Coty is piloting a retail-ranking tool with its media agency to inform digital ad buys

“E-commerce is a strategic priority for Coty and where we've been working with Zenith is to find synergies between what we've been doing on the media side and then within the retail side,” said Jamie Parker, e-commerce director at Coty's Luxury Division.

Within the fragrances category alone for Coty, it has seen online sales rise 17%, versus flat sales offline.

“So, we want to make sure we're sending the right traffic to the right places in brand approved ways.”

The tool, then, analyses a broad range of key UK and international retailers, rating how well their online commerce platforms perform as sales and marketing vehicles for brands.

It scores retailers on over 20 different key variables, including web page speed, mobile readiness, checkout ease, share of category search and media solutions. The tool also factors in the different terms of the commercial relationships it has with each of the 28 retailers on its books. Coty is then able to judge which retailer each brand should drive its paid media traffic to and where they should invest their digital trade budgets to drive both category and profitable growth.

It’s being piloted in the UK with a view to rolling it out globally.

“It's too soon to be able to talk about the quantifiable benefits. But already we've been able to acknowledge the value of the media we have and then share that with partners so it gives us an opportunity to explain to them why we're sending them the traffic It's a shift away from just awareness driving to performance diving,” continued Parker.

“Without naming any, what we’ve already seen is that some of the less household name retailers are coming out very high [in the ranking] There isn't a direct relationship between the size of the retailer and the score they are achieving.”

Cassandra Stevens, global commerce director at Zenith, added: “As retailers essentially become digital publishers, it is important to hold them accountable to the same standards as digital media. We are increasingly able to place the level of scrutiny on retailers and retail media that we do with traditional publishers. This a clear step forward in our bid to break down the silos between sales and marketing to help drive growth for brands.”

Since taking on the global commerce director role last year, Cassandra has worked with Publicis Media’s Commerce Practice to develop Zenith’s commerce capabilities and solutions for clients.

The agency has recently taken on three more people to help develop commerce solutions and created a dedicated hub to service global and UK clients. Stuart Johnston has joined as global commerce associate director while Victoria Delaney has moved into the team as global commerce associate director alongside Emilia Caccamo who joined the team as a dedicated commerce activation senior executive.