Costco Wholesale Corporation will use the GrowthLoop Compound Marketing Engine to develop audience efforts for Costco’s retail media network, the technology vendor announced on Aug. 21.
GrowthLoop calls its solution an “agentic AI platform,” listing capabilities such as proposing audiences and journeys, activating campaigns across channels and performing data analysis for the purpose of optimizing campaigns. Agentic artificial intelligence generally refers to software that can use AI to execute tasks autonomously on behalf of users. In this case, the users will be Costco’s retail media team. For Costco, those capabilities can impact how it segments audiences and leverages the first-party member data that it uses to target advertising through its retail media network.
Costco is No. 7 in the Top 2000 Database. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America by their annual ecommerce sales. It’s also the fourth-largest Mass Merchant in the database. Digital Commerce 360 projects that Costco’s total online sales in 2025 will reach $18.87 billion.
Costco web sales by year
How Costco’s retail media network will use GrowthLoop’s platform
Costco’s retail media team will be able to use GrowthLoop’s tools to optimize relevant messaging and content for advertisers looking to reach Costco members, the GrowthLoop announced. In addition, the platform is designed to help marketers iterate, optimize and scale personalized campaigns for those clients. GrowthLoop assesses that it can shorten “months-long marketing cycles to days.”
In an email to Digital Commerce 360, a GrowthLoop representative said the benefits for Costco will mean “increased relevance and impact for advertisers looking to reach specific audiences with tailored messaging across Costco’s customer base.” That will mean not only reading targeted audiences, but also learning from campaigns “in real-time” to “adjust accordingly to drive tangible business growth,” the representative explained.
Retail media networks, which do not necessarily serve primarily as revenue drivers for their owners, often provide other benefits, even as they help retailers to monetize first-party data from their customers. In Costco’s case, the company values multiple outcomes that it works to drive through advertising services.
Retail media’s role at Costco
“We believe that retail media is much more than alternative revenue,” said Mark Williamson, the assistant vice president for retail media at Costco, in a LinkedIn post about the GrowthLoop announcement. Williamson called Costco’s network “a catalyst for driving growth of our core business by reinforcing the value of membership.”
Moreover, he noted five areas of growth where his team can impact growth for Costco. Those include:
- Member relevance and engagement
- Traffic and transactions
- Item sales
- Member loyalty
- Costco’s member base
“We’re incredibly honored to support Costco on its journey to deliver world-class customer experiences,” said Chris O’Neill, GrowthLoop’s CEO. “Costco’s commitment to its members is second to none, and we’re grateful to be part of their continued innovation in retail media and marketing.”
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