# S2 E12 - Hayden Consultancy - Eleanor Hayden

S2 E12 - Hayden Consultancy - Eleanor Hayden 

[00:00:00] Tom: I do want to know, are the smaller, more like insurgent brands, more amenable to doing retail media with CTV as a component? 

[00:00:09] Eleanor Hayden: I think. 

[00:00:10] Todd: Oh, that is a great reaction. Oh, the eye roll. Talk about a visual, you know, saying a thousand words.  

[00:00:16]  

[00:00:38] Tom: So welcome to the middlemen. 

[00:00:40] Tom: Um, today we are going to talk to Eleanor Hayden. She came to us, , highly recommended from other podcasts that she's been on, and the reason I thought she would be a great guest for us is because she's really a practitioner. She's somebody who is the opposite side of who we've been interviewing for the last year. 

[00:00:57] Tom: We've been interviewing the retailers. We've been [00:01:00] interviewing the tech vendors who's been selling the idea of retail media. We haven't really talked to anybody who's really using it. And on top of that, she's using it for the brands that I use, the Zas and the Skinny Dips and, and all the, all the fun, you know, indie brands. 

[00:01:13] Tom: So for me,, this is a great conversation. I think people will be excited to hear. 

[00:01:18] Todd: Yeah, the practical reality of what is it like to buy retail media? I. This is the first time we're talking to someone who's actually doing it. True hands on keyboard, creating campaigns, managing budgets, trying to drive ROI and can give a real feed on the ground perspective of what the programs we, we were inspiring and hopefully building and, and working on. 

[00:01:41] Todd: And it was a real fascinating experience to hear her perspective and what is the reality , of the ground and, and what is happening in retail media. And to that point, some of the fun observations that kind of come up that are worth pointing out is what's the reality of CTV, for instance, and how attractive is it? 

[00:01:59] Todd: [00:02:00] And you know, I think, uh, Tom, your, your reaction to her reaction was, was pretty amusing. 

[00:02:05] Tom: Yeah, there was some laughs. I mean, it's a bit of a bug bear where I had a tough time pushing on the sell side for retail media because data was expensive, inventory was expensive, but um, it's also just here. Good to hear. And this is similar. It echoes what we heard from, um. Mark Williamson at Costco is like, there are a lot of other good things you need to be doing before you do CTV. There's sampling, there's uh, end caps, there's, and then there's the, the, you know, the meat and potatoes of retail media, like sponsored products. So it's humbling to hear sort of somebody laugh at that. Um, but also I think what's interesting is to hear. , No ai, um, , she's going into these, you know, very self-serve oriented platforms like DoorDash, goPuff, , Kroger, Instacart. Yeah. Kroger, which was built on a similar technology from Koddi. All of those systems, um, although you would think those [00:03:00] self-serve systems would be more automated. Um, she's going in there and finding campaigns haven't been updated in years and, you know, her, uh, immediate impact with the brand is huge because she's able to uncover lots of insights, um, and performance. So I think it's been an eye-opener for me from that perspective. I. 

[00:03:19] Todd: And the, I think the other piece that was interesting is, you know, we're able to talk about what's the reality of, of budgets, and I think there are two things that come out of that, which is we, we've had a few prior conversations and, and I think we made the comment that retail media isn't eating shopper marketing. 

[00:03:36] Todd: Shopper marketing's eating retail media. That's the truth of it. And, and I think she, she talks to, that's the reality that she's seeing is that brands are managing it much more and more holistically. Retail media is not gonna be the separate thing. It's gonna be under this larger umbrella. And, and the good news is, especially for emerging brands, is they're spending heavily into this category. 

[00:03:55] Todd: Two, three, 4% of revenue is, is what they're reinvesting in shopper [00:04:00] and in retail media. And so I think this idea of looking at things holistically. Is part of the future. And then I think she's got some good perspective on that. The good news is she's a huge proponent of retail media. She, the, the combination of shopper plus retail media makes a ton of sense to her. 

[00:04:16] Todd: And managing those dollars in whatever makes the biggest ROI, whichever has the biggest impact are what she's chasing. And, but she's finding it and she's finding value in the, in these dollars getting spent and, and it is delivering the value you would hope for her clients. 

[00:04:30] Tom: Yeah, I don't know if I was worried about pulling back the covers on this, um, but I'm pleasantly surprised that, uh, there's, there's some serious bright spots, um, for brands. And look, I, I'm interested in seeing how indie brands can really punch above their weight. And it looks like this is the kind of, uh, team that's able to do that. 

