The news: Sam’s Club added three new features to its Member Access Platform (MAP) retail media network to enhance the member experience and drive measurable outcomes for advertisers.

Zoom in: Two of the three features are aimed at building trust and credibility with members to ease the path to purchase.

Expert Video Reviews: Brands can tap Sam’s Club to produce videos that feature relevant experts discussing a product’s benefits and specs. The content both attracts attention as shoppers move through the site and provides additional information that could aid purchase decisions, particularly for bigger-ticket items that typically require more research. The feature is available to MAP advertisers as part of their overall package; Sam’s Club handles the content, expert sourcing, and production.

MAP Influencer Program: Brands now have access to the retailer’s creator network, made up of a vetted community of influencers who are themselves largely Sam’s Club members. By combining creator content with MAP’s first-party data and closed-loop measurement, advertisers can get a clearer sense of how social content is driving sales both in-store and online.

Sam’s Club is also adding tablets to its demo carts to give shoppers the ability to rate products after sampling. The aim is to increase the volume and quality of ratings on product pages while also offering insight into the types of products that interest members and how effectively in-club demos drive sales.

Implications for retail media: Besides the advertising benefits, Sam’s Club’s new features are likely to appeal to brands searching for ways to improve their visibility on AI platforms. Both the expert video reviews and the feedback from its sampling carts are valuable data that can be scraped by crawlers to inform brand and product recommendations.

At the same time, Sam’s Club’s unique ability to match sales to individual members gives its retail media network a significant advantage as advertisers clamor for more accurate ways to measure incrementality and justify spend.

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