How Stadium pioneered sports retail media in the Nordics

Leveraging Mirakl Ads, the leading Nordic sports retailer monetized its growing marketplace traffic, empowering sellers and achieving a +90% advertiser retention rate.

As the leading sports retailer in the Nordic region, Stadium has built a loyal following with 203 stores and 4.6 million members.

Following the successful launch of its online marketplace in 2021, Stadium identified a powerful new opportunity: to build a robust retail media program that would serve its partners, enhance the customer experience and create a new, high-margin revenue stream.

The Challenge: Monetize traffic and empower partners without compromising the customer experience

Stadium's marketplace was a proven success, attracting high-intent shoppers and a growing number of third-party sellers.

The next strategic step was to monetize this valuable online traffic. However, Stadium needed to do more than just generate revenue.

Their goal was to launch a sophisticated retail media program that could:

• Create value for partners: Provide first- and third-party brands with powerful tools to boost their visibility and drive sales directly at the digital point of purchase. With a various range of formats covering the full on-site funnel (sponsored products, display and video).
• Enhance the customer journey: Ensure that any advertisements shown were highly relevant and targeted, improving product discovery rather than disrupting the shopping experience.
• Maintain brand control: Retain full control over the look and feel of ad placements to ensure a seamless and on-brand experience for customers across all channels.

The Solution: A scalable, self-service retail media platform powered by Mirakl Ads

To achieve its ambitious goals, Stadium chose Mirakl Ads to launch the first retail media network in the Nordic sports retail sector.

The platform provided a comprehensive, AI-powered solution that met all of Stadium's strategic needs.

With Mirakl Ads, Stadium was able to:

• Launch with speed and scale: The retail media program started in September 2024, quickly expanding from Sweden to Finland and serving ads across product detail pages, search results and category pages.
• Empower advertisers with self-service: A user-friendly, self-service interface allowed both brands and sellers to easily launch and manage campaigns, leading to a 70% adoption rate among top marketplace sellers.
• Deliver relevance with AI: Mirakl's intelligent ad-serving technology ensures that shoppers see the most relevant sponsored products, increasing conversion and improving the overall customer experience.
• Cover the entire acquisition funnel: Deliver a wide range of high-impact awareness and consideration formats, including display and video ads on targeted placements across product categories, cross-categories, and AI-generated keywords for impactful campaigns that cover all relevant queries.

Strategic partnership with sales house experts

To enable a faster launch of their retail media strategy and maximize seller adoption, Stadium decided to entrust their retail media strategy to Mirakl's Sales House.

This dedicated team of retail media experts works closely with retailers to first define their retail media strategy and guide them toward achieving their objectives. Together, they establish clear monetization and seller onboarding targets while implementing new formats and features. The Sales House also actively reaches out to sellers and brands to convince them to invest in retail media opportunities. Through this strategic partnership, Stadium became a pioneer in testing innovative functionalities developed by Mirakl Ads.

Further, the Sales House team drives increased media investments and maximizes platform monetization potential, supported by traffic management professionals who optimize campaigns, deliver transparent performance reports and ensure superior campaign performance for all advertisers.

"Retail media provides the opportunity for brands to get more visibility, meeting both their needs and ours. With Mirakl's tools, we can switch ad placements quickly and adjust across categories, ensuring we meet customer needs without compromising our brand identity." — Tommy Resin, Head of Digital Business, Stadium

The Results: Stadium drives profitability and advertiser success with Mirakl Ads

By partnering with Mirakl, Stadium successfully established itself as a pioneer in the Nordic retail media landscape. The program has delivered significant returns for Stadium, its advertisers and its customers.

Within the first year, the implementation of Mirakl Ads delivered remarkable outcomes, including:

• Double-digit quarterly growth in advertiser investment maintained throughout the first year since launch.
• 7X Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
• 70% adoption rate among top marketplace sellers, proving the platform's ease of use and effectiveness.
• +90% advertiser retention rate, demonstrating the consistent value the platform delivers to Stadium's brand partners.

"Launching retail media with Mirakl Ads is an important step in advancing our digital strategy. As a leader in our category, we see this as an opportunity to provide added value to sellers, advertisers and customers, while promoting our own products." — Marcus Lord, Retail Media Manager, Stadium