[00:04:47] Tom: So yeah, let's get into the discussion. 

[00:04:49]  

[00:04:49] Tom: We're here with Eleanor Hayden of Hayden Consulting. She's been working with all the cool brands that I've wanted to hear about. 

[00:04:57] Tom: My wife is a big fan of Skinny Dipped. [00:05:00] I'm a big fan of Graza. I can't get my daughter to like Graza, but I'm excited about their new Frizzle. That's like a two liter thing. I wanna see if that gets to Costco, but basically I'm excited to talk to you because. You have a perspective that is very different from the normal guests we have on the Middlemen podcast because we've been talking to the biggest brands and the, and some of the biggest retailers, and a lot of times they have these big dreams of retail media and they're not really doing that much. 

[00:05:27] Tom: And so I wanted to hear about your background and then we will get into what you're working on for all these great brands. Tell us how it started for you. 'cause you, you have your own consultancy. You work with something like 70 brands. How did you get to where you are? 

[00:05:41] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah, it's crazy. Um, I have worked in CPG my whole career, so started off at Pepsi and sales and then. Um, moved over to Kodiak Cakes, built out shopper marketing department there, and did the same thing at Siete Foods. And after doing that for a while, enough brands were reaching out [00:06:00] saying, Hey, do you wanna be a shopper marketing manager here? 

[00:06:01] Eleanor Hayden: And I was like, maybe I can kinda do my own thing and see how that goes. And so started that in June of 2021 and just have grown from there. Um, our whole business has been referral based, I have yet to cold call mostly because I just. Don't know how. 

[00:06:17] Tom: Are great. Yeah. We're, we're consultants , next. Expedia has been a referral business too. So we're we, we get that. , But you said something about, Hey, do you want to be in shopper marketing? And that's not something that people in kindergarten or first grade talk about, as a career path. 

[00:06:31] Tom: So what is shopper marketing. 

[00:06:35] Eleanor Hayden: shopper marketing in the broadest sense of the term, it's all marketing throughout the shopper's journey, uh, through like the path to purchase, you've probably heard. And then so you think about pretty much any marketing that involves the brand and the retailer together. Is kind what I consider shopper. 

[00:06:53] Eleanor Hayden: And then, , when you think about like how that's executed, the strategy is so different, but between, an emerging brand, a [00:07:00] mid-market, or a strategic. 

[00:07:02] Tom: You talked a little bit about, some of , the brands that you worked for in the past. You talked about it in like 2021, so they were already doing some, some digital media, maybe even some retail media. What were some of those early types of campaigns that you worked on? 

[00:07:16] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah, that's a great question. So when I was at, when I was at Kodiak Cakes, retail media was still super early, at least for emerging. I remember like for Instacart, the e-comm manager was, um, reviewing Instacart bids through his, like Excel sheets going back and forth with the account manager at Instacart. 

[00:07:39] Eleanor Hayden: Like there wasn't even a backend there really. And so that was like my first exposure to, to more of the like Instacart and retail media type programming. But really like, then it was so much more around in-store and there were so much more like flexibility with the retailers to be able to come and bring cool new ideas of, activation types. 

[00:07:58] Eleanor Hayden: Saying, Hey, can we [00:08:00] do a National Flapjack day at one of your Albertsons regions and really blow it out and do some fun in-store campaigns to really help build those super fans. So done a lot of fun things like that, and I think that's starting to come back. I've been seeing some really interesting activations by some different brands and how they're activating at. 

[00:08:18] Eleanor Hayden: The retailer. And I'm like, I know that they brought that to them. So props, props to some of these brands. But then when I moved over to Siete Foods, that's where a lot of my retail media experience started coming into play. , I started working there and about like six months later is when Covid hit. So we were really going in on, all of the retailer grocery, online ordering. 

[00:08:42] Eleanor Hayden: Spent a lot of time working on that and not as much in store at the time, but yeah. 

[00:08:46] Todd: Is it typical for small brands to have a shopper marketing function? Are you typically the first person they're hiring into that role? You're kind of like, oh, my real job now is building out this function at small, [00:09:00] emerging, whether D2C startups or whatever you wanna call 'em. 

[00:09:03] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah, that's a great question. The earlier, of course the business, the, the less shopper marketing function they're already running, right? So like we have some brands that we work with directly with the CEO or, one of like the head of sales, um, on like the smaller brand side all the way up to, you know. 

