The news: Albertsons Media Collective debuted an offsite ad capability that allows shoppers to add products, recipes, coupons, or other offers to their shopping carts.

The format is currently available for display ads and shoppable content and will roll out to connected TV (CTV) and social media next year.

The strategy: Albertsons’ new click-to-cart functionality is one of several initiatives aimed at promoting “frictionless commerce,” which is designed to reduce the time between inspiration and purchase.

• The format makes it easier for shoppers to act on their impulses. For example, customers who come across an enticing recipe can add entire shopping lists to their Albertsons carts with a single click—without leaving the page they’re on.
• Albertsons’ recently launched AI shopping assistant is similarly meant to sharply reduce time spent browsing. The tool can carry out actions on shoppers’ behalf, including reordering frequently purchased goods and weekly essentials, generating weekly meal plans and adding the required products to cart, and finding personalized products based on users’ grocery lists.

Our take: A speedier, simpler path to purchase isn’t only useful for shoppers—it’s also a major selling point for consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers as they determine where to allocate their retail media budgets.

• General Mills, which is piloting Albertsons’ new format, is looking for ways to minimize the number of clicks required to add products to carts and to increase the number and type of items shoppers can buy in a single click, the brand’s customer marketing manager Janine Cushman told AdExchanger.
• With plenty of retail media networks to choose from, brands are most likely to spend their ad budgets with those like Albertsons that are committed to meaningfully reducing barriers to online purchases.