# S2 E7 - Troy Townsend - Zitcha S2 E7 - Troy Townsend - Zitcha [00:00:00] [00:00:00] [00:00:21] Tom: Hey Todd, we've been back from, we've been back from Shop Talk for a bit. We actually just had an episode with Costco and I think it was actually a really informative one, which we can use to put in perspective. Who we talked to today Troy Townsend, the CEO of Zitcha. [00:00:38] Todd: Is really an interesting story because their product is about. How do I catalog all my trade offerings, which includes retail media and we talk about the three pillars of retail media in store, online and offline. And you start and I think that's one of the key messages that comes out of Shop Talk, which is [00:01:00] that retail media really belongs as a part of trade online [00:01:07] Tom: I mean we, we heard from Mark Williamson that his opportunity, you can't get around the merchant. The opportunity for the retail media team is to operationalize all the marketing. And that could be the trade marketing, it could be the onsite, it could be the offsite, and it could be the in-store digital media, but it could even be to what we're gonna talk about with Troy. [00:01:28] Tom: The old school stickers, wobblers signage. That's made out of paper still. [00:01:34] Todd: Anyway, learning terms like Wobblers as a non-retail guy is hilarious to me. And learning all these conversations like the [00:01:40] Tom: There's some old school stuff out [00:01:42] Todd: Wobblers and things like that. So it's interesting language to, to learn about. But I think this is, it's fascinating 'cause there's the classic technology I. [00:01:50] Todd: Adoption curve where you get, we've all seen the graph that goes up and the hype and then the post initial hype fad stage. You get this tr disappointment and then the business, builds to a [00:02:00] proper maturity over time. And I think one of the interesting things, as we come outta shop talk is I'm not sure we're seeing this tr disappointment around retail media because what's happening to, from my perspective is it's not that retail media is eating trade. [00:02:13] Todd: It's that trade is really eating retail media or adopting or emerging with it, co-opting it like it's there. You don't have to have a tr disappointment here because trade dollars exist. They're not going away. And you're seeing, conversations around different entities, emerging trade and retail media teams like best. [00:02:28] Todd: We've talked [00:02:29] Tom: I think you may have put out a new tagline for us that we're gonna have to use over and over. Just like Eric Sefer. Everything is an ad network. Trade is eating retail media. I like it. [00:02:39] Todd: And it's a good thing, right? In the sense there's real dollars. And so what, to me, I think it also speaks to the comments we've made in prior episodes where we talk about. Is the real split between retail, media and trade is the split between endemic meaning trade and non-endemic, meaning retail media. [00:02:55] Todd: Retail media doesn't lock non-endemic in a way that you couldn't otherwise do in [00:03:00] times of retail environment and I think that's hugely important. Retailers and their margins are tight. I. And the ability to pull non-endemic dollars in is real huge opportunity for them. And so the, and also there might be what, quote unquote trade opportunities, traditional trade opportunities like that zha by cataloging, identifying and pulling it all into a single kind of view of what is available. [00:03:20] Todd: You might start selling some of those things to non-endemic [00:03:23] Tom: Yeah, I look at it, yeah. I look at it as you have a mix of channels that some of them are good at measurements, some of them are not. You have some things that are, cheaper because they're made of paper, others are made outta screens. If you put all this stuff together holistically. [00:03:40] Tom: You can do a better job of the entire funnel. And to your point, maybe that helps. The capital ones and the travel advertisers and all these other ones who do care about grocery shoppers, club shoppers maybe that helps them understand how the buy works. [00:03:58] Todd: And part of what it [00:04:00] really is every, the quote unquote phrase, everything's an ad network. What it really means is if you have an audience and retailers, do they have human beings, they have identified human beings, they have profiles, profiled audience. There are marketers who wanna reach those people. [00:04:12] Todd: And if you have the ability to connect advertisers or marketers to those people, then you're selling advertising. In some way, shape or form. And I think retailers have are learning that. And I think the other thing that comes out of Shoptalk and you start talking about Zitcha and you start thinking about this catalog approach. I just don't see a self-serve reality in the near term for retail media or trade. I. [00:04:34] Tom: That's something that for me, hit a chord. I'm like, oh, I really like the idea of bringing all of the tactics of trade under one unified front door or one, one unified