uh, and how, and how Chewy has built such a strong, uh, retail media network. Uh, Ben, thanks for being here. It's great to, uh, great to chat again. Yeah. Hey, James. Good to be here. Awesome. So let's, uh, I mean, maybe we start out and.
And kind of, uh, go back, go back to the beginning because I think we, you know, we first worked together, [00:02:00] uh, when you were at coupon and you guys kinda. Kind of were, you know, this is what, 2008, 1817 like you were, you were really in, you know, building a retail media network before, before a lot of people were doing that.
Ben Johnson: Yeah. I'll, I'll just say that when you, when you said, let's go back, I thought you were gonna take me back to when we were enemies competing for ad server deals. Yeah, we were,
James Avery: we were, we did start as enemies between OpenX and, and Adzerk. Uh, but I figured we'd skip, we'd skip that part, you know? Yeah, fair
Ben Johnson: enough.
Fair enough. I thought it was a fun little tidbit, but in any case, um, yeah, so the year is, I wanna say 2018 or 2019. And coupon for, um, you know, the audience who watches this and may not know is effectively the Amazon of South Korea. Um, they were a hypergrowth, not startup anymore, but a mid to late stage company that was basically [00:03:00] getting the adoption and eyes and visibility of every single citizen in South Korea.
We had been hired to build monetization for the company, but to your point, when you kick this off. The moniker or acronym of RMN or retail Media had not yet existed and we were often just trying to figure out what we should do without any guidance. Um, I think we did pretty well. Um, you know, we, we, we were able to put together a solution in market.
I wanna say six to nine months after I joined, which is when we built the team out and along with that, we built the team. So it was a pretty remarkable velocity given that strategy, how we ran our day-to-day, how we built the team, and somehow managed to build it all in that same timeframe. All kind of panned out and worked out for us.
James Avery: Yeah, I think, I think it was really impressive. I mean, just the, the, the scale, right? You're like, you know, like you said, a lot of people don't, [00:04:00] you know, coupon's not a household name over here. Um, but the, the scale is, you know, probably still, you know, even back then was probably larger than many retailers today when we think about the amount of traffic, the amount of orders, the, the fulfillment.
Oh yeah. Kind of like the size of, of scope of like what was built there.
Ben Johnson: Yeah, I mean, some innovations that coupon had long before even Amazon in the US was they owned their own fulfillment network much earlier than others, even though they made a p uh, pivot to retail and had started as a more three p eBay marketplace, uh, style marketplace.
The, um, the kind of basis of coupon was to make it so that you couldn't live without it. It was just so easy to basically use it on a day to day. And in terms of absolutes, obviously Amazon is bigger, it's a bigger market in the us but in terms of relative values penetration in the market itself and how many people in South Korea [00:05:00] adopt their phones as their surface for everything, um, we, we had great kind of engagement, which, which put me in a great position honestly, to build a product because the demand was close to just banging the door down and breaking it open.
Regardless if we had a product or not. Now, obviously that comes with expectations. You gotta build the right thing. Um, but it, it's still a good problem to have that you don't have a product that people really, really want. Yeah,
James Avery: absolutely. So you kind of mentioned it, you know, talking about product, uh, I mean your, your role at, at coupon and now at Chewy, right?
Like you're really effectively the head of product for these arm ends. That's correct, yeah. And that's something we were, we were talking a little bit before this where. You know, it's one of the things when we, 'cause obviously we go, we go talk to a bunch of retailers, a bunch of different people trying to build RMNs and, and a lot of times I feel like there's not enough focus given to who is really designing, you know, who is the, who is the product lead for an RMN.
Yeah. So I think [00:06:00] it'd be helpful for people, for, for you to kind of talk about what does, what does that mean? What does it mean to be product when in an RN
Ben Johnson: Yeah. It's, it's a good question and. I'll answer it, but I'll also say it's impossible to answer. Um, and what I mean by that is product management, regardless of it being at an ad tech company, a SaaS company B2C is somewhat nebulous in its definition, right?
Um, the romanticized version of a product manager is, I think, what I think mini Cee o is what a lot of people like to say. Yeah.