[00:09:19] Eleanor Hayden: We work with a few, brands that have full shopper teams, um, or omnichannel marketing teams. And we work kind of split with them, being their true hands-on keys partner from a retail media perspective, working together on budget and strategy and. As we're talking about like creative and how we wanna target some of these different placements. 

[00:09:39] Eleanor Hayden: And then, um, of course building out a lot of the shopper marketing strategies with them on like key event calendars and executing at retail. From there, 

[00:09:47] Todd: You're someone who has a lot of more direct experience with retail media. A it's interesting that we've heard it at the largest companies, retail media buyer might be different than the shopper marketing buyer. Um, it's smaller and [00:10:00] emerging brands, obviously you're, it's one in the same function, so I think that's good for those selling or trying to sell into these emerging brands. 

[00:10:06] Todd: You're looking for the shopper marketer, you're looking for Eleanor, two. What's your perspective on the different platforms that you've worked with and ones you like and ones you're like, Ugh, I wish they would fix this or that. Like you mentioned, you, you know, you're an early adopter of Instacart. 

[00:10:20] Todd: Um, even, when it was just, , a product guy spreadsheet, um, was their retail media platform versus today, obviously it's much more evolved, but what's your perspective on the programs? Like who's your, favorite program to buy in and, and why? And what's maybe one that you're like, oh God, if they would, they just fix it. 

[00:10:33] Todd: It's always broken. It's a hard to work with, you know, the other end of the spectrum. 

[00:10:37] Eleanor Hayden: I love this question. Um, I could talk about this all day. Um, so we. 

[00:10:43] Todd: No, no, this is, this is useful because not a lot of people have this experience. Like we've heard some comments around like, some challenges around managed service from Criteo where they don't feel like they get as enough personal intentions as, as they wish. And so I think it's good to get, this is your chance to sort of, you know, praise the ones you, you who deserve it and[00:11:00]  

[00:11:00] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah. 

[00:11:00] Todd: others to do better. 

[00:11:02] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah, even like to quickly address the managed service versus self-serve aspect. There's actually like even in that, um, I've seen some retailers actually provide more data on the self-service platform than they would through managed service. Even though managed service is far more expensive, has a lot more minimums, but there's just , a lot less flexibility when you think about managed service. 

[00:11:25] Eleanor Hayden: And realistically, these account managers on the retailer side. They still work for the retailer, right? At the end of the day, like there's a common interest in mind there where for us, , and other hands-on keys managers, it's like we work for the brand. So. That brand, having the growth and the platform profitability and the new to brand sales, that's in our best interest for them. 

[00:11:47] Eleanor Hayden: We wanna continue to see them grow. So that's my first thought on like managed service versus self-serve. And then when I think about like, which platforms, what I love about different ones, I, I really love working on [00:12:00] Walmart and Target specifically. 

[00:12:03] Todd: That's the first target reference that we've had. Someone say something nice about Target, interesting. 

[00:12:07] Eleanor Hayden: I'll explain. So I think the reason I love working on those two is because we actually have some of the most amazing track records on Walmart and Target for our clients. Some of the most transformative experiences for them. We, you know, we have that sample set of, um. 70 brands that we've worked on. And when I look at our performance, we've been able to on target grow brands' platform profitability by on average of 161% in the very first month of bringing them into our business. 

[00:12:41] Eleanor Hayden: And I think that's because there's actually so many capabilities within the target platform that people completely ignore. When you look at, like Instacart for example, and you look at sponsored search, you're bidding on keyword placements, and then you have a default bid and your default bid that you know, of course is your [00:13:00] default for your keyword placements, but it's also your default for homepage carousel and buy it again, carousel and maybe like some other placements throughout the site. 

[00:13:08] Todd: a much bigger variety. I expect in the default than 

[00:13:11] Eleanor Hayden: Like you can't break it out where with Target you actually can, with Walmart, you can, there's different placements. Actually, I think Walmart's the best on it because Walmart has, I believe it's like six now, different types of placements you can bid in. And amplify, like kind of grow your, your bid, deals. 

[00:13:28] Eleanor Hayden: So there is like so much flexibility that you can do with a Walmart and a Target. So I love working on those and then like. Randomly enough, Kroger, I feel like Kroger is like a relatively simple platform. Like I don't think it's too complex, but something about, I don't know what it is, that there's like a disconnect when clients are working with either other agencies or managing Kroger internally and when they switch to us. 