dashboard. But I have scars from, quotient where I was told. [00:04:51] Tom: when it comes to self-service, let's say in 2022, the market [00:05:00] was really calling for self-service to the point where Forrester, when they did their new market, survey of the retail media DSPs, they were giving the highest marks to DSPs that were saying that self-service was the future. [00:05:15] Tom: And I think that would make sense if. The channels were set. . And so we know there's mobile, we know there's onsite, we know there's offsite. , but even then, we were bringing out of home , into the mix. CTV was around the corner. , and now bringing the digital out of home technology into the store and all the complexity there to me means the. Overall marketing mix is getting more complicated and it's not ready for self-service. [00:05:42] Tom: But the truth was, is that self-serve was not how we unlock retail media because self-serve means. More operational requirements, more heads. [00:05:56] Todd: And I think that the thing about self-serve, having come [00:06:00] from having built A DSP and come from that world, which is self-serve makes sense when the, when it's a commoditized, understood product and offering search is a good example, does great with self-serve that buyers, ad buyers understand how that world works and what it means. [00:06:17] Todd: And our world is not. Retail media world is not that. If we think about the fact we're just beginning to catalog and there's all these offline pieces that are just beginning to get understood, and actually by the way, cataloging, re quote unquote trade into and treating it more like retail media is a great example of growing up and maturing and having trade benefit from the developments of retail media and adopting technologies and platforms to think oh, I could actually catalog my trade offerings really for the first time. [00:06:44] Todd: But without standardization. It's hard for people who aren't familiar to buy things, and so I think just we're at this, we're at the orchestration stage. We're at least cataloging and understanding what the heck I have to offer. But then having teams that can help work with advertisers or marketers or [00:07:00] vendors to help them understand the different offerings and the value, like what's appropriate for when measurements required, what's appropriate for not, what's appropriate for different types of categories that travel versus financial services versus others for non-endemic so I think there's great opportunities here coming out of Shop Talk, which is. Trade and retail media are really one and the same thing. Really, we should be talking about endemic versus non-endemic and trade. Growing up and maturing is a great thing and retailers are gonna be able to rationalize and more professionally manage it. [00:07:30] Todd: And and when you see people helping build retail media, and again, whether it's the products like Zitcha and others, they're cool products and they're gonna solve a problem for retailers just in terms of helping get their hands around. This messiness of trade, like if you talk to most retailers, trade is this, it's a mess. [00:07:46] Todd: It's been handbuilt. It's it's so bespoke. It's just unbelievable. And so moving it in the direction of retail media and more productized, systematized professionally managed and priced [00:08:00] and tracked and packaged. That's great for where this [00:08:04] Tom: Yeah, and I think I think Troy is coming from the Facebook world, so he's probably, he is a little ahead of the market and he's, he's come on guys, we can do this. [00:08:12] Todd: And I think retailers are beginning to realize that they have a, they do have a I think a pile of gold here. I think there absolutely is a pile of gold as you add on retail media to trade and expand it and allow retailers. But by professionalizing trade, I. By leveraging some of learnings in retail media, like how do you package and sell things like the lessons of the online land world there, there's a lot of great learnings about how to sell and package and market these things that I think going into these organizations is really going to supercharge and I'm and retailers are right to be excited about this and they're right that it will lend themselves to make more money and more margin over time. [00:08:46] Todd: And that's, to me the story of trade retail media is about trade growing up and going into the next generation and the 21st century. And I think that's awesome. [00:08:56] Tom: All right, let's get into it. [00:08:58] Tom: todd and I had a bit of a late [00:09:00] night at a casino last night. [00:09:01] Tom: There was a power outage, but we made it. We're still here. [00:09:04] Tom: That's good. [00:09:05] Tom: And we're excited to be here with you, Troy. [00:09:07] Tom: Troy Townsend is the CEO of Zitcha. Your background was initially you've been an entrepreneur your whole career, right? [00:09:14] Troy Townsend: Pretty much, [00:09:15] Troy Townsend: Yeah. Yeah for a good 25 years this [00:09:17] Troy Townsend: is my third