Selling advertising can contributes significantly to growth by providing ecommerce businesses with an additional revenue stream and help to offset the costs of running the business.
It is possible to generate additional income by offering advertising opportunities to other complementary or relevant products on your ecommerce platform. This is especially true for marketplace businesses that have a wide range of brands and options for shoppers to choose from.
Retail media networks
The concept of Retail Media Network (RMN) is becoming more popular, and there is a growing number of tools, providers, and consultants available to assist companies with their advertising opportunities.
Ecommerce businesses can make money from advertising in several ways including display advertising, affiliate ads, sponsored content:, retargeting advertising, in-app advertising and native ads.
By exploring different advertising options and finding the right mix of advertising and ecommerce revenue, businesses can increase their profitability and drive long-term success.
Tools for building a media network
If you are looking to sell advertising on your ecommerce site, there are a number of tools that can help you set up and manage the process.
The most basic one is Google AdSense which has been providing this for many years specially for content sites. Nowadays retail companies are getting into the advertising space more and competing with content sites for eyeballs and attention.
Although AdSense is the most basic form of advertising you can offer so it should be your starting point.
Carefully see how the experience of injecting the ads into your website or app can interfere and actually harm your brand.
Tool and platform options
A starting point for setting up advertising options for ecommerce is Google Ads (previously Google AdWords). As the next step options such as Criteo can provide additional features and controls.
Advertising can and will also take new forms as retailers begin to utilize different mediums such as voice and extended reality including the metaverse.
Meta (previously Facebook) and Microsoft are building out the foundations for the future of the Metaverse, and Apple is introducing their VR headset. We can be sure that advertising will be a key part of revenue generation in the Metaverse, as it is online and in the real world.
Considerations for brands
As a brand you need to decide if you want to invest in advertising on retail sites or only focus on content-focused channels.
There are benefits for brands however it’s important to be clear about the costs. Advertising costs should be carefully tracked and used in margin and ROI calculations.
For example if you are listing your products on the Amazon marketplace you will pay certain fees for access to their customer base. If you also advertise on Amazon you are paying additional fees. These fees have to come from other areas in your business, either moving from another channel such as social media or paid search or from your margins and profitability.
Historically advertising has shown significant potential for revenues for marketplace type businesses where sellers pay for advertising to stand out from the large number of competing sellers.
For single brands or retailers advertising other products on their pages has a real risk of losing the customer to a competitor for good. Advertising becomes a real option if a retailer adds a marketplace side to their business and can bring in a large number of sellers.