[00:13:54] Eleanor Hayden: But that's another one that we see some pretty huge growth in that very first month even. And then continued growth by month [00:14:00] three and onwards, of course. But um. I don't know. Something about our strategy. I think really like what we do differently. , One, we don't use any automations or AI to manage our campaigns. 

[00:14:12] Eleanor Hayden: We're completely hands on keys. Business for retail media, and I think that's super important when we're thinking about like, your account manager is also the person that is fully trained hands on keys. So like, they're coming to these calls with you every two weeks and they're hearing you complain about your competitor and say like, ah, like they, you know, did X, Y, Z, and like, we can really understand. 

[00:14:32] Eleanor Hayden: Who we're really trying to get after, or, when they're talking about new partnerships that they're running and we're like, oh, that's a great complimentary placement for a shoppable display ad. Let's add that in. So there's just so much more that we, like more thought that we can put into these campaigns that like an AI or an automation maybe is just not doing yet. 

[00:14:50] Tom: That's a, that's a good point. And I think from our early discussions you were talking about how basically some of these, platforms are bringing you in to actually give them feedback on where [00:15:00] the soft spots are. Right. 

[00:15:02] Eleanor Hayden: Yes. So as they've been building out new platforms or new, capabilities, we've gotten to have lots of conversations with Instacart, DoorDash, um, Koddi, that's the company that goPuff and Kroger used to white label their retail media. We have lots of conversations with them and say like, Hey, you know, Walmart's offering like. 

[00:15:23] Eleanor Hayden: These kinds of placements. I think like that could be a huge revenue opportunity for your retailer as well and giving that contrast for them. 'cause it is, it's all public info and all it can do is help make the businesses better on the retailer side, but also on the CPG side. 

[00:15:38] Tom: I think we talked about how day parting is a big thing. I, you know, if I had heard that you were doing things on a hands-on keyboard fashion, I would've thought, potentially certain types of complexity is off limits because, it's too much to do crazy day-parting or, I mean, we talked about how. 

[00:15:57] Tom: The Coke and Pepsi competition types [00:16:00] of situations where you see one brand doing something and making sure that you're top of mind at the same time. Um, but it's interesting, you're, you're basically saying that you're doing more than what these algorithms would, would offer, right. 

[00:16:12] Eleanor Hayden: Oh, totally. I think like, I think that we're being way more complex and we're also in them a lot more often than I think any other human is. It's like, yes, you could argue that the automations or the AI is ever changing your bids, but. Having like, it's like when was the last time a human actually went into your campaigns and audited it? 

[00:16:31] Eleanor Hayden: Um, and that happens so often. I mean, we see a lot of brands. I was just looking at a client, a prospective client's, Instacart the other day and I was like, you're not even running the same Instacart campaign since 2019. Like, your business hasn't changed at all since then. Um, meanwhile they're paying 15% of ad spend, you know, to be managing that. 

[00:16:52] Eleanor Hayden: I'm like uggghhh 

[00:16:54] Todd: that's, I wonder is, is the point that a lot of these brands feel like the retail media [00:17:00] commitment spend is, duh, I gotta do it anyway. I don't really care, it's just autopilot, like whatever. Um, is that sort of an often attitude that most of the, the vendors have that you're working with? 

[00:17:09] Todd: Like, and hence why they haven't touched it since 2018? I set up, I don't really care. I gotta spend my, whatever percentage of sales I, it, it doesn't matter. 

[00:17:16] Eleanor Hayden: I actually think it's more like misunderstood standards, if that makes sense. I think that these brands see consistent sales coming out of it every month. And when you compare to other media spends, like Facebook ads, Google ads, like you're not seeing. The same kind of ROAS in sales, so they're just like happy with it. 

[00:17:36] Eleanor Hayden: They're like, oh, we give a pretty good roas. It's consistent. We get the same kind of sales. We can kind of depend on it for this. One thing that we see, like a lot of brands come to us is like, like I don't take a plateauing as an answer, so a lot of brands will be like, oh yeah. I mean like we're kind of like, you know, flat month over month. 

[00:17:55] Eleanor Hayden: It's understandable. We're a mid-market brand. We've been around long enough, . And I'm like, absolutely [00:18:00] not. Like has your, did your business grow last year to this year? Like why isn't your retail media sales? Why aren't they matching that? Right? And so I think there's, and especially when you think about like online grocery, right? 

[00:18:13] Eleanor Hayden: Like I saw a stat the other day was like, only 15% of grocery shops are happening online. So it's like there is so much opportunity for growth there. That your retail media should be outpacing what you are doing in, in retail, like that growth? 