business. [00:09:19] Tom: So the first one you told me about, oh, or the formative one that helped you get to Zitcha was helping small businesses [00:09:25] Tom: with their Facebook [00:09:26] Tom: business, [00:09:27] Troy Townsend: Yeah, [00:09:27] Troy Townsend: basically we we automated the process of building [00:09:29] Troy Townsend: ads for big channel partners that brought on SME businesses. Through the journey of Facebook as they went into a an ad business a lot of yellow page businesses, a lot of big publishing businesses turn into big digital agencies. so we basically help them onboard SMEs at scale and then automate the process of building ads for plumbers and HVAC businesses across the world. [00:09:54] Troy Townsend: Yep. [00:09:55] Tom: So what is it that that made you think it was time to move up into the [00:10:00] retailer space? [00:10:01] Troy Townsend: Exiting that business we started to play in, [00:10:04] Troy Townsend: the process of working on big franchise networks. [00:10:06] Troy Townsend: So not only did we work with SMEs, but we worked with big franchise networks. And we started to see structure within the meta environment around how the retailer or the brands worked with the individual advertisers. So when I exited Tiger Pistol meta hit me up and said, Hey there's an opportunity here. [00:10:25] Troy Townsend: We have a, a, a product for retail called collab ads. It gets, it's really well received, but we're looking at how do we scale this thing. [00:10:32] Troy Townsend: and, I'd been working within the Met Ecosystem for 10 [00:10:35] Tom: So [00:10:35] Tom: Yeah they, sold that pretty hard. I remember when I was a quotient, we had initially we tried to do their their capi or, basically trying to, give them our purchase data. [00:10:47] Tom: And they were very excited about that idea. And we were not, and so I, neither were the retailers. And then collaborative ads came along and by that time we were already over Yeah. Hearing how the social networks wanted to work with retailers. So I'd love to hear [00:10:59] Troy Townsend: [00:11:00] So [00:11:00] Troy Townsend: I think the big thing that, that, I saw coming from a world of being really focused on Facebook into the retail ecosystem was, just the inability, four years ago when I started this journey and, did my due diligence is like how can retailers scale in this space? What are the products that they need to bring to market? We saw that the connection and value between, what a Facebook was doing versus what a retailer was doing. Then it's how do we just help connect the dots? [00:11:26] Troy Townsend: And transition retailers from a very manual process to something that can be quite scalable. So my due diligence of just looking at meta as a channel then led into actually going, there's a much bigger play here for the retailers, not just to run, meta as a channel, but also run all of their channels through a single view. [00:11:43] Troy Townsend: So they can maximize the value of, what they're building without. Building a massive headcount business that just affects the margins that they're actually building towards. [00:11:54] Tom: So what I've been hearing, especially here at Shop Talk, is that there's a lot of companies out [00:12:00] there. I came from Quotient, which was the old guard actually met at Triad Guy, so he was the older guard. But the new guard of retail media providers, solution providers like Zitcha are calling themselves the unified front door. [00:12:13] Tom: What does that mean and how does that help a retailer versus what's come before? [00:12:17] Troy Townsend: firstly, I think the unified front door is actually having a view of what I, imagery I have to sell. I think a lot of the, a lot of the retailers we work with are are moving from [00:12:26] Troy Townsend: very siloed structures that they don't have a really clear view of all of the [00:12:30] Troy Townsend: inventory they have to sell and how do they sell it through one spot. So I think [00:12:33] Troy Townsend: firstly from a retailer perspective is having a unified view of all of the inventory, whether it's onsite inventory, offsite inventory, whether it's in-store inventory, being able to see that in one spot is the connection of them being able to see their media business [00:12:48] Troy Townsend: and see the value and what they've got to sell 'em when they've got to sell it. [00:12:51] Troy Townsend: But then, from an advertiser perspective the unified view is the ability to buy across all those channels really simply. The way [00:13:00] we've approached it is everything that comes to market from a retailer can be self-serve. [00:13:05] Troy Townsend: So everything from a, from an end cap to, a banner sponsored product, which is obviously where a lot of vendors play to now, the unlocking of the store more broadly as they're digitizing and so that's the view of having a unified front door. And I think for us it's allowing the retailers to maximize the value of that maximize the yield that they're gonna get outta that. And sell it really eff, efficiently