In my opinion, the role can differ from company to company, but the fundamentals of it should stay the same. And I actually believe that romanticized definition is what a PM should truly do, which is guiding a larger cross-functional group in decision-making and allowing. That PM to [00:07:00] construct the opinions that often come in as noise and you have to distill them into signal.
Um, another great kind of comparison to this with with orgs that maybe have some uncertainty here is in the early 2010s, companies were moving to Agile and, and maybe even a little bit earlier than that. Often what companies did was they picked and chose the pieces of Agile they liked and maintained their own processes.
My belief is with product, that romanticized version is actually how you empower a product team to drive productivity within your business. Put trust and credibility in an individual. To be the connective tissue amongst not only the ADS teams in the case of an RMN, but the external teams that need to be worked with in participation to either schedule a dependency, work on a joint strategy, whatever it may be.
Um, that's how I define product and why I said I can't answer it at the [00:08:00] same time is generally if you're looking for a specialty to hire an individual, you look for background, right. Do they have this experience prior to coming on? I think in product management, cognitive diversity is more powerful than having just, you know, a lot of very strong people from a single discipline.
Obviously both can work out, but. If you are a product team that has some very technical products and then some more customer facing products, let's use B2B for this example. Someone with a sales background is gonna bring diversity to someone who has an engineering background. Yeah, an analytic background, whatever it may be.
So that's where it's impossible to answer because in my opinion, anyone can be a good product manager. The construct is this connective tissue, but the cognitive diversity that you can have people from different disciplines be successful in this role is I think what makes it so nebulous, but also [00:09:00] kind of at the same time.
James Avery: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think it's, it's interesting you think about like in the, it was having a conversation recently with somebody about how, how kind of RMNs are structured and, and the kind of different maturity levels. And I think one of the, one of the key things we look for is, is is there somebody owning kind of product and and strategy?
Yeah. At an RMN, or have they just really outsourced that to their vendors? Like you, you look at some of these, some of the, you know, a, a, a retailer who maybe is, you know, pretty early, like a much lower maturity retail media network. They might, you know, they might have a head of the, the retail media network.
Yeah. They have a sales team. They have, you know, maybe some, some ad ops. Mm-hmm. You know, and then they have a couple engineers, right. But there's not somebody sitting there saying. What is, you know, what, what unit should we be developing? What are, what are the new, what are the new trends in the industry we should be looking at, how should we be addressing these, you know, what we're hearing from the brands, what we're hearing in the market.
Right, right.
Ben Johnson: Yeah, [00:10:00] no, I, I, I can understand that. I would say that it's likely an okay strategy to start, um, because often you can find product leaders within your staffing. Right. That nebulous, kind of cognitive, diverse, uh. Hiring that, that you often do with product. And you know, for what it's worth, the, you know, when you have four or five people, or maybe you're a team of one to start, which it always has to start with one first hire.
You kind of have to seed some control. Um, because regardless of how fast you hire, if you want to move fast, develop and release, there's going to be the need for some partnership, right? So, um. Personally, I think product drives a lot of value upfront in an organization. Obviously, there's some bias there since my career has been in product management, but I think if you hire the right product leader effectively what you get is a [00:11:00] leader in every division of what your organizational structure needs to serve.
Now, me as a product leader, my core focus is product, but there's a. Decent amount of analytics, sales assistance, understanding the business building strategy that I think a very strong product manager can have. And to your point of what units we release, what what we do, it's how do you see what you want your platform to be 3, 4, 5 years from now?
And what are those stepping stones on the bridge that help you cross in a way that logically orders itself? And that's where product can certainly help, which is. Build me a strategy, make it make sense over an extended time series, and give me a sense of the value I can drive for my enterprise, kind of core business or core business objectives.
Um, so I mean that, that's, that's my 2 cents there. But I think that with or [00:12:00] without product during formation, things can work out. But you definitely want a staff product management to have that. Long-term thinking embedded within your organization as a, like a fixed discipline?