[00:18:28] Tom: So, , when I was working on retail media, we were really pushing hard to get people to spend 1% of their, uh, their a 

[00:18:35] Todd: Well, that's still what I hear from 

[00:18:36] Tom: Yeah, right. 

[00:18:37] Todd: 1% is still the 

[00:18:37] Tom: tell me, what are these challenger brands doing? Are they doing more. 

[00:18:41] Eleanor Hayden: That's a good question. Um. I, I have such a hard time answering because when we, when we build out budgets, we build them. From a holistic shopper marketing approach. So we factor in retail media, but we also factor in, in-store and other activations. How [00:19:00] we kinda look at it is we take a look at a brand's projected revenue by retailer, and we say like, let's tier out like your top one and two tier retailers. 

[00:19:09] Eleanor Hayden: Um, what are the big initiatives you have? And so we, we kind of look at like, , two to 4% of projected revenue by retailer for shopper marketing spend, and retail media is inclusive in that. So I will say like it probably in a lot of cases, yeah, more than 1% of that retailer's 

[00:19:24] Todd: Two to four is a lot. 

[00:19:26] Eleanor Hayden: for all shoppers. 

[00:19:27] Eleanor Hayden: So like when we're thinking about like in-store activations and coupons and other kind of like programming, I mean, altogether 

[00:19:35] Todd: Well, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and for merging brands, it makes sense. They'd spend more and invest more. And I, I do, you know what's interesting is I wonder if the retail media, the sell side is, um, thinking as much about emerging brands or, or. Uh, conquesting brands like yours as better targets because you're growing, right? 

[00:19:55] Todd: You're trying to spend more, you're not as optimized. You're, and, and I don't know if they necessarily thinking that way versus focused on the [00:20:00] big vendors who might have just as a percentage of sales, as an absolute dollar amount is much more. So it's interesting to, to get that perspective of no. 

[00:20:07] Todd: Across opera marketing and, and you, and, and a key point, retail media is a subset of shopper or trade, right? I think that's one of the things we, we've made this comment recently that. Early on I think people thought retail media would eat trade and you know, I, I made the comment that trade is actually eating retail media. 

[00:20:24] Todd: And I mean that from a good way, which is, you made a great comment. You're looking at this holistically in store end caps, other placements, and comparing retail media as, as one of the pillars of many pillars that you could be choosing from. And you see, uh, new platforms like Zitcha emerging where they're trying to now catalog. 

[00:20:42] Todd: All the shopper marketing activities inclusive of retail media. So you've got a full catalog of, of opportunities you could be buying from. And it's, you're, you know, what you're saying, speaks to what Zitcha is trying to sell these retailers on. Like, look, you can no longer silo retail media over here and shopper marketing over here. 

[00:20:57] Todd: They're one and the same and the buyer's the same. [00:21:00] And you need to start moving that way and treating that way. And you're kind of saying exactly that, which is, guys, it's one bucket of money. There is no this, this artificial distinction between A and B, you're being silly 'cause I'm evaluating this across all tactics and all options and trying to find the best ROAS or the best, you know, ROI possible across any of the things I could be buying. 

[00:21:22] Eleanor Hayden: I think that happens because shopper marketing sometimes can be seen as such, like an old school coupons. I. Like, okay, dollar off coupon. And it's like, there's so much more to it, especially when we think about for emerging brands. And then the other piece is that retail media is getting all of this attention because all the numbers attached to it, right? 

[00:21:43] Eleanor Hayden: They're like, oh, you know, billions of dollars to this retailer last year in profit from retail media. And it's like, yes, it's because , one kind of. Big chunk of spend that is going to retail media is what? Offsite Trade Desk. DSP, right. And like that [00:22:00] is, you know, nowhere near as profitable for the brands as onsite and like the self-serve. 

[00:22:07] Eleanor Hayden: Um. Products like sponsor products, sponsor brands, shoppable display, onsite display, and like when retail media was first really like coming about, I feel like that onsite is where people were starting and now it's like every vendor partner and their mother is like trying to find a way to call their, what their offering is, retail media. 

[00:22:28] Eleanor Hayden: So that now you're seeing like in in-store digital signage, retail media, DSP, um, you know, and so it's like. All these kind of other tactics being added on to help really, like, I think really they're just trying to maximize their profitability and ride this retail media wave. Um. 

