Dive Brief:

• Saks has launched a retail media network, which it claims is among the first to come from the luxury category, according to a press release. 
• The Saks Media Networks draws on the online retailer’s first-party shopper data and insights from 435 million annual website visits. The offering initially focuses on sponsored product and on-site display ads. 
• An in-house media team will manage advertiser relationships, helping partners reach campaign goals and track performance and reporting. The rollout follows an infusion of cash into Saks earlier this month.   

Dive Insight:

Saks is a comparative latecomer to retail media — there are dozens of networks running today, many with sophisticated ad tech that has been developed over years — but views luxury as an untapped opportunity. While the retail media sector has become a digital advertising powerhouse, most of the scaled networks are operated by names like Walmart, Target and Amazon that rely on spending from mass-market consumer packaged goods brands. 

Luxury draws on a more niche advertiser pool, and the handful of companies that have stood up retail media networks to date have not left much of an impression. The luxury category has also come under intense pressure amid inflation and global conflict that has roiled once-hot players like Matches Fashion and Farfetch. 

Saks has not been immune to the downturn but recently secured additional financing that could bolster bets like Saks Media Network. Pathlight Capital and Bank of America, two long-time financial supporters, earlier in April provided a cash infusion that aims to help the brand weather luxury’s current storm. Saks in 2021 was split into a standalone e-commerce business that remains affiliated with the brick-and-mortar Saks Fifth Avenue department store. 

Saks Media Network’s ad formats at launch are focused on on-site display and sponsored product placements, common building blocks for fledgling platforms. Some advertisers have already embraced Saks Media Network, including womenswear brand Ramy Brook.

“Saks’ Media Network presented an exciting new avenue to achieve our business goals by increasing our brand’s visibility and driving improvements in both traffic and revenue for Ramy Brook on Saks’ ecommerce platform,” said Founder and Creative Director Ramy Brook Sharp in a statement. 

A major driver of growth for retail media has been the deprecation of third-party cookies, a bedrock of online ad targeting that is now going through a tortured phase-out process marked by several delays. U.S. ad spending on retail media is forecast to hit $81.6 billion by 2025, representing nearly a quarter of the total digital market, according to Advertiser Perceptions. Growth is increasingly coming from off-site programmatic inventory as on-site channels become overly saturated for more mature platforms.