James Avery: Yeah, I think, and I think people will tend to, you know, get a little, get a little mixed up with, you know, a like line product manager, right?
Where it's like, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna need somebody who is, you know, working with the, you know, the engineers who are actually implementing, you know, things on the website and, and you know, maybe it's building out a self-serve, things like that. And then the, the, you know, really when you think of somebody like a VP of product or you think of somebody like a chief product officer, where it really is thinking about, like you said, the the long term strategy, where do you know you, you know, next well spoil it right next you go to Chewy and it's like you're coming to Chewy and it's like, okay, like what is it we want?
What do we need to build? What's different about Chewy? What's different about the market? What is the market asking for? What are, what are the opportunities? What does this look like in five years? And then how do we get there?
Ben Johnson: Yeah. The one [00:13:00] thing I'll say is. I'll actually make two, two points on this. I think a lot of misconception with product managers is they're often like given the title, but asked to be a project manager, right?
Um, so your line product manager, as you described. Often just gets top down marching orders to do this, do that, and they're scored on the completion of if this or that launched on a target date, that no one could actually estimate that. They just need to push their teams to get to. I do think within a good product organization from the top down, your head of product, all the way down to your first product man or your entry level product manager.
There's something you can empower your teams to do, meaning. Maybe I think three to four to five years ahead, but within the constraints or confines of the product that my junior PM works on, they're thinking about that maybe [00:14:00] over a shorter time series, but they're delivering. Week over week. Over week.
And then what additionally, uh, you know, a a, a junior or a, or starting PM can do is empower accountability amongst the engineers. We don't want it to be just a handoff, Hey, I've got an idea. Leadership said it's great, go build it. It's, here's the problem we're solving, solving. Here's the metrics where we're gonna measure if we're good.
I want you all to believe that these metrics tell us that we're doing good and make an entire team feel accountable. Because velocity, you know, you measure in terms of hours spent against work done, but I think there's a soft skill tied to velocity, which is driving accountability and empowerment. Um, now those are the two points on the product side of it.
Um, with Chewy, you know, the, the, the interesting thing is I worked at a very, very large company in South Korea being [00:15:00] coupon, where, you know, I learned a ton about how retail works, how three P marketplaces work as we had both. Um, I worked in a very fast moving environment that Asia is, and I came to Chewy thinking, okay, playbook's ready, let's just use that and I'm good to go.
And then I think within 24 hours of being at the company, I had to throw out that playbook. Now there were some fundamentals you can bring in terms of what things typically break if you don't invest enough time in them, but. Being a successful retail media network is bespoke to how your customers behave on said network.
The, the main distinction, although coupon had it, is Chewy, is a very highly penetrated subscription retailer. Uh, meaning that our feature autoship is often used, which makes sense. If you think about [00:16:00] our buying behavior and who our customers are, they're pet parents, they're. Looking for something that, you know, they can't talk to their dog or cat or reptile or horse about, but they just have to observe, Hey, do you like this food?
Do you get sick? Do you look healthy? Well, I found something. Let me just have to set it and forget it. Make sure I don't have to drive out and carry a hundred pound bag to my car and then back in my home. Let it just arrive exactly when I need it. So with all that being said, we had to lean into that from an ads business.
And, you know, without revealing the secret sauce, the point being a chewy is when a customer comes, the intent is there and the opportunity to win a customer for its their lifetime value, uh, is there right away. So we've engineered our ad platform and, and brought to market. Um, not only [00:17:00] a campaign execution side, but a reporting and analytics suite that emphasizes the upside of that LTV driven by our subscription based business.
Yeah.
James Avery: Yeah. I think it's a, it's a great, I was actually, I was gonna lead into this is really like, as you know, joining Chewy. Building out a new RMNI think, you know, a lot of people do look at this as cookie cutter, get the playbook, rinsed, repeat. Um, but I think, and you know, we, we can't like share numbers and stuff like that, but I mean, you guys are killing it, right?
Like we work with lots of retail media networks. Yeah. And you guys are doing, you know, you have built, you know, appreciate it. Probably the, one of the best ones out there, right? Like you're competing with the Amazons and Walmarts and people like that at the level of sophistication. Yeah. And, and I think what you said is a, is a great example of that, of you can't just come in and rinse and repeat.