[00:22:46] Tom: I think that's fair. Um, but what, what you said about there in terms of digital signage, we just had Marla Nickel from, uh, grocery TV on the pod and you know, he was basically saying kind of the reverse of what [00:23:00] you were saying, which is, you know, I. People are, are spending on offsite, and yet you're not measuring what's happening in the store. 

[00:23:07] Tom: And so I think the measurement story brings new life to trade. And to Todd's point about trade eating, uh, retail media, it's a good meal or it's a, it's a good idea because by bringing in that measurement, you have the ability to sort of bring trade to life. 'cause it really was kind of seen as old because we didn't know what was happening. 

[00:23:27] Tom: Right. 

[00:23:27] Eleanor Hayden: I actually totally agree with that. Like the reason I, I can tend to be a little bit apprehensive to recommend offsite media to brands is because I, I haven't seen yet. Really great, like close, true closed loop attribution and real understanding. You know, I have had like calls asking, you know, the trade desk, Hey, how are you tracking your in-store sales for Walmart? 

[00:23:55] Eleanor Hayden: What does closed loop attribution mean to you? And I had multiple people at the trade desk be like, [00:24:00] oh yeah, loyalty card data. And I'm like, Walmart doesn't have a loyalty card. Like, where is that? 

[00:24:05] Tom: Yeah. And Walmart also suffers from a lot of cash transactions, things like that. So yeah, I mean, you know, there's, if you're not running the retail media program yourself, you, you have these sort of disconnects. Right. Um, and then there's other areas of disconnect, I think we talked about where you're actually doing in-store media, uh, for some of your brands, but you're doing it through Amazon, DSP, right. 

[00:24:28] Eleanor Hayden: So for Whole Foods, yeah. When we, like we are testing out Whole Foods, has some really cool new, , in-store signage right at the front, so Right when shoppers are in Yeah. So we, we are testing some of that out, , through. Some of our clients like, , DSP partners, but, and I don't mean, sorry, I just wanna rewind a little bit. 

[00:24:49] Eleanor Hayden: I don't mean to like, you know, throw so much shade to like the offsite ads. You know, I think about Target for example, or Kroger with these really strong loyalty programs. I mean, like, I don't, I don't [00:25:00] know a person who doesn't have the Target app on their, a mom who doesn't have the Target app on their phone, I should say. 

[00:25:04] Eleanor Hayden: But, um, parent, I should say. Anyway, um, 

[00:25:09] Todd: have the Target app in my phone, so 

[00:25:10] Eleanor Hayden: there we go. 

[00:25:11] Todd: thing, but yes, but it from an, from an ICP standpoint, you know, I think the, the soccer mom probably is the number one for Target, so it's okay. 

[00:25:19] Eleanor Hayden: Right. And so like I think about, sure if, they're deep linking these offsite ads and a person clicks on the ad and it can actually open to the product and the target app and they can add it to their cart, that I can get behind. What I struggle with is, you know, opening an ESPN article, checking your kind of sports updates and, uh, seeing, you know, a client ad and, and then what. 

[00:25:40] Eleanor Hayden: You wanna tell me that just from them seeing that in the next two weeks if there was a purchase made at Walmart, somehow you're kind of totaling like we're 

[00:25:48] Todd: Oh, view through attribution is something I hated. I, so I ran a DSP or built, ran A DSP for a number of years. Um, that is now owned by, by Outbrain and that view through attribution. I, and [00:26:00] we weren't big fans of it. We, we were a performance, um, based E-S-P-C-P-C bidding and, and what have you and, and view through attribution. 

[00:26:06] Todd: I was always like, are how does anyone believe this is worth anything? Like, I cannot believe this is, and the, interestingly enough, it's kind of funny 'cause Yahoo's DSP has become kind of, uh, hot and trendy. Honestly. They were the worst abusers of youth through attribution. And because you've got all this, this tonnage of media on Yahoo. 

[00:26:25] Todd: 'cause it was super cheap that especially their native units and it boosted their view through retribution, through the roof. And I was like, this is garbage. Like I cannot believe anyone actually believes any of this. So, you know, it's funny, you're like throwing that under the bus. 'cause I totally agree with you. 

[00:26:38] Todd: I always thought that was nuts versus like direct closed group attribution. 

[00:26:42] Tom: I guess we're, we're gonna have to get the, uh, the Kirkland signature DSP, uh, Yahoo guys that we know from the old quotient days onto the pod to let them, let them defend themselves. But 

[00:26:52] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah. Explain their their piece. 

