Dollar General Media Network Uses LiveRamp To Connect With Customers

Dollar General
(Image credit: Dollar General)

At a time when retail networks are growing in dollar volume and sophistication, Dollar General worked with LiveRamp to strengthen its connection with its customers, particularly the 4 million active uses of the Dollar General app..

With its near 19,000 stores in the U.S. Dollar General has first party data on its customers, many of who live in remote, rural areas not well serviced by broadband, making them difficult to reach with omnichannel marketing campaigns.

“For nearly 85 years, Dollar General has put the customer at the center of everything we do — the better we know our customer, the better we can serve them, the more time and money we can save them,” said Chad Fox, VP, Chief Marketing Officer at Dollar General. “Our first-party data offers a modern and comprehensive level of this customer centricity — powering more relevant and personalized digital experiences for our customers delivered by both DG and its vendors.”

The retailer launched the Dollar General Media Network in 2018, It decided to upgrade its technical operations bringing in LIveRamp to increase match rates using ethically sourced consumer offline data.

“LiveRamp’s commitment to flexible collaboration, wherever data may live, was an ideal match for Dollar General’s vision to create access to an entirely new subset of individuals. Together, we’ve been able to transform customer experiences for more individuals by delivering the rich, granular insights partners crave from their partners,”  said Vihan Sharma, LiveRamp’s executive of Global Revenue, “DGMN is a true testament to retail media innovation and the flywheel effect of data collaboration.” 

Also Read: LiveRamp Launches Facility For Secure Data Collaboration

LiveRamp IDs enabled the Dollar General Media Network to work with The Trade Desk and Google Ad Manager.

“We always talk about how no one knows our customer as well as we do, so we should have great technology to deliver against it,” said Fox. “We needed resources, support, collaboration, and partnership. LiveRamp was able to check all those boxes for us.”

Dollar General is now better able to connect with customers for itself and for the marketers whose goods are sold in Dollar General stories through paid media.

Among the marketers working with the Dollar General Media Nework include Pepsi, Hershey’s Unilever, General Mills and Colgate-Palmolive.

Those brands have been able to build awareness among Dollar General shoppers and have seen an incremental return on ad spending, Dollar General said.

“Sharing data in a privacy-first and respectful manner enables unique combinations of attributes for segment insights, audience creation, and targeting that drives relevancy, engagement, and conversion—a win for our customers, a win for our vendors, and a win for DG,” said Fox. ■

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.