It's really understanding. Yeah. What's different about this retailer? What's their relationship like? Is it a, you know, are they heavily researching what they're doing? Are they auto shipping it? Yeah. Are they Right. You know, how, how connected are they to it? Right, right. Like, and [00:18:00] I know, you know, obviously Chewy's done a great job, like in overall branding, right?
Of like being very, uh, you know, very understanding of parents and, and how they think of their pets and how serious they are about getting the right food and the right medicine and things like that for their, their animals. Um, and so I think it's like. The retail media network has to reflect the relationship of the consumer with, with Chewy and how they interact and, and really building it in a way that makes sense for that retailer.
Yeah. Not just a, you know, off the shelf. You know, set it up and go,
Ben Johnson: right, and, and you know, you leave a lot on the table if you bring that playbook without making any augmentations. The other thing I would say is that your brands or your advertisers who will eventually buy on your retail media network when you have one, already have a thesis of why they're bringing budget for to your platform, either from a competitor or just brand new budget established.
And what they're looking for is for you to prove that out, right? [00:19:00] So. I, you know, I as pet brand a come to Chewy and buy on Chewy because I think I'm more likely to get a subscription to my product drives brand loyalty. I can acquire, uh, customers that are new to my brand 'cause this is the biggest pet marketplace and I'm gonna spend money here and, and have it, uh, kind of be like a fire hose if the company's growing like crazy.
But. In addition to that, that thesis is only as good as the RMN. That proves out what the brands already hypothesize and, and that's where you kind of have to tie things together to make a more compelling part product to bring to market. Now the playbook will work for some period of time, but I think the having the constant chip on your shoulder of thinking you're different and how you're different is going to help.
More than it'll hurt.
James Avery: Yeah. And I think no one's like Amazon,
Ben Johnson: right? Walmart, you could say. No one's like Walmart [00:20:00] either. And, and trying to be like them is, is, um. It, it feels like, uh, I don't know if a race to the bottom is, is the, is the right, um, phrase, but effectively you can't compete with that type of horsepower that those organizations have.
You need to carve out your niche and understand what your customers want versus copy, paste of features, which you can never keep up with. Sorry. Interrupted
James Avery: you. Yeah, and it's so interesting where like we're, you know, in all the different retailers and marketplaces that we work with. You know, they are all unique, right?
Like for the most part, you know, maybe there's some, you know, there's a handful of grocers that are similar or things like that, but even they have unique constraints, right? Mm-hmm. Some are selling a lot more private labels, some are selling a lot more, you know, in store, right? Or they're, are they predominantly in store?
Predominantly online. Yeah. Uh, you know, what's the relationship? Is it, you know, people that shop there every week or are they, you know, is it like a seven 11 where it's like, oh, it's on the corner, so, right. You know, I'm gonna grab something. [00:21:00] And so I do think, like when it comes back, you know, to circle this back to like what does, what does product do at a retail media network?
It's kinda like this is what product does, right? It's like, it is, it is understanding what is, what do we need to build? Based on the, you know, uniqueness of us as a retailer, what's the perfect RMN that's gonna generate the, you know, most revenue, have the best user experience, you know, have the best brand experience, kind of, you know, looking at all those different constituents right?
And bringing it together. And I think that's like, it's where we always encourage when we talk to retailers just like, you need, like find this product person, like find this product strategy person that, that can really help you build this vision. And then, you know, then there's tools and vendors and companies out there to kind of help accelerate it.
Ben Johnson: Yeah, you're right. I mean, we, we talked about it more philosophically, and then I walked you through my train of thought that was what I was thinking about on day one. Right? Yeah. Um, and I think, I think you, you described it perfectly that, yeah, I mean, a product leader is [00:22:00] going to be hyper-focused in this area, which is.