[00:26:54] Todd: Well, yeah, but Yahoo's only one. It was one of many DSPs that Costco supports, so it's just, that was not a big deal, that just [00:27:00] adding multiple it, it has nothing to do. It's not a strategic deal at all. 

[00:27:03] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah. 

[00:27:04] Todd: not much to defend there other than there are some agencies that that prefer Yahoo versus other platforms for other reasons. 

[00:27:10] Tom: Yeah. But to get back to you, Eleanor, as an advocate of the Challenger brands, um, you know about specifically attribution. I. One of the biggest problems was the big brands can handle spending 150 K on a campaign so that they can get incremental roas or I roas. 

[00:27:28] Tom: A lot of times I would think the smaller brands don't have the ability to do that on a single campaign, so they're probably not getting the full benefit of retail media from that perspective. Right. 

[00:27:38] Eleanor Hayden: Are you thinking? Like, are you talking about more offsite? 

[00:27:41] Tom: I mean, that's sort of where that comes from. Um, but you know, you 

[00:27:45] Eleanor Hayden: I don't think that's the case actually. You'd be so surprised. I mean, a lot of the brands that we work with have really healthy budgets. Um, it's not that they can't spend a hundred thousand dollars on the, the program to meet the minimum requirements. I think it's the priorities. [00:28:00] When we think about, at the end of the day, the, the KPIs are very specific. 

[00:28:05] Eleanor Hayden: We need to grow velocities, we need to drive trial of our products. And really grow like the household pen. And that's what we're focused on with these, you know, emerging and mid-market brands. It's like Pepsi's household pen is, you know, giant, uh, they're, they're just trying to kind of keep their sales going and hopefully grow, you know, 1% maybe or whatever their growth goals are. 

[00:28:26] Eleanor Hayden: And I think, the goals are, are completely different. And so when I, when I look at that and we're talking about new to brand and growing velocities and driving trial, it's like. We're looking at the closest to the bottom of the funnel, and how do we do that without always giving a discount? 

[00:28:42] Eleanor Hayden: So of course we have a really strategic, , coupon, coupon strategy, , for like how we recommend, you know, an ibotta versus an aisle versus visor or fetch, , to our clients. And that paired with, having really, , focused, , plans around. , The right product [00:29:00] mix and offer mix and then pairing that with some of what we're doing on retail media to help boost, you know, with Iboa we loved before,, they did this newer kind of syndication with all of their platforms. 

[00:29:12] Eleanor Hayden: We loved when you can syndicate just to walmart.com and we could give a 50 cent offer and that would help boost our relevancy on all of our Walmart. Onsite sponsored search ads. And so it's like ways to, how do we pair some of these like traditional 

[00:29:26] Eleanor Hayden: shopper tactics to help amplify what we're doing on retailmedia and then vice versa.  

[00:29:31] Tom: you're talking about being more relevant so that it was cheaper to get to be the sponsored listing that shows up. That's very interesting. 

[00:29:38] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah. 

[00:29:39] Tom: Very cool. Um, one last question before we, we cut, uh, we cut it because I, I do want to know, are the smaller, more like insurgent brands, more amenable to doing retail media with CTV as a component? 

[00:29:53] Eleanor Hayden: I think. 

[00:29:53] Todd: Oh, that is a great reaction. Oh, the eye roll. Talk about a visual, you know, saying a thousand words. Oh [00:30:00] my, 

[00:30:01] Tom: apple Podcast listeners, you're missing 

[00:30:03] Todd: that is a, that is that. There you go. There's, there's the high, the ESPN highlight of the, uh, conversation. 

[00:30:08] Eleanor Hayden: Oh man, I'm embarrassed. Um. 

[00:30:10] Todd: Oh, no, don't be embarrassed. This is like, this is the important thing because we, we, we do and, and, and, and honestly, I think that as retail media, your point of view is really important. 

[00:30:20] Todd: And other buyers, which is as retail, media is getting built out and the functionality, is getting adopted by shopper marketers like yourself. I don't think your voice as a user is getting through enough, like we're sort of technologists shoving tech down the pipeline. And we're not necessarily getting the feedback from this works. 

[00:30:37] Todd: This doesn't work. This is overhyped like your challenge around offsite attribution and trade desk's. Team being kind of met their ability to really understand what they're selling. And so CTV is all the buzz, at least from a sell side, but maybe from a buy side, I think you're about to tell us. Hmm. 

[00:30:52] Todd: Might need some work. 

