Lowe’s retail media network—why brand is moving some departments in-house

Yet completely in-housing the media business is still rare. Many brands still have some external partners, and some are also expanding those relationships. Best Buy, for example, which was an early pioneer of retail media, recently grew its partnership with Criteo.

“There’s always going to be a tension between partnering and going in-house,” said Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst of Insider Intelligence, noting that retailers “don’t want to cough up [retail media] profits especially in an environment where profits are harder and harder to come by as consumer spending gets constrained.”

Of course, taking the business in-house requires additional staff and resources. “We will probably see other retailers experiment with this and some may succeed, but more likely they will run into issues because it’s not a core competency for many of these businesses,” Lipsman added.

After first introducing One Roof Media Network two years ago, Lowe’s has grown it to include over 200 advertisers, all of which are endemic, selling products on the chain’s shelves. One Roof recently expanded into a connected TV, a big growth area for retail media, through a partnership with Yahoo, Subramanian said. Lowe’s is also expanding its social media partnerships and currently works with Pinterest.

“We are building the ecosystem in such a way to deliver a richer commerce experience and drive traffic all back to Lowes.com,” he said.

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