Writing the story of your RMN five years out and understanding what building blocks you need for that story to end favorably, so, right. It's, it's, uh, no, I, I think, I think you did a good job putting that out. And you guys, you guys
James Avery: have also, I think one of the, one of the very impressive things about, uh, what you all have built, uh, is that, you know, you really haven't, you know, used a bunch of, just off the shelf.
You know, whatever kind of tech, right? Like, I think you guys made the decision early on to kind of build out your own full self-serve. Um, yeah. Yeah. So what was the, what was the decision like there? Because I think a lot of other retailers have that decision of like, oh, should we just use, you know, I mean like ke we have like off the shelf self-serve, things like that.
Or, or does it make sense to go invest and really build, build your own self-serve?
Ben Johnson: Yeah. So it's not a one answer fits all. Uh. [00:23:00] Approach, but I can kind of give you my philosophy here, which is, you know, there are plenty of off the shelf point solutions, and we're not even just talking about ad serving here, we're talking about reporting, we're talking about audience, we're talking about everything that is, uh.
What the composition of a retail media network or ad company at a publisher looks like. And I think if you're deliberate, you go through the appropriate due diligence, um, it's a really good way to incubate your program, right? Yes. Maybe you seed some control to something or some tool that, um, gives you less autonomy, but it helps you get started.
And getting started is the most important piece of a business. Because often even in my strategy, what I can talk about so clearly now was a lot of hypotheses. Many things I was wrong on [00:24:00] until we got to market and saw how our customers reacted. Especially to your point, if you're really trying to build a bespoke or niche solution for your customers to give you, uh, I like to call it a technical moat.
Um, you've got a test it in market, which is okay to, uh, to work with, uh, uh, a couple of partners. Now, often I think what what happens is. So many point solutions are out there and, and companies can get into this cycle of, we're just so dependent on this, you know, tied together loosely set of integrations we have with multiple partners that they feel like there's no way out.
And the way out is to be thinking about where you want to be regardless of where you have to be. At your present day, wherever you are. Right. My, my personal philosophy here is get something started the most efficient and fastest way [00:25:00] possible, but evaluate through throughout your entire journey like where you want to be.
And in, in the case of the companies I've worked at. It's focused on platform independence, more autonomy and more control. Um, in the beginning when we were launching though, we don't want to do a 180 to what our advertisers are used to on other retailers and give them something brand new. We incrementally introduce that learning curve over time, so that autonomy is not necessarily important for the first six to 12 months, but after that, as you're building a strategy that is very unique to you.
That independence, to your point, is incredibly important.
James Avery: Yeah. And so, uh, when you think about, you know, I think we, we've talked a little bit about like, kind of how we design it, um, thinking about the different constituents, like how do you think about, you know, 'cause like in a, in a retail media network, you have.
You know, obviously the, the core business, you [00:26:00] have the, you know, uh, brands, right? The, the, the actual companies advertising, right. To sell more product. You have the users, right. You know, how do you think about balancing all of those, right? Like how do you think about that? Like the user experience and the brand experience and, and what, you know, what Chewy's objectives are?
Ben Johnson: Yeah, that's a great question. It kind of gets deeper into the tactics of. Not just our strategy, but how we were able to successfully execute. So, you know, we didn't know what we didn't know when we started at Chewy. The ads team here at Chewy or Chewy Ads team, I should say. Um, were two brand new hires, myself and, uh, our current vp.
Uh, we were coming into a business with a leadership team that deeply understood the product. Nothing that could be taught in days, months, and arguably years. Um, the constituents, to your point, we had to meet with across the board. Obviously you can't meet with every [00:27:00] customer who shops on Chewy. There are millions of 'em, right.
But we leverage, uh, data to better understand what their behaviors are, what their tendencies are, and then we understand what the core operating tenants for Chewy are to ensure that we maintain those as we build out our products. And we try our best to synchronize those with the advertiser intent or their interests, which is to drive acquisition of new customers and sales on Chewy.
Um, when we get deeper into the tactics, when we first started, we were just running experimentation, which I think is incredibly important, right? Uh, rapid, high velocity experimentation. But we didn't really know how to define good, neutral or bad in the context of an AB test. And over time we got stronger and stronger at that.