[00:30:53] Eleanor Hayden: I think a lot of brands. Most brands, their marketing budgets are really [00:31:00] sitting in like the brand team, um, a lot of their budget until they start bringing in shopper marketing. And then you see that slowly transfer over and everybody's like, now all of a sudden their largest marketing budget is shopper. 

[00:31:09] Eleanor Hayden: . I think when we're talking about connected TV on the brand marketing team, I do think there are a lot of people activating it. And actually if you have some time to check in on, I noticed Once Upon a farm has, they're very like committed to their connected TV strategy. It's been interesting to kind of like watch and follow a little bit, . They're not a client. I don't have like that, you know, close of, of an like, outlook on that. But when I think about retail media connected tv, it's pretty like low on the priority list. 'cause then when I think about like, in order of things that we're, we're activating, it's like of course all the onsite self-serve and then. 

[00:31:48] Eleanor Hayden: If we have a shelf stable product, any of the like, sampling programs that we can get and, and giving out free product, not demos, but like online grocery pickup sampling, things like that. Um, but connected [00:32:00] tv. Yeah, I laugh. I, I guess I laugh a little bit just 'cause I think it's even further, um, in terms of attribution. 

[00:32:07] Eleanor Hayden: So. 

[00:32:08] Todd: And is that, you know, and attribution, getting back to that, how important I, is it as a, you know, is that really what's driving almost everything you're doing in, in what you're spending And when it lacks and you're frustrated it, it doesn't. And so I think that's an important perspective on this. People are building out these programs. 

[00:32:25] Todd: It could be, if it's not attributable.  

[00:32:28] Eleanor Hayden: Yes.  

[00:32:29] Todd: to the cart level. I ain't buying like, I think that's kind of an important to understand is people build out these programs and build out this tech fundamentally that, that that's your need. And if it ain't, ain't there, you're next in line, so to speak. 

[00:32:42] Eleanor Hayden: Yeah, I mean, it takes a lot to convince a brand of, why they need certain tactics or activations. So simple with, with retail media to say, Hey, here's your. Here's your roas. Here's like what your, your ad sales are based off of. Here's your [00:33:00] new to brand. When I think about selling in store, like a lot of brands know that they already understand like the proven, um. Capabilities of in-store because it's been going, it's been done for so long, and we can go check sales data, we can go pull Nielsen's or Kana and say, Hey, look at this like sales lift you got from this. But if we're not seeing, um, sales attribution on, on some of these, it can be really tough to sell into the brand. 

[00:33:24] Eleanor Hayden: And I, I agree. It's tough to sell to me. 

[00:33:27] Tom: Well, it's, you know, you said that if it's Pepsi, it's household penetration. But the one thing I would say, if I had to argue the other side is as a challenger brand, you're trying to get to trial. Um, so you know, everybody potentially could be a new customer. And I see the in-store connection there as, when we talked to the CEO of Thio, he talked about how the packaging has to work really, really hard in the store. 

[00:33:56] Tom: You don't have the reviews, you don't have all the stuff that you have online. And so having [00:34:00] something in store, digital signage or anything, corrugated cardboard or whatever, helps you with that story. Um, I don't know if that's the same with CTV, like it, it helped. I always thought that that would be, there would be a halo for all the small, you know, sponsored search mobile ads offsite. 

[00:34:15] Tom: That the CTV could be the way to get the sight sound in motion in there so that people remember the ad rather than have to sort of like understand a tiny ad. 

[00:34:24] Eleanor Hayden: I think that's the argument that I see like from like the Once Upon a farm example that I mentioned. 

[00:34:29] Tom: yeah. 

[00:34:30] Eleanor Hayden: I think with a lot of other brands, like again, I mean I think the budgets are healthy, but they're not Pepsi budgets, right? And so like once we allocate towards all those bottom of the funnel activities and then, and everything else like CTVs. 

[00:34:44] Eleanor Hayden: Kind of further down the list, so it just doesn't come up 

[00:34:47] Tom: the challenger brands are ready to spend, maybe even spend more, but they're not crazy. 

[00:34:51] Eleanor Hayden: No. Very methodical. Yeah, 

[00:34:55] Tom: Well, thank you for being on the Middleman podcast. This was a great discussion, um, and I [00:35:00] look forward to keep in touch. 

[00:35:01] Eleanor Hayden: same. Thanks for having me.  

[00:35:04] Tom: You are listening to the Middlemen podcast with me, Tom Limongello