Current Challenges
Today, Provi has a few options for where Display Ads can take the user that showcase a grid of products at the product line item level.
The drawback of these options, however, is that many of the Display Advertisements are featuring a subset of products and aren’t always the entire Supplier’s portfolio, the entire Brand Family, or just a Single Product Line. Suppliers are also paying twice for Advertisements - both for their display ads and the ultimate link the buyer goes to.
The Process
To better understand the challenges, we started looking at doing a thorough discovery keeping our "retailer engagement and conversion" metrics in mind, since eventually, in addition to revenue through ads, it's all about how retailers get the most value out of the Provi marketplace.
My first step involved getting in touch with internal customer support team to get a list of active retailers that we could talk to directly.
We then scheduled interviews with a couple of buyers to understand their decision making process when it comes to how often do they update their drink menu (if restaurants), and if/when they are looking into finding new products, brands, sizes, etc., getting an understanding of what does process might look like.
Sponsored Content Hub
After synthesizing all the insights from research activities, talking to internal stakeholders from AdOps, Supplier Sales teams, etc., I started designing the first iteration of Sponsored Content Hub (SCH). An internal custom landing page and content creation tool that allows the suppliers to select from a list of product lines, entire portfolio, brand, etc., and add custom story telling components like recipes, carousels, title, description, spotlight, and more to curate custom storytelling pages.
* Suppliers are able to curate their content and not have to pay twice for Advertisements - both for their Display ad and the ultimate link the retailer goes to next
* Track Impressions and Clicks to content featured on these new curated pages and track conversions
Outcome
Provi Suppliers have been really excited to be able to get better opportunities to tell a story about their brands, portfolio including regions and to highlight their products and brands effectively bringing in more Ads revenue for the business. All these custom landing pages are built to be searchable by any/all retailers on the platform.
From a retailers perspective, as we continue adding more valuable features like targeted audiences and markets, etc., we would be able to make these pages more organically discoverable, relevant and personalized in the future, all the while doing continuous discovery and research.
- Initiative Duration: 4 weeks (discovery to delivery)
- Team: Lead Product Manager, Devs, QA, Internal AdOps Stakeholders