And what we also did to increase velocity was establish a good, neutral, bad framework for each team that we had to partner with in order to launch. You know, an ads team [00:28:00] within an organization like Amazon, and even a Chewy now can be fairly large. Where we're working on those surfaces, we own none of them.
So we have to work with other teams. And different teams are at different stages of the shopping funnel in the context of retail, where they have different objectives for their customers. So when I say a framework, it's okay, are these metrics good? That that's good? That's a checkbox. Are these ad metrics strong enough to make a trade off?
That's a checkbox. Now we can launch. We didn't have that when we first started, which created a lot of churn and thrash on needing to have meetings with senior leaders that needed to get together and make trade-offs kind of live based on their interpretation of data. But by establishing that framework, we were able to move forward much quicker because if something wasn't controversial in the neutral or nearing the bad, and it was just good to go across.
It's just green light go launch and keep moving forward with innovation.
James Avery: That's [00:29:00] awesome. So I think that's, that's something I think is, is definitely lacking is, is across the industry, is really understanding how do you, how do you work with those stakeholders in the rest of the business, right? Yeah.
'cause every, every, everybody who's, who's starting out RMN, you know, you're kind of getting dropped into usually a very established business, right? Like, uh, you, you really shouldn't build an RMN before. It's pretty established, right? You have people who, you know, you're, you're now the new, the new group. And everybody's worried, what are you gonna do?
Like, how are you gonna mess with my experience or mess with my current merchant relationships? Uh, so so being able to have those key metrics that you can show them, right? Yeah. I'm assuming it's, you know, just around customer usability and, and order flow and add to card and like, you know, you don't have to get into all those specifics, but I think, you know, it's, it's really been able to be able to show the effectiveness of like, Hey, this, this actually improves the experience.
Or this at least doesn't hurt the experience. This, you know? Yeah. It definitely doesn't hurt the order flow, you know, or those, or those things that they're, they're worried about.
Ben Johnson: Well, you bring up a really good point. I [00:30:00] will say just our metrics are, are, are advanced, but they're nothing that, you know, anyone wouldn't be able to imagine.
Um, in terms of how we make decisions. The, the thing you, you mentioned that I think is incredibly important if you're on, you know, day zero through 180 of being this new RMN leader, is how do you build credibility with a product that is somewhat adversarial to what the product that the company has had for many, many years and is established and.
I think the answer is very straightforward to me. Now, I talked about it more tactically in terms of a framework, but what is that framework actually doing? It's understanding your internal customers, right? I said by page, there are different objectives. You're building a framework that conforms to what is the definition of good for your enterprise values as opposed to just the ads team.
That type of [00:31:00] empathy, almost being adversarial to yourself at first and and focusing more on a bias towards whatever the company values are. I think are gonna make you stronger to build credibility and earn trust within your organization. But in all likelihood, it's gonna do better for your product too.
Yeah. Um, having that empathy and understanding and really thinking about how you build products from your internal team's perspectives, what do they care about is ad revenue is great. Obviously it drives a lot of profit for you, but how do you think about more than that? To what the greater impact to your organization, in my case, chewy is.
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So maybe if we, if we use like a different example, I'm always curious people's opinion on this. Um mm-hmm. You probably used Amazon for years and years and years. You know, I've used Amazon for years and years. Um, you know, the ad load on Amazon now is, is impressively high. Yeah.
Right. Like, what are, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think as a, as a [00:32:00] shopper has it. Has it gotten too high? Like, do you, do you think there are just too many promoted listings? There are too many banners and, and, and promotions. Uh, you know, just kind of, I, I guess from a, as a shopper, but also as a, you know, as somebody in retail media product, it's like, yeah.
You know. Do you think, do you think it's gone too far?
Ben Johnson: You know. Having the exposure to ads that we've both had. We don't just see the sponsored label. We kind of understand how it's working. Yeah, and I'll say this, like I, I'm still a, a heavy user of Amazon. I think, I think most people are I, but there are alternatives is.
