Apex.Retail Media

Retail media · Australian market

Five networks.
One set of numbers
that reconcile.

Apex plans, buys, and measures retail media across Woolworths, Coles, Chemist Warehouse, and Amazon. We run the campaigns, and we do the unglamorous part as well: making five sets of reporting comparable, so the media decision underneath them is an actual decision and not a guess.

  • WoolworthsCartology
  • ColesColes 360
  • Chemist WarehouseOnsite retail media
  • Amazon AdsSP · SB · SD
  • Amazon DSPProgrammatic · AMC

Cross-network retail media is harder than the decks suggest

Any agency can turn campaigns on. The work that decides whether the budget was well spent happens after the exports land, and most of it is reconciliation. These are the four problems we spend our time on.

Every network counts differently

The grocery networks attribute against loyalty-card-matched sales. Amazon attributes against its own purchase data. Attribution windows and reporting lags differ by network. Put the raw exports side by side and the totals will not agree, and they are not supposed to. Normalising them before anyone draws a conclusion is the job.

Availability gates everything

Media against a de-ranged or out-of-stock line burns budget with nothing to show. We check ranging and on-shelf availability before we lift bids, not after the period closes.

Two pockets, one plan

Retail media budget and trade spend usually sit with different people inside the business. We plan around that split rather than pretending it is one number.

Return on ad spend is not the whole scoreboard

In grocery, unit velocity and rank against the category often matter more than the return on the last click, because they are what earns the next range review. We report the commercial measure the category is actually judged on, and we say which one we are optimising toward before the period starts, not after.

What we buy, and what that actually involves

Each network has its own inventory, its own data spine, and its own failure modes. Treating them as one channel is the most common and most expensive mistake.

Woolworths

Cartology

Sponsored product and display inventory across the Woolworths site and app, in-store digital, and offsite extension built on Woolworths Rewards audiences.

The live tension is brand defence against incremental reach. Bidding hard on your own brand terms protects the shelf and flatters the return, but it buys customers who were already coming. We split the reporting so both are visible and the trade-off is made on purpose.

  • Search coverage
  • Category conquesting
  • Onsite display
  • In-store digital
  • Offsite extension

Coles

Coles 360

Onsite search and display across the Coles site and app, in-store, and offsite activation against Flybuys segments.

Coles plans run on the promotional calendar, so the media has to be built around the promotional cycle rather than fought against it. Weight goes in ahead of a feature, not on top of one that is already selling through on its own.

  • Promotional cycle planning
  • Search
  • Onsite display
  • Flybuys audiences

Chemist Warehouse

Onsite retail media

Sponsored placements across a retailer whose category mix behaves nothing like grocery.

Health, beauty, and vitamins carry longer consideration and a competitive set that rewards content quality as much as bid level. Price and pack architecture do more work here than they do in a trolley shop, and the creative has to survive a comparison the shopper is definitely making.

  • Sponsored placements
  • Category strategy
  • Content and pack
  • Competitive set

Amazon Ads

Sponsored Products · Brands · Display

Full account build and management across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display.

Keyword and product targeting structure, search term harvesting into and out of exact match, placement-level bid control, and budget pacing against the days that actually convert. We report total advertising cost of sale rather than advertising cost of sale alone, because organic sales lifted by paid media still land in the same profit and loss.

  • Account structure
  • Search term harvesting
  • Placement bidding
  • TACoS reporting
  • Budget pacing

Amazon DSP

Programmatic · Amazon Marketing Cloud

Programmatic display and video on and off Amazon, planned against shopping signals rather than demographics.

We use Amazon Marketing Cloud for the questions the campaign console cannot answer: reach and frequency across the account, path to purchase, and whether the demand-side platform is adding incremental reach over Sponsored Products or re-touching buyers you had already paid for once. That last question changes budget splits more often than any other analysis we run.

  • Audience build
  • On and off Amazon
  • Reach and frequency
  • Incrementality
  • Clean room analysis

How the engagement runs

A predictable operating rhythm, and one reporting format that covers every network so nobody has to hold five schemas in their head.

Weekly optimisation

Bids, budgets, search terms, and pacing. Anything that decays inside a week gets looked at inside a week.

Monthly business review

What moved, why it moved, and what we are changing because of it. Written before the meeting, not narrated during it.

Quarterly plan

Budget split across networks, set against the promotional calendar and the range review cycle rather than the financial quarter alone.

One reporting format

Every network normalised into the same view, with the differences in attribution stated plainly rather than smoothed over.

Who this suits

We are useful to a specific kind of business, and openly not the right call for others. Worth establishing early.

Worth a conversation

  • Selling through two or more of these retailers, where the reconciliation work pays for itself.
  • Established range in at least one major banner, with the availability to support media weight.
  • Someone internally who owns the number, whether that is category, ecommerce, or trade marketing.
  • Willing to be told when spend should come down, which happens more often than the pitch usually admits.

Probably not us

  • Pre-range brands hoping media will earn a listing. It will not. Get ranged first.
  • Single-network accounts at low spend, where a specialist or in-house operator is cheaper and just as good.
  • Anyone who needs a guaranteed return on ad spend quoted before we have seen the account.

Get in touch

Send the account and the question.

Tell us which retailers you are ranged in, roughly what you are spending, and the decision you are actually trying to make. We will come back on whether we can help, including when the answer is no.

Enquiries

info@apexretailmedia.com

Registered in Singapore. Retail media buying and measurement for the Australian market.