Walgreens increases advertiser data access with new partnership
Walgreens is providing participants in its retail media network with faster, more transparent access to first-party data and analytics.
The pharmacy giant, which in 2020 launched the Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG) retail media network based on its customer insights and first-party data, is now partnering with data collaboration platform LiveRamp.
As a result, Walgreens seeks to enhance measurement of first-party data (information it directly collects from customers) across all advertising channels, including programmatic, connected TV, social, search, and buy- and sell-side platforms.
In addition, using the LiveRamp data “clean room,” Walgreens can enable advertisers to conduct granular campaign measurement across offsite publishers and walled gardens (closed networks such as Google).
"We’re committed to empowering our partners with a transparent, self-service approach that allows them to leverage data on their own terms — with privacy in mind," said Abishake Subramanian, group VP of customer marketing and media monetization at Walgreens. "Our focus is on investing in leading technologies that enhance data portability, audience scalability, and campaign measurability — while executing responsibly to create more meaningful experiences for Walgreens shoppers."
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Walgreens intends to improve WAG’s personalization capabilities, provide advertisers access to data at scale, and deliver real-time campaign performance insights. Expected benefits include:
- Expanded collaboration based on Walgreens’ national customer base, including more than 101 million myWalgreens loyalty members who generate billions of signals daily from online, in-store, and delivery activities.
- Self-service access to syndicated and custom audience creation for more personalized targeting across the customer journey, using Walgreens’ data combined with brands’ desired media channels.
- Activation at greater speed and scale across programmatic, walled garden, connected TV, social, search, and buy- and sell-side platforms.
- Consolidated measurement to optimize the performance of managed and self-service campaigns with more accurate and granular insights.
- Enhanced interoperability, flexibility, and data governance to minimize the movement of data while collaborating with partners.
"LiveRamp and WAG are helping advertisers get more from their media network investment by improving access, activation, and measurement across any partner or platform with speed and scale," said Vihan Sharma, chief revenue officer at LiveRamp. "WAG is already a highly differentiated offering in retail and healthcare that decouples data and media. Advertisers can now further deepen their customer understanding, improve cross-channel performance, and enhance closed-loop measurement to drive ROI."
Based in Deerfield, Ill., Walgreens is the flagship U.S. brand of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., an integrated healthcare, pharmacy and retail company. Walgreens operates approximately 8,500 stores throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