If you go hunting for ads, yes, you're gonna find a lot, but if you focus on your core workflow loop, which in my case will be on Black Friday, I'm looking for a specific product, you are going to find that product on Amazon. And in most cases, if you're not looking for something incredibly [00:33:00] generic. If you are the user that they've established is indifferent.
If the ad is an ad, as long as it's the product you're looking for, sure you'll get it as an ad, but you're still getting the product you want. Right? So my perspective is. When you just look at Amazon clicking through pages where you're deliberately looking for ad load and exposure, it feels like a lot.
But I think what Amazon does a great job at, at, at, for their customers in many cases or not, although not all, is when I'm actually looking for something versus just looking for ads. I find it instantly. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the fact that it's an ad, you know, it doesn't bother me unless I need to scroll down.
Past where my search kind of landed to find the product. Right. Um, so I think, I think they've done a good job. And you know, the insider in me thinks that they're dynamically allocating the density of ads based on the propensities user. The [00:34:00] propensity of a user where they've learned about potentially at the session level, maybe bucket you into some segment where.
Let's just take the two of us, for example. Let's just use us as personas. James doesn't like ads. Well, we know that's not true though. And then Ben loves ads. We search for something on Amazon. That same search, I'm almost certain we get a different layout. Yeah, no, absolutely. We actually arrive at the same conversion, right?
Like so. I think if you want to say Amazon has a lots, a lot of ads, yes. But if you take yourself outta the mindset of ad searching for ads and you just go and shop, it's, it's, it's fine. Now, I will say that with a caveat that that doesn't mean that it would be the same experience that I would bring to Chewy.
Um, I do think we have an emphasis on our customers in a way where that type of ad load. Potentially doesn't work for us and doesn't work for other retailers, [00:35:00] but to a point that I'll circle back to that we had much earlier in this conversation, trying to chase Amazon is not a good idea. Yeah. Because what they're probably doing on every single page load is more technology than you can build in two to three years, regardless of how fast you go, because they've had such a headstart.
We'll eventually catch up, but. I'm not looking to say Amazon has something so Chewy should have it. Right, right. Yeah.
James Avery: Yeah. I think it's, it's a funny point that like we kind of have, we have like the reverse of ad blindness. Like we pay, we, we, we probably both because we've been doing this for, you know, decades at this point.
Like we both are looking at it and, and we're, we're overly interested in how many promoted listings there are, how many ads are here, how is this being set up? How are these targeted? Uh, whereas you're right, like I bet if I, if I went, you know. Ask my mom right when she goes on Amazon, how many ads she [00:36:00] notices, she'd probably be like, like, oh, you know, I see one here or there, but Yeah.
But hey, I was looking for this thing and I, I clicked
Ben Johnson: on it
James Avery: and bought it and I was happy.
Ben Johnson: Right. Well, I just think about myself when I need something quick that I need to purchase from Amazon, like a non-PE products and some at Chewy. Um, the, the time it takes me to buy a product is seconds. Right? Yeah.
And, and the ads have not interfered with that. But again, if you're just looking for ads, it's going to feel like a very heavy experience. Um, so that's kind of where I stand, which is, I think Amazon's done a good job. Is that density and ad load right? For Chewy? I think the answer is no. Um, but have they done it well in the way that they're able to get you to buy what you want and drive ad revenue on top?
I think the answer is yes.
James Avery: No, and it's a, it's a very fair point too of thinking about, you know, when you, when you look at it, it's, it's, it's has to be optimized on a per user basis. Yeah. [00:37:00] Of what, what, how does this, how does this user interact with ads? How do they react to ads? You know, how, how confident are they in getting past them or finding what they're looking for?
Or, you know, how or easy are they gonna be confused? Kind of the, the level of sophistication there. But I think that is a great, I mean, that's a great future. Feature we should be building on our side, right? Like, how do we help retailers, you know, dynamically change ad load based on what we know about the user?
Ben Johnson: And it doesn't even need to be likely as sophisticated as what they are doing, right? It can be something where you're just understanding your customer in some basic segments. I've got reactivating customers, I've got churned customers, and if you know a general reason why, maybe you have four layouts instead of one versus one customized for each user.