and deliver it efficiently as well. [00:13:31] Todd: How, one of the questions that comes up with retailers is how much of that inventory is actually understood when they start these projects versus how much of your work really is sitting down with retailers understanding, look, you have all this potential value that isn't being unlocked, that if you could just think of it as you could sell it. [00:13:48] Todd: You could generate additional margins and revenue. Obviously a lot of retailers live in thin margins, which is why retail media is so attractive to them. Yeah. And so how much of that is, do you think you're, what you guys are doing in terms of working with retailers in terms of helping them identify and [00:14:00] unlocking new [00:14:01] Troy Townsend: inventory? Yeah, I think even their old inventory getting a view of, what the utilization is. It's just really basic [00:14:07] Tom: Yeah. Let's talk about the old inventory. My favorite, the shelf wobblers. The [00:14:11] Troy Townsend: wobbler. Yeah. I never [00:14:12] Troy Townsend: thought [00:14:12] Todd: the hell is a shelf wobbler? I'm, it's funny. So Tom's the retail guy and I'm the ad tech guy. [00:14:18] Todd: And so it's yesterday we were we learned that the printed coupon sheet at the front of a store is called an Iron Man. [00:14:23] Todd: And I'm like, [00:14:24] Todd: okay, [00:14:25] Tom: I didn't [00:14:25] Tom: even know [00:14:25] Todd: before. know [00:14:25] Tom: one, but [00:14:26] Tom: the [00:14:26] Tom: wall [00:14:26] Todd: shelf wobbler one of my favorite. [00:14:27] Todd: It's like that. [00:14:28] Tom: Flexible piece of plastic. And then the little signage that hangs off it, it [00:14:32] Tom: wobbles. [00:14:33] Troy Townsend: Yeah. Literally the wobbler [00:14:34] Todd: That's too hilarious. The shelf. [00:14:36] Troy Townsend: Yeah. So I never thought I'd be building [00:14:37] Todd: It's a technical term. [00:14:38] Troy Townsend: Yes. [00:14:39] Troy Townsend: Okay. [00:14:39] Troy Townsend: Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:39] Troy Townsend: So I never thought I'd be [00:14:40] Todd: be doing [00:14:40] Troy Townsend: ad Functional, [00:14:41] Troy Townsend: Yeah. Ad tech to deliver shelf wobblers. I think [00:14:43] Troy Townsend: one of the things for us is [00:14:45] Troy Townsend: that visibility [00:14:46] Troy Townsend: for the retailer is really important. Visibility means they actually know what they've sold and what they haven't sold. And we see the trajectory on two, two paths. And one of the things that. [00:14:55] Troy Townsend: That having a unified front door gave us the ability to see [00:15:00] was, for RMNs to really work, they're gonna have there RMN teams that have typically sat within eCom Ecomms being the major driver of RMNs. But now as they're starting to unlock the store, they're unlocking, the merchant and the relationships that the merchants are having on joint business planning and being able to see that long-term view, so what's sold in, through through joint business planning, and then what are the opportunities for the RMN teams to sell up, up and down and across that, that that inventory as well. We believe that for RMNs to have long-term value, those two things need to work really well together. [00:15:34] Troy Townsend: If you've got the, and there's typically friction that sits in that relationship between the merchandise. Merchandising team and the RMN teams because it's like are you selling, just a new form of media that I should be selling within my joint business planning? [00:15:48] Troy Townsend: We believe that unlocking that and being able to see that in one spot is where we actually get the value creation of, what inventory can be sold. If you haven't sold certain things within your joint business planning, how do you then lean on [00:16:00] the retail media team? To then sell that inventory. So you you're not robbing Peter to pay Paul. When I've just got visibility on the bucket of money that, that I'm selling over here in retail media and you not seeing in the merchandise structure, [00:16:12] Todd: one of the questions that, that pops up and you're call it inventory. Inventory, yeah. A inventory is, I think the retailers are trying to figure out how much money can I really make from RMNs? And I think the question that follows that is, okay. Then you're helping them understand here's what you have to sell today. Yeah, here's what already exists and you're helping in unlock that. [00:16:32] Todd: What's a, how do the, how do your clients or customers look at how much inventory they have or helping think about the value of that inventory? Do they have enough? I think one of the big questions is we start looking at, regional retailers, tier two, two or term we wanna use versus national or tier one. [00:16:47] Todd: The, do folks have enough inventory to make RMMs a legitimate viable business? And I think that's one of the questions. We've heard ob, we've heard good stories about regionals having a ton of value they can unlock. But I think you can give an