The Retail Media Cheat Code for Costco

Using Retail Media to drive sales at Costco is a cheat code.

And remember, Costco can be the path to exit.

I’ve been driving velocity at retail for years, and I’ve gotten to see a lot of exits.  

I’m going to tell you how to win there, but stick around to the end for the best tip of all.  

Now we’ve worked with hundreds of brands to drive velocity.

From Kroger to BJ’s to Whole Foods to Sprouts and more.

But Costco…

Costco is an absolute kingmaker.

Small rotations can become regional.

Regional can become National.

National can become a Core Item.

But this isn’t where you “Hope for the best”.

This is where you make it work.

And retail media is a powerful lever to do that.

Here are the tools you have available to make each type of Costco listing work:

1. Rotations. We use Instacart. All placements, and all Costco dedicated campaigns.  

2. Volume Buys. Again, Instacart. Exact same method as the above.  

3. Dot com only. Costco Media (by way of Criteo).  Again, we use Costco dedicated campaigns.  

4. Core Item (Full Time) Instacart and Costco.  All listings, all targeting methods.  

Pro Tip.

Whatever you do, DO NOT use auto campaigns….

….UNLESS there are a lot of competitive SKU’s.

(Beverages and a couple of other categories MIGHT be an exception.)

Even then, you MUST be checking keyword reports.

Why?

Costco has a narrow SKU set.

You don’t want to advertise on “bacon” if you’re the only bacon in the club.

One keyword will spend 10x what it will on other channels.

You can easily spend a fortune and NOT drive incremental sales.

Bonus Pro Tip.

This works just as well for Sam’s Club or BJ’s.

For Sam’s Club, use self serve, never ever managed.  

The Sam’s Media team will mess up the last tip I gave you, they’ll be running ads for search terms where you’re the only listing in the Club.

For BJ’s, it gets even better.  You can add in DoorDash the same way as Instacart for the Hat Trick.

Conclusion.

If you do this, don’t just turn on the spigot.

Be laser precise with every single keyword.  Club’s have a narrow SKU selection, so you don’t want to be running ads on terms where you have no competition.  

And also, Club is where you give it all you got.

Now if you want the best outcome.

We do this for a lot for brands.

DM me for help.

𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺…

If you were stranded on a desert island…

What three items would you buy at that island’s Costco?

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We drive velocity in Sprouts, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Sam's, COSTCO, and lots of other retailers.

We grow brands on Amazon.