Luxury department stores business Selfridges and commerce media company Criteo have announced a major new partnership “to help brands better connect with [Selfridges’] exclusive customer base and enhance the product discovery experience”. 

It’s a two-year deal that sees Criteo enabling sponsored products across Selfridges’ online properties for the very first time.  It’s also powering the onsite display for the retailer, “giving shoppers a fully personalised experience and creating opportunities for Selfridges’ brand partners to access retail networks”.   

Nicole Kivel, MD enterprise at Criteo, said: “Often retail media is discussed purely as a performance tool, but what we’re focused on with Selfridges is how retail media can add value to the luxury customer experience by delivering precisely what the customer is looking for, in the kind of environment where they’re looking to make that purchase. We’re delighted to be working with Selfridges to deploy media in a way that elevates brands and delights customers with new ways to discover what they love.”

We’re told that with access to Selfridges’ luxury shopper audiences, “brand partners will be able to create meaningful, personalised full-funnel customer engagements that contribute towards a compelling on-site experience for all shoppers”.

The sponsored products are complementary to Selfridges’ onsite display capabilities, which is now also powered by Criteo “to provide a broader online funnel offering to Selfridges’ customers”. 

Criteo said that “through rich first-party customer data, brand partners can ensure their products reach the right customers when and where they are actively looking to purchase through premium placements across awareness, consideration and conversion formats. Together with Criteo’s measurement capabilities, brand partners can achieve their specific goals, supported by comprehensive reporting and insights in near real-time”.

It’s an undeniably interesting move for Selfridges with its digital director Charlotte Burrows saying: “Providing an extraordinary experience for our customers sits at the heart of everything we do, and utilising retail media will enable us to deliver them a more seamless and personalised online experience. We also look forward to creating opportunities for our brand partners to amplify their offering through truly bespoke audience targeting.”