in [00:17:00] perspective as you help people to figure out what do they have to sell and where's it stack in and is it enough and how big of a business should they really be Thinking about what RMNs can deliver. [00:17:07] Troy Townsend: Yeah. [00:17:07] Troy Townsend: I think every retailer there's a certain size of retailer that you've gotta be to build an RMN. I don't think everyone is gonna play in the space, even if you, you've got inventory and you've got the ability to sell it. So I think that's something that we've seen, we've went through the journey of the last few years of us building, we've, helped retailers build RMNs where they've just decided actually this is not gonna work. And turn them off. So I think there is a minimum starting point for the retailers to, to have a fair crack at building a network. [00:17:35] Todd: Is that like a GMV number? [00:17:37] Troy Townsend: Yeah, I think typically that's the way we, that we structure it is the GMV number [00:17:41] Troy Townsend: that, it's are they worth talking to or they're not. And the bigger the GMV number is obviously the better for these networks. So [00:17:47] Todd: is that, what is it, half a billion, $250MM? [00:17:50] Troy Townsend: Yeah. My, [00:17:51] Troy Townsend: my view is it's [00:17:52] Troy Townsend: probably half a billion plus. [00:17:53] Todd: That's [00:17:54] Todd: I think that's been my little finger in the air [00:17:56] Troy Townsend: Yeah. Yeah. That's us. We know that if it drops below that it's gonna be hard, it's gonna [00:18:00] be hard yards. Again, some smaller retailers, [00:18:02] Troy Townsend: it might be the efficiency driver, right? [00:18:04] Troy Townsend: So if it's run through merchandise And I'm running it, $250 million business, rate, You can still get good efficiency gains and how you [00:18:11] Troy Townsend: sell what you sell. So there's still value creation there, we're not gonna be all running out to buy that as part of our national buy, but there, there is definitely value creation for the smaller guys to be able to [00:18:22] Troy Townsend: do something [00:18:22] Troy Townsend: With their current suppliers. Yep. [00:18:24] Troy Townsend: But they're probably not gonna bring in non-endemic money, for [00:18:27] Todd: example. [00:18:27] Tom & Todd Video: Yeah. [00:18:28] Tom: Yeah, I was gonna I think to tease this out a little bit more, there's not a lot, you talk a little bit about how you're gonna have all three, the onsite, the offsite, and potentially even in store. [00:18:40] Tom: And in my opinion, very few, if any, retailers [00:18:43] Tom: are doing all three. Yeah. [00:18:44] Tom: And to put it back on [00:18:46] Troy Townsend: you, [00:18:46] Tom & Todd Video: you, [00:18:47] Tom: why wouldn't it be, even if you are small, if you have a trade program, why couldn't you have some sort of benefit from putting all three legs on the [00:18:54] Tom: stool? [00:18:54] Troy Townsend: Yeah, I, there's a, I agree with you. There will be benefit. But the question that I look [00:19:00] at is for the amount of the the amount of time to stand these things up and the focus on it, right? Is it, is the value creation there? No doubt for us, as a business for us, like we love [00:19:09] Troy Townsend: your tier one, tier two, tier three. If they hit the minimum number. But there'll be a play, outta the box where it's like really simple to onboard, no code, to onboard. [00:19:17] Troy Townsend: And, there'll be a play in that space. There's no doubt [00:19:20] Todd: about [00:19:20] Todd: it. It sounds like it's a timing [00:19:21] Troy Townsend: It's a [00:19:22] Todd: Maturity of the space issue. [00:19:23] Troy Townsend: 100%. Like I think even if you look at the maturity curve of even the tier one retailers, they're still [00:19:29] Todd: sure. Especially in store, [00:19:31] Todd: unbelievably [00:19:32] Troy Townsend: there, there is, [00:19:32] Troy Townsend: so there's so many steps for them to grow, let alone [00:19:36] Troy Townsend: the guys that [00:19:37] Troy Townsend: are a lot [00:19:38] Tom: smaller [00:19:39] Tom: Yeah. [00:19:39] Tom: It's also, it's not I, you don't just go up [00:19:41] Tom: the [00:19:41] Troy Townsend: stairs. No, [00:19:42] Tom: No. You [00:19:42] Tom: go up a couple steps [00:19:43] Tom: and you come be like, oh, I'm gonna go back because I don't like my margin. [00:19:46] Tom: Today. I am gonna go back and change who my partners are and then I'm gonna go back up [00:19:50] Troy Townsend: a step? [00:19:50] Troy Townsend: I think the big [00:19:51] Troy Townsend: thing that I've [00:19:51] Troy Townsend: found really diving into this space is that this is led by the retail, I think there's a lot of media trying to push into the space, but [00:19:58] Troy Townsend: you cannot take this out of the [00:20:00] retail of being the first core part of the second part [00:20:03] Troy Townsend: of media. That's why in, in my view of like, where does this live? [00:20:07] Troy Townsend: Typically buying in from the top down is obviously a, [00:20:09] Troy Townsend: critical thing for retailers to be successful. My view is long term, I think [00:20:13] Troy Townsend: the merchant teams will own this. I just think it's just a natural thing. That's a, [00:20:17] Troy Townsend: it's a core function of retail. And for [00:20:19] Troy Townsend: any, anything to be a core operating process, it needs to be, it needs to be driven by the [00:20:24] Troy Townsend: core structure of [00:20:25] Troy Townsend: what the retail does. [00:20:26] Troy Townsend: And I think. I think we've got a lot of retailers that it sits outside of that. And I think we're starting to see some larger retailers go actually, retail media and merchandise needs to be at the table at the same time, but who owns it? My view is [00:20:38] Troy Townsend: that it probably should be living with the merchant. [00:20:40] Todd: I think that makes a ton of sense. As we've talked about the history of retail media, and given Tom's background in the space, one of the things that, as an outsider I make, I, that's exactly the observation that I look at and go, this just seems like it's the, the newest version of trade marketing and trade dollars. [00:20:55] Todd: And I understand why it might've started elsewhere, but I think it naturally has to be. When you talk [00:21:00] about the three legs onsite, offsite, in store, like a holistic process makes sense. And it's a better way of thinking about it holistically when you're talking to these vendors and even non fine, maybe the non endemic pieces, that's really what RMNs become is that's really just means non endemic dollars. [00:21:16] Todd: But I think anything endemic should be part of A JBP or something like that. And [00:21:21] Todd: it, and what I love about Zha is the idea that, you know. If we look at all the potential inventory and assets we have and actually catalog it in store offsite, onsite, look at holistically, I think people like, it's such an obvious answer when you're hearing your story and your product story, which is, oh, of course I should have a holistic view of all the assets that I can package up and work with my vendors to deliver the best program possible, the most holistic program possible. [00:21:46] Todd: What's funny is we talk to retailers and those teams, they're struggling to, how do I get. A lot of times they're not even getting the trade dollars they want today. So the funny thing is you, it's oh, I, people are like, oh, I've maxed out trade dollars. That's why I'm doing R Men's. A [00:22:00] lot of times actually it's, I'm not even getting the trade dollars I think I want and RMN meaning more digital or other type of opportunities, digital could mean onsite and in store that unlocks just dollars that I'm not getting anyway. [00:22:11] Todd: 'cause it excites the vendors in terms of the types of programs that they can put together that are interesting to them. And I think that's one of the interesting things is if I have a holistic view of the assets, I can do a much better job being creative. As a retailer, packaging something for a [00:22:23] Troy Townsend: I at the end of the day, this is a margin play for the retailer, right? So this whether it's coming from trade dollars, whether it's coming from an RMN team, like this is, this holistically is the way that they try and find margins. So I think that's right. And I think we're starting to see the things that we're starting to see bubble up is that a lot of RMNs have been built in managed service, right? So they and a lot of rms when you listen to they talk very top line numbers. Right? Our growth is top line. I think we're starting to get to the first phase of going, actually we need to start to really look at what's, what drops out the bottom. I've seen a lot of stacks. It's like, how do they actually make money out of this? Because, for everything that they're doing [00:23:00] they're losing margin on it. So I think we're gonna start to see a lot of that. I think we're gonna start to see movement to self-service. [00:23:06] Tom: Yeah. And you mentioned when we talked earlier that you have something like 55% of the networks are selfs. Tell me more about what, [00:23:14] Troy Townsend: what, so a lot of the networks, especially in the networks that have gone from zero to one, the mentality is like, how do I scale a network without a whole heap of heads? [00:23:21] Troy Townsend: From that perspective and this is where the single view really starts to come to be valuable. Yeah. How do you get people to self-serve when they're used to having managed service? Yeah. So self-service through channels like Meta or Google. That muscle's been built by advertisers already They're, Or they're used to buying like that. [00:23:37] Troy Townsend: They're happy to, their teams are really happy to do that. Then they start to move from that learnt muscle into how do I then self-serve across the website? How do I then self-serve across screens or so, so a lot of that is, is very structured around how we would ri build a network out. We sometimes actually start, instead of starting onsite first, we start