Retail media has run out of retailers. The category’s growth has depended on Walmart, Amazon and a shrinking list of grocery chains selling ad space against their own purchase data, and now a bank wants the same treatment for its card swipe data.

What happened

Citigroup unveiled Citi Commerce Media on September 23, a new advertising platform that lets brands reach Citi’s more than 70 million U.S. credit card customers using transaction based insights drawn from the 6.5 billion annual transactions Citi processes across more than 700 spending categories. Brands can place ads across Citi.com and the Citi Mobile app, with closed loop measurement tying spend to results. Citi said initial campaigns produced as much as 5x incremental return on ad spend for one online retailer. “Citi Commerce Media is an important step in advancing Citi’s strategy to create more connected, personalized experiences across our commerce ecosystem,” said Abhinav Anand, Citi’s head of value cards, lending and commerce. The launch follows Citi’s agreement to acquire Kard, a commerce media and rewards platform.

Why it matters

A bank’s transaction ledger is a first-party data asset that no retail media network, including Amazon’s, can match for breadth: it spans every merchant category a customer shops, not just the one retailer’s own storefront. That is the same structural advantage Walmart is leaning on with its own marketplace data, except a card issuer sees the spend a retailer never does, at every merchant, not just its own.

The original insight

Every commerce media network so far has been built by a company that already sold something to the consumer directly. Citi does not sell anything the ad promotes, it only processes the payment, which makes the bank’s incentive to keep the network credible arguably cleaner than a retailer’s incentive to favor its own private label in the same auction. Whether marketers trust a bank with their brand’s placement the way they trust a retailer is the open question, and it echoes the concern this site raised when commerce media revenue started shaping CMO priorities.

Source: Citigroup