So I think there are stepping stones for customers or companies to get there. I'm just saying those stepping stones don't necessarily, um, uh, result in the same experience that Amazon has. They're gonna be bespoke and nuanced to [00:38:00] what you learn about your customers and how they behave.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah. So let's say, uh, let's say I, you know, let's say I'm starting a new retail media network, or I just, I just got hired to come into a, a company.
Uh, to build a new retail media network. I've listened to this podcast and I'm like, you know, I really need somebody like Ben. I need a, I need a product lead to come in here and help me design what, what this retail media network's gonna look like. How do you find that person?
Ben Johnson: Yeah. I don't know if I can answer that, because in my case, at the companies I've been at, I've been that person, so I haven't had to find them.
Yeah. But I can't take credit for all of the work that is done here. What I'd say is. Be very deliberate in the expectations you have when you're sourcing candidates. Ensure that you're not looking for people that are only just good on paper, but you're asking the hard questions about how they synthesize ideas, how they deal with a large cross-functional mess that is created when [00:39:00] you're a new org that is very new.
Trying to work with established teams, um, that deliberateness in terms of. Not just saying, oh, they've got 15 years in ad tech, they've been at other media networks. Um, they can answer the basic questions. Let's hire 'em. It's, it's, it's being incredibly deliberate in your interview. And if you're coming from the perspective of, let's say maybe your first hire is a product hire and you are not an ad person at all.
You're the person tasked with bringing on that person. To my point of empathy, see how they're going to be thinking broadly about the business and the things you do in order to craft their own business. Now there's not like a perfect template to this, but I think there's a, a decent formula, which is figure out if they're gonna think 'em about more than just the ads themselves.
Right? Um, because in, in the, uh, you know, I, I've brought this point up with you in the past, not on this call. But we're living in a [00:40:00] world where retail media net, uh, networks are growing. And a huge distinction about the ads in retail from the ads from your old print to digital publishers is it's no longer tertiary content.
It is the content itself for consumption and the ads. People may understand the monetization well, but you need to find that ads person that is going to empathize and care about the business as much because not only are you generating revenue from that click, but you need to create the flywheel to make sure that your customers are happy, the end users as well as the advertisers are happy where they continue to spend more with you.
So, yeah. Um, I think it's, it's, it's a broader approach than just bringing in an ads expert.
James Avery: No, I think it absolutely makes sense and I think it, it is the big difference in where we both started in the more traditional ad space.
Ben Johnson: Yeah.
James Avery: Uh, you know, working with a, a publisher, uh, you know, and I think when you're, when you're at a retailer, it really is, it's all about, you know, making customers happy with [00:41:00] the products they're looking for.
Right? Yeah. And, and ads are, you know, a part of that, but it can't, it can't be separated and say, oh, I just care about the ad revenue. Right. Like, you're part of that bigger ecosystem.
Ben Johnson: No, I, I'd agree with that, that that's, I think that's, that's the right approach, the right thinking. And quite frankly, if the shoppers, in the case of retail are happy and you are serving ads while they're happy, you're doing something right.
Right. Yeah. Your advertisers are gonna be happy of those two other events are happening because it's just gonna come through in performance. Right. So I, I, I think that's the right approach.
James Avery: Awesome. I, Hey, I, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about, uh, product and product in retail media. I think this is gonna be, you know, illuminating for a lot of people.
And so I'm sure, I'm sure you'll get some people reaching out on LinkedIn. Uh, asking you questions and, uh, trying to maybe help, uh, help you help them find somebody like you, uh, for their retail media network.
Ben Johnson: Yeah, no, it's a, it is my pleasure. I mean, pleasure working with you guys [00:42:00] and, uh, talking about this is fun because often we're so, in our own world, at our own retailers, just to kind of abstract and think about it more broadly is.
It's pretty interesting. Yeah. Awesome. Appreciate it, James. Yeah,
James Avery: thank you, Ben. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking Retail Media. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share this show with your network. We'll be back soon with more insights to help you navigate the future of retail media.
See you next time.