3 ways multi-brand companies can boost profit margins with retail media

Katie Morley

Jul 12, 2023

Katie Morley

Jul 12, 2023

We all know profit margins are often razor-thin in the retail market, especially in the eCommerce sector, where additional costs like packing and shipping can further eat into profits. 

However, some retail giants have discovered a secret weapon to boost that all-important bottom line: monetizing customer data through onsite advertising.

Amazon is probably the most famous example of a retail giant that’s mastered the art of leveraging its vast customer database and unparalleled knowledge to offer advertisers targeted advertising opportunities across web, social media, and on its own platform. 

In fact, Amazon’s advertising business accounted for a staggering 5.5% of its revenue in 2021, totaling a whopping $32 billion. This impressive figure contributed to over 75% of Amazon’s overall profit.

The question is, when will other multi-brand retailers take advantage of retail media to generate advertising revenue within their suppliers’ budgets?

Enter Insider, the cross-channel marketing platform offering end-to-end solutions to help retailers monetize their digital assets without major investments or reliance on technical teams. We empower retailers to capitalize on their customer data, personalize advertising campaigns, and drive revenue growth.

Sound too good to be true? We promise it isn’t. Here’s how Insider could help you leverage your multi-brand business to advertisers.

Table of Contents
  1. 3 strategies for kick-starting onsite advertising

  2. Leverage offsite advertising with Architect

  3. Increase ad space profitability with Insider

3 strategies for kick-starting onsite advertising

For a multi-brand retailer, onsite advertising is the most obvious way to share valuable website space with advertisers. But your customers deserve more than generic banners and irrelevant ads. To make website space even more valuable and increase profits, you need personalized, engaging ads.

Here are three ways Insider can help: 

1. Offer engaging advertising space with InStory

Insider’s InStory tool allows online stores to create advertising spaces similar to Instagram stories, capturing the attention of potential advertisers. These spaces provide eye-catching visuals and engaging content and can be divided into themes or products to capture the attention of both potential advertisers and customers.

By strategically placing InStory throughout your website, you can store and create prime real estate for advertisers to showcase their products or promotions.

For example: A popular multi-brand fashion store prioritizes highlighting the latest trends and collaborating with fashion influencers. It offers InStory space to advertisers to display appealing visuals of outfits and accessories. It increases income revenue by an additional 62% as advertisers recognize the value of Insider’s engaging advertising placement.

A fashion brand uses Insider to increase revenue and AOV by offering advertising space to brands via InStory

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“Maximized conversion rates using Insider’s InStory by creating Instagram experiences on our website. All our campaigns look more beautiful, sophisticated, and straight out of an Instagram story thanks to Insider. With InStory, we have been able to make them aware of our products in an engaging manner which has ultimately led to better conversions.”

2. Create advertising banners tailored to your audience 

Your website banners don’t need to be garish, unbranded advertising space. From precise targeting and personalization to real-time updates, adverts on your website should reflect your audience, your advertiser, and your brand.

Insider’s banner management system empowers brands and advertisers to set up campaigns and manipulate materials seamlessly. The feature allows you to create personalized banner messaging to align adverts with your target audience and increase the value of each ad impression. It’s also low-effort in the backend, with a user-friendly interface and a range of tools to easily create, control, and customize banners displayed on the website.

For example: An international multi-brand store uses Insider’s banner management to tailor specific campaigns for different customer segments. It showcases banners promoting luxurious furniture options for high-end shoppers, and budget-friendly options for cost-conscious customers. By personalizing the messaging, the store enhances the relevance and effectiveness of its advertising efforts, leading to a 21% increase in conversions.

3. Enable sponsored search with Eureka

Your website visitors have high expectations for their online experience. Thanks to sites like Amazon and Google, customers expect online stores to anticipate their needs and understand their search terms–no matter how many typos there are.

Eureka is an advanced personalization and recommendation engine that enables online stores to do just that. Using AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze user behavior, preferences, and historical data, multi-brand companies can deliver personalized experiences, product recommendations, and sponsored content to their customers.

For example: An online multi-brand store wants to push its latest products to relevant customers. It uses Eureka to understand customer preferences and recommend sponsored products in line with behaviors and trends. Customers discover more relevant sponsored products, and by enhancing the customer journey to be more convenient and accessible, conversions increased by 28%. 

A fashion brand uses Insider’s Eureka solution for personalized search

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“Eureka transformed our conversion rates. When we first approached Insider, we weren’t even sure how to incorporate sponsored search into our website offering, and we really wanted to be subtle with advertising.  Since rolling it out, our conversions have increased by 18% in just 6 months, which shows how much search matters.”

Leverage offsite advertising with Architect

Insider’s most prominent solution for offsite media advertising is Architect, which enables audience matching for advertisers on external platforms like Google, Facebook, and TikTok. 

The solution allows multi-brand companies to create audience segments based on customer data and share them with advertisers. And the best part? No customer data is shared, so it’s entirely GDPR compliant.

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say a multi-brand company operates a Parapharmacy and wants to target buyers interested in baby products. The brand uses Architect to create an audience segment specifically for this category of buyers. They then share this audience segment with an advertiser like Dodot, a popular baby product brand.

The benefit here is two-fold.

  1.  The multi-brand company charges Dodot for accessing its audience segment, creating a revenue stream for the company. 
  1. The co-branded aspect of the campaign means the multi-brand company can direct traffic back to its website using the advertiser’s budget. This is especially valuable at a time when digital advertising spend is high.

So, how do you do this?

The marketing team of the Parapharmacy build the desired audience segment using Architect by Insider. They then push this audience segment to platforms like Google and Facebook, where the advertiser (Dodot) or their advertising agency activates the audience for a specified period. Importantly, no personal customer data is shared in this process.

Insider’s platform also provides measurement capabilities, allowing the multi-brand company to track and report on the performance of the offsite campaign. This makes it easier to provide reports and charge the advertiser accordingly.

Increase ad space profitability with Insider

Multi-brand retailers can easily use Insider to navigate the complex world of retail media, benefiting from increased revenue, enhanced customer experiences, and strategic brand partnerships. 

Don’t miss the opportunity to leverage your multi-brand business to advertisers and secure your position in the competitive retail landscape. Get started with an Insider demo today and unlock the full potential of retail media for your business.


Katie is an award-winning content marketer with over eight years of experience in content strategy, development, and copywriting. As Global Content Director at Insider, she currently oversees content strategy across 26 regions. Fun fact: Katie read 64 books last year (for which she owes a long commute and two week-long holidays where she spent approximately six hours a day with her nose in a book).