Message from the Founder: Launching Pentaleap

‍We set out to reshape the retail media landscape in 2018.

It all began with a deep conviction:

If retailers were at liberty to choose their demand partners, and if we could enable an open, democratic ecosystem for brands to participate, then retail media networks (RMNs) would be better positioned to close the sponsored product gap with Amazon.

We knew that onsite retail media should function more like programmatic advertising. We believed that our solution would disrupt the way the industry operated.

But the market wasn’t ready yet.

When we went to market with our SSP in 2018, it didn’t go exactly as planned. As we sought to build partnerships to propel RMNs in the right direction, we encountered some debilitating roadblocks. At that point, retailers were still working on getting the basics right, like launching sponsored products. With only a few ad networks available, our model struggled due to a lack of demand diversity.

In the meantime…

Our retail media clients had been experiencing issues with sponsored products' performance. We built our Fluid Ad Server so retailers could improve ad relevance and blend sponsored products seamlessly with organic listings — all while keeping their existing demand partners in place. Huge win.

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Fast forward a few years: Onsite retail media revenue has hit a ceiling.

Why? Many well-known retail media networks are operating in a closed ecosystem with legacy technology running their sponsored products and onsite display.

We see more and more retailers launching new media networks. They try to avoid getting stuck in exclusive demand deals, but they don’t have many options.

Fledgling or established, most RMNs are making far less ad revenue than they could or should be.

Everyone is frustrated.

And the gap between Amazon and the rest of the market continues to grow.

It’s time to take a second look at “boring” sponsored products.

That means ditching walled gardens and limited demand. It means giving freedom back to retail media networks, allowing them to work with multiple demand partners at once, rather than feeling locked into a single option.

Pentaleap is here to lead retail media networks towards a more open, efficient ecosystem.

And so far, it’s going great.

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Our retail media platform has had a serious glow-up.

Under our parent brand, Crealytics, our modular retail media platform has been generating amazing onsite monetization results with global retailers since 2018. Over the past few years, we’ve been adding more and more clients to our roster—Staples in North America, Pague Menos in Brazil, and The Home Depot (US). More recently, we’ve begun working with Farmacia San Pablo in Mexico, ICA (Sweden), and The Hut Group (UK).

Today, we are proud to launch Pentaleap: a modular retail media platform that includes:

• Fluid Ad Server with yield management and SSP functionality
• DSP for campaign management with built-in incrementality reporting
• Ready-to-go APIs for those who want to build their own frontend

Our clients are already seeing significant impacts on their onsite retail media revenue.

Retailers who have implemented our modular retail media platform are seeing results like:

• 3x increase in click-through rates
• 30% increase in ROAS
• 90% increase in ad revenue

Typical results from A/B tests against existing solutions for US Retail Media Networks (2022-2024).

With strong traction, increased demand, and client results across five countries, we are thrilled to launch this independent retail media brand and continue our growth trajectory.

Pentaleap: Retail Media Tech You Don’t Hate. Open, Transparent, and Kind.

Our mission is to lead retail media towards an open, frictionless, and efficient ecosystem. Because we believe that:

• Retailers should be free to choose their preferred supply-side partners and integrate with multiple demand partners simultaneously, enhancing both ad relevance and user experience.
• Brands should have easy access to all retail media networks’ ad inventory through their favorite DSP or ad network, without juggling multiple tools.
• Supply-side and demand-side deals should be non-exclusive, allowing the best solutions to succeed and helping to close the gap with Amazon.

Why do we care about building “Retail Media Tech You Don’t Hate”?

The hype around retail media often hides the growing frustrations in the industry. Retailers feel let down by empