Grocery Retail
Ad Operations
Media Planning
230,000 Employees
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When this grocery retail organization approached SEBPO three years ago, they had already experienced the benefits of our team, even if it was indirectly. The client had been working with a large media company that provided campaign trafficking and media planning services through its platform. Behind the scenes, SEBPO supported many of those operations as part of our former partnership with the media company.
The grocery retail client realized we were already executing a portion of their work and were responsible for much of the high-quality, efficient campaign execution. But because our client was directly partnered with this media company at the time, they were overpaying for agency markups and intermediary fees while suffering from the long-term overhead of traditional staffing.
So, their SVP Executive Lead decided it was time to close the gap.
He wanted to partner with SEBPO directly to improve speed to market, transparency, and operational control while reducing costs and dependence on intermediaries. Through our existing partnership with the media company, this SVP had already experienced SEBPO’s deep expertise, timely responsiveness, and unparalleled attention to detail. Because of the well-established trust upfront, he knew we could scale quickly and deliver exceptional results and value with our retail outsourcing services. He also felt that a level of transparency was missing in their existing agency relationships.
As conversations continued into late 2024, we demonstrated our commitment to establishing trusting and transparent relationships by relocating the existing SEBPO Team from the media platform’s account for the retail client to their internal team, at no charge. These initial six ad ops resources enabled the retail client to experience SEBPO’s process optimization and increased workflow speed before committing to a formal agreement.
We understood their need for trust and transparency, so we showed them what we could do first.
Then, we officially entered into a partnership with this client in December 2024, involving 16 ad operations professionals. However, before the go-live date, demand for their media planning services increased significantly. Demonstrating our flexible scalability, we added two SEBPO media planners before our partnership even began, bringing the total to 18 professionals.
Our ability to utilize our agnostic platform and process optimization expertise proved invaluable when this client needed to quickly establish operational continuity during the transition from the media company’s platform to their own in-house retail media network. We leveraged our deep knowledge of the media company’s prior campaigns to seamlessly assume direct operational responsibilities. We provided support for ad trafficking, campaign management, and media planning during this critical period.
The transition was completed seamlessly. We allowed our client to maintain delivery speed and campaign accuracy while keeping their costs low. Their leadership praised our responsiveness, adaptability, and ability to act as natural extensions of their team.
In fact, their Senior Manager of Media Strategy and Planning said, “…the SEBPO Team is amazing. Their knowledge is deep and so incredibly helpful and useful. They’ve been amazing resources for us since we started with them.”
Since the beginning of our partnership, the team has continued to grow. We added three additional SEBPO Professionals, and discussions are currently underway to include two to six more roles for marketing data entry and reconciliation support. Within the last year, this partnership has been described as collaborative, positive, and supportive.
We have contributed to several measurable improvements for this client’s retail media operations. These include:
We’re pleased to share that our partnership with this client has helped reduce FTE costs by approximately 50% or more, while maintaining high service quality. We have also enabled them to eliminate agency markups and intermediary fees, while providing them with access to a more flexible workforce that can expand or contract based on their business needs.
This client’s story is one of true partnership and value-driven results. Our success here is one of the many reasons we were chosen as a finalist for Service Provider of the Year by SSON in February 2025. With SEBPO on their side, this client achieved their initial goals of increasing speed to market, transparency, and operational control, and continues to do so today.
“I’ll just say the SEBPO Team is amazing. Their knowledge is deep and so incredibly helpful and useful. They’ve been amazing resources for us since we started with them.”
– Senior Manager, Media Strategy & Planning
