Casey’s prepares rollout of retail media network

Casey’s General Stores will soon offer CPG brands direct promotional access to its customers.

The Midwest convenience store retailer is launching its own retail media network, called Casey’s Access, in early 2023. The network will enable CPG companies and other vendor partners to leverage Casey’s customer data to connect audiences with relevant promotions, offers, and marketing content across digital and in-store touchpoints.

Participating advertisers will be able to target customers visiting Casey’s more than 2,400 stores located across 16 states, with in-store, online, and at-pump opportunities for consumers to transact. Content will include onsite owned media, in-store media, and offsite paid media leveraging first-party data. Casey’s will also provide campaign measurement and analytics to enable ongoing marketing optimization. 

The company has selected Citrus Ad to build and launch its in-house, retail media network. The network builds on previous initiatives Casey’s has implemented to open customer data to advertisers, including a collaboration portal it launched with IRI to provide CPG partners with access to transaction and loyalty data; as well as the deployment of the Salesforce Customer Data Platform solution to offer a unified view of shoppers.

Retail media networks come to convenience stores

Retail media networks emerged from the grocery sector, which remains the primary vertical where they are found. However, a growing number of retailers in verticals beyond grocery are also joining the trend.

In one recent example, digital department store retailer Lord & Taylor launched its own retail media network, using InMobi Commerce technology to provide partner brands and ad agencies with a full-funnel retail media platform, including shoppable videos, designed to move immersive product discovery from third-party social platforms back to its owned channels.

With an inventory heavily reliant on CPG products, convenience would seem a logical retail vertical for media networks, but so far not many convenience store chains have entered the space. 7-Eleven did recently introduce a retail media network called Gulp Media Network.

In addition, on-demand delivery platforms Instacart, DoorDash, and GoPuff, which all have access to inventory from partner convenience retailers, offer some type of media network service to advertisers.

“We are excited to launch Casey’s Access and work with partners as we evolve our consumer messaging to omnichannel marketing that deepens the relationships with our customers,” said Art Sebastian VP of digital experiences, Casey’s General Stores. “Our program will harness the power of first-party data and our API-led technology stack to leverage new capabilities and generate value. Casey’s holds a unique position in retail media because we own and operate all our locations and attract a guest that chooses us for typical convenience store offerings as well as our one-of-a-kind, handmade pizza and prepared food business.”