offsite. So we start to build the mu muscle around the network. [00:24:00] The retail has a really clear view of. We want self-serve as the key driver. And then that's typically how our networks start to [00:24:07] Tom: evolve. And then you get all that ready and you have all the permissions set. Yeah. And you have this great dashboard and then you realize that you've made it to 2010 and. Now there's gonna be generative AI capabilities, there's gonna be, agentic capabilities. Yeah. And you realize you're already behind. So what do you [00:24:28] Troy Townsend: Yeah. I think this is a, we touched on this. [00:24:29] Troy Townsend: I think this is gonna be a really interesting space over the next, few years. As a [00:24:33] Troy Townsend: retailer, if you go to the, I think about the first step is like, how do I transition from a million different spreadsheets into a single source of truth, which is the unified front door? I think what the agent layer is gonna bring into it is the ability for me as the brand to be able to build my agents to be able to buy across. Multiple RMNs at the same time. So this level of worry about aggregation and those sorts of things, I think will start to, to pull back. I think that will be driven through that. But the retailers [00:25:00] themselves need to still be governing, like governance is gonna be a big part of the future. So number one, having all your data structured in the right spot, having the governance of who gets to see what, when do they get to see it? How the margin profile of each of those things will still need to be governed. And that's the thing that we, we're working with a lot of, our retailers to go, right, everything's. All the structures in place to, to allow that next layer of ag to to play [00:25:23] Tom: out. [00:25:23] Tom: Let's go a little deeper there because I don't know if listeners are gonna understand. What would that mean? You started to sound like you were saying. You could use Zitcha to manage across retailers. Is that sort of where you're [00:25:33] Troy Townsend: that's the way this will play in, in, in my view, [00:25:36] Tom & Todd Video: like [00:25:37] Troy Townsend: Aggregation is gonna be a key thing for the advertiser because they're gonna have, in the US at the moment, they've got, over 200 RMNs that's only gonna get bigger. And the ability for that aggregation layer to make the buying experience simple is gonna be a critical thing for growth. So I think the agent layer from, for, from the way I'm looking at it is that. It will give the ability for advertisers to be able to build [00:26:00] their agents around what they're gonna buy and where they're gonna buy. They might build agents for trade. They might build, buy them for specific parts of the buying process. But this will come from them. I know that, from our perspective, we'll help build those as well. But definitely the RMN stack needs to be able to take that in and push it [00:26:16] Tom: add, if I had what, what should be the bleeding edge tech today, 5, 6, 8 years ago? The things I would put that on would be, we have a problem with creative approval. [00:26:26] Tom: You've got the brand, you got the retailer, you got the publisher, potentially. if We care about the publisher. How are we going to make sure this creative? Is that the type [00:26:34] Tom: of [00:26:34] Troy Townsend: thing Yeah, I think there'll be really specific points. [00:26:36] Troy Townsend: So creative's a great one. If I'm Coke and I've run campaigns for the last 20 years how do I start to go right. I want to know what worked here for this specific audience. And then you've got retailers that have also run, campaigns for the last 20 years. How do we connect those dots together? So I think there's gonna be really specific pieces that, that it's gonna create massive value. Creative as a layout within RMNs at the moment, is still untalked [00:27:00] about. Yet in, in any, publisher business, like a meta for example, that's where all the like creative optimization drives you role as numbers, a lot higher than running sort of packed shot on white background. So I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna start to see a lot of that stuff play out just as we're going up the maturity curve. I think ag agentic is at the very top, Like this is something that, you've got two, you've got retail media growth, and you've got AI sort of two massive shifts in the market happening at the same time. [00:27:26] Troy Townsend: So I think it's for retailers to have a view of what that's gonna look [00:27:30] Tom: I'm just happy there's somebody like you who knows. Where the creative best practices are on the social networks can bring that back down to their, 'cause it, it's always embarrassing what the retail product [00:27:41] Troy Townsend: like. It's, and the other thing is like retail products built on a catalog of literally, a packed shop white background. It's how do I automate something that is really, very low down their creativity layer. So I think we're gonna start to see when I talk about creative, you're