Last month, Majid Al Futtaim, introduced a new ad-tech solution to enhance the e-grocery retail shopping experience. This launch made Carrefour the first retailer in the Middle East to introduce targeted advertising technology. Communicate spoke with Nalla Karunanithy, Chief Digital Officer at Majid Al Futtaim Retail to learn more about this new initiative.

What were the reasons behind launching this solution?

Carrefour’s overarching ambition is to drive greater sales for brands while delivering a seamless customer experience. By recognizing the significant added value, advertising technology (Ad Tech) offers, Carrefour became the first retailer in the Middle East to introduce the new technology for e-grocery retail shopping. In doing so, we are taking a significant step towards boosting supplier profitability and increasing customer satisfaction through progressively personalized and recommended product offers across our growing e-commerce platforms.

Could you share more information about the platform?

As part of Majid Al Futtaim’s continued digital transformation, Carrefour now offers a set of premium endemic display ads that connect to and enhance the customer journey. Utilising advanced analytics capabilities, with in-house built technologies, coupled with leading ad technologies such as Google Ad Manager (GAM), Carrefour developed a best-in-class programmatic platform to generate a smooth sales process for suppliers, brands, and their respective agency partners. We use data-driven audience targeting based on machine learning to determine personalization and relevancy for the ads. This development is part of an ambitious roadmap for Carrefour, one that will release new offerings in the coming months, allowing our advertisers a more comprehensive set of channels to engage with our customers.

How does it work?

The seamless programmatic execution delivered by Carrefour provides superior and premium placements, including sponsored listings and immersive display advertisements. In addition, end-to-end tracking, measurement tools, and unique reporting features and metrics give participating suppliers a better understanding of individual consumer interactions and drive greater conversion rates. Carrefour has completed extensive AB testing to understand the full potential of the new technology, and the evidence of its potential is clear in the research findings. So much so, our valued suppliers are already engaging with Carrefour to take advantage of the increased sales that come from utilising Ad Tech.

What kind of technology is used?

Managed by our excellent in-house ad-operations team, Carrefour’s new Ad Tech platform uses machine learning technology to identify individual buying patterns and predict future purchasing decisions. This technology comes with a range of features such as yield management, data management, optimisation tools, security, trafficking capabilities and more. Currently, over 15 household brands have already successfully adopted Carrefour’s Ad Tech solution, including Friesland Campina, Nutella, Beko, La Vache Qui Rit® and Kiri®, achieving a sales uplift of at least 30%.

How does it collect data?

Majid Al Futtaim is committed to responsible data collection. This philosophy extends fully to the new Ad Tech platform, ensuring that the ethical, legal, and privacy-related considerations that come from using data in new and different ways are fully respected. Consumer journey data collected on our in-app and online web channels is handled with strict privacy measures anonymously.

What kind of data points are collected?

We collect various data points only with full consent from the user. Carrefour ensures that data collection is not intrusive and includes basic information such as browsing behaviour, product interest, category interest, brand interest and purchasing pattern per stock-keeping unit (SKU).

Does it use the standard measurement metrics for success? If not, what are the metrics?

Carrefour is focused on customer experience, and this is a primary measurement of progress in all that we do. Ad Tech is no different. We believe you must deliver excellent user experiences, which will provide greater ROI for the supplier or brands using the technology. We understand that what gets measured gets managed. To that end, we proactively measure multiple standard metrics like impressions and clicks, but it is performance metrics like ROAS and sales uplift that we feed back to our clients through our innovative real-time dashboard.

How does the platform differentiate itself from other programmatic service providers in the market?

Carrefour is delivering a best-in-class GAM solution to all its valued suppliers and brands. And while there are similar platforms available, we have partnered with a global industry leader. Thus, by gaining entry to customers on Carrefour platforms, suppliers and brands have access to 53 million quarterly unique web users across all our platforms. With this new Ad Tech platform, our suppliers and brands are set to benefit significantly from more precise audience targeting by integrating tech-forward tools into a single system. The end result is substantially more relevant and accurate ad campaigns, leading to higher revenue for our suppliers and brands.

The Programmatic landscape is no stranger to instances of ad fraud. How do you aim to tackle ad fraud?

Historically, e-commerce users have been shown irrelevant ads. Thanks to the availability of more sophisticated Ad Tech innovations and the commitment of Majid Al Futtaim to deliver the highest quality in digital transformations, Carrefour offers robust and secure digital solutions for its customers and suppliers. Through our new Ad Tech solution, we connect suppliers and brands with our customers effectively and efficiently using the latest state-of-the-art technology. All this is achieved seamlessly while registered and guest customers’ private data is anonymised and stored confidentially at the highest security protocol standard within the Carrefour platform ecosystem.