Dive Brief:

• Giant Eagle and Wegmans have each linked their retail media platforms to Rippl, a data and media network that creates a single access point for advertising partners working with regional grocers, Amit Gupta, chief operating officer of Rippl’s parent company Cardlytics, said in an interview. 
• The tie-up will help boost the scale of Giant Eagle’s Leap Media Network while allowing it to remain an in-house operation for the grocer. 
• The partnerships come at a time when smaller retailers are seeking ways to scale their retail media networks and obtain better data to compete with larger rivals.

Dive Insight:

The move by Giant Eagle and Wegmans to connect their platforms with Rippl is the latest example of the grocery industry continuing to consolidate and establish standardized metrics to better utilize retail media capabilities. 

Regional grocers lack the scale of national competitors — a challenge Giant Eagle aims to address with its Rippl partnership, Joell Robinson, a senior director for the grocer who leads Leap’s sales and account management, said in an interview. She also noted that this partnership meets CPGs’ desires to have access to multiple regional grocers. 

Robinson added that Leap will lean on Rippl to help meld its closed-loop reporting with the technology company’s standardized, first-party data metrics. 

Wegmans did not provide a statement expanding on its partnership with Rippl. 

Rippl is a product line of Bridg, which also powers Rippl’s capabilities, according to Gupta, who also serves as Bridg’s general manager. While Bridg provides scale capabilities and consumer data-collecting technology, it is geared toward larger, national retailers with retail media networks. Rippl’s role is to consolidate smaller retailers’ retail media platforms while still providing them with large-scale capabilities. 

Gupta noted that Rippl was designed specifically for regional grocers as well as convenience store chains. 

Rippl currently gives advertisers access to 70 million anonymized shopper profiles, and around 15% of those profiles belong to Giant Eagle shoppers, according to a spokesperson. 

The “identity resolution capabilities” Rippl offers its retail partners and their advertisers include shopper profiles with over 140 attributes, transaction data, shopper behavior insights and basket affinities, Gupta said. He noted that CPGs and advertisers can use this information to present ads to curated audiences. 

According to Robinson, Rippl’s privacy policy as well as its technology capabilities were primary reasons that Giant Eagle decided to link Leap to the platform. Rippl offers Giant Eagle the opportunity for additional offsite activation with its scaled multi-retailer network, while Leap runs point on on-site and in-store inventory, she said.

“They are going to be a technology company and we are going to be a grocer at the end of the day,” Robinson said.

Clarification: This article was updated to clarify Rippl’s involvement with Giant Eagle’s Leap retail media network.