gonna start to see like product level video. [00:27:57] Troy Townsend: Coming into that product feed. So the ability for [00:28:00] advertisers to, market at a SKU level. I think that's one thing that we are when, we're seeing it because I'm like, I'm running a sponsored product and everything's about SKU and the conversion. But I think where it starts to get pretty exciting is that I'm gonna be able to run marketing if it's on Meta or if it's on YouTube, or if it's on snap. [00:28:16] Troy Townsend: The ability to run that through product level video and then track that down to a conversion Yeah, are you bringing that type of creative [00:28:23] Tom: to the. PDP because I, I've heard from the Digital Shelf Institute, Lauren is saying, if your PDP doesn't have great video on it, people are [00:28:30] Tom: just gonna bounce. [00:28:31] Tom: It's just not so what's your [00:28:33] Troy Townsend: view [00:28:33] Troy Townsend: on it? Yeah, my view is that video is the most engaging form of creativity and everything with that, the, that the retail has at their disposal should be starting to move down that path, whether it's on e-com, whether it's, in [00:28:45] Troy Townsend: the path to purchase. It's something that's gotta be connected to the SKU that I think that's the big thing, creativity at a brand layer, you might run a brand campaign and then you'll run your trade activations that are very SKU, SKU focused. I think we're gonna see marketing start to get [00:29:00] really focused around. The SKU, but how do I bring the brand story into the SKU? [00:29:04] Tom: yeah. And I think that's probably where the AI helps. 'cause otherwise it's at the brand. You [00:29:07] Tom: never [00:29:08] Tom: get the, you don't [00:29:08] Troy Townsend: enough resource to be able to do [00:29:10] Todd: do it. [00:29:10] Todd: But [00:29:10] Tom: you [00:29:10] Tom: would, even if whatever you generated be [00:29:12] Tom: like, [00:29:12] Tom: no, that's [00:29:12] Troy Townsend: not [00:29:12] Troy Townsend: it. Yeah. [00:29:13] Troy Townsend: Yeah. That's true. Yeah. [00:29:16] Todd: It's interesting listening to the conversation around creatives and I think that's one where as. People are building rms, don't necessarily think about that. I'm gonna make money and I run ads. It's like the, under underpants, gns, [00:29:27] [00:29:27] Todd: With the question marks in the middle, this is the question marks in the middle in terms of the operational pieces that'll start coming together. But I think part of that is that retailers have a lot to learn from online publishers in terms of how does ads work? And they, the publishers went through this 20 years ago with the rise of ad networks and digital advertising and one of the things that we've seen is the the rise of. [00:29:46] Todd: Partnerships between publishers and retailers again, best Buy and c That's a good example of one people like to point to and talk about, but I think there's an interesting opportunity for publishers to inform retailers of how this whole ad thing's gonna work. What's your [00:30:00] perspective on it? [00:30:01] Todd: You have this social advertising background, but I don't know if from Atri standpoint, have you guys thought and started making connections or seen connections between retailers and publishers in terms of how they can learn publishers need retailers from a data and an attribution standpoint. Retailers need publishers from, how do you sell advertising, especially non endemics. I think there's some real opportunities there. I'd be curious to your [00:30:19] Troy Townsend: perspective [00:30:19] Troy Townsend: on that. Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity there. I still think there's a lot of learning to be done by the retailers as they go down that path of what publishers they're gonna, they're gonna partner with where they're gonna place their bets. I still think we are a see ball hit ball when it comes to that at the moment, but I definitely think there's a huge upside in that crossover of learning. The maturity curve that I went through with meta for 10 years, you can see this playing out in retail media, all of the pieces that they've gone through to build every part of the playbook. My view of it is that for retailers to get in, really understand that piece there's a lot of value that sits there for how they create their network and what they do. Yeah, it's a, it's probably an untapped resource for a lot of retailers to be [00:31:00] honest. [00:31:01] Tom: I want to thank you for coming and not only bringing the innovation, but also bringing us some new Oz isms or. [00:31:07] Tom: Heaps of heads I'm gonna use. I don't know what else I heard in there, but I'm, when I mine the episode for, I think there were a few other [00:31:13] Troy Townsend: gems [00:31:14] Troy Townsend: Yeah, there's a few that I drop every now [00:31:16] Todd: and [00:31:16] Todd: again. [00:31:16] Tom: Yeah. Very good. Thank you for being on the Middlemen. [00:31:19] Tom: Yeah. That's awesome. [00:31:19] Tom: All right.​ [00:31:20] [00:31:26]