Retail media networks have attracted investment over the past decade. Major brands leverage them to monetize customer reach and bake in advertising options for brands in their stores. On Monday, Google unveiled its latest push into the space by announcing the closed beta for its own solution with Lowe’s participating as an early partner.

What Google is doing in retail media with Lowe’s

Maria Renz, global head of commerce at Google, speaking at Shoptalk | Photo credit: Digital Commerce 360

Speaking at Shoptalk in Las Vegas, Maria Renz, global head of commerce at Google, touched briefly on the nature of the project in a discussion about artificial intelligence and Google’s ecommerce work.

“This morning, Google announced an off–site retail media solution,” Renz said. “We announced a closed beta in Search Ads 360 where we’re partnering with Lowe’s as one of our first beta partners.”

Lowe’s ranks No. 12 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by web sales. Digital Commerce 360 categorizes Lowe’s as a Hardware & Home Improvement retailer.

The closed beta leverages Google’s Search Ads 360 product — which Google also refers to as SA360 — for offsite retail media campaigns, extending advertisers’ reach to third-party channels that fall outside of a retail media network’s owner.

How Google’s new offering will work

“We’ve developed a way for merchants and brands to work together to reach the right consumers all while keeping shopper information private,” Renz stated.

Google went into further detail in a blog post published that same day.

“We’re also excited to partner with home improvement retailer Lowe’s as one of our early beta partners,” wrote Ewan Fisher, a project manager for SA360 at Google. “Lowe’s is launching its first offsite retail media offering on Google Search and Shopping inventory, using a managed service model today and partnering with SA360 on the journey toward self-service options for their brand partners in the future.”

Fisher described how the experience will look to shoppers. In doing so, he emphasized that data from retailers would not be shared in the process.

“With self-service, retailers will be able to selectively share first-party audiences with their brand partners in a privacy-centric way, without exposing user-level data,” Fished explained. “This lets brands reach high-intent shoppers with relevant ads, increasing performance while respecting consumer privacy.”

The ads shoppers see would ultimately send them to a product detail page on a retailer’s website, at which point products could be purchased.

Google’s retail media ambitions

While the beta is currently closed, Fisher indicated that Google is looking for other retailers to participate. In addition, he noted Google would be adding support for new types of campaigns.

“Going forward, we will be supporting additional campaign types for offsite retail media, including Microsoft campaigns,” he wrote. “We will also build more retail media features unique to SA360 in order to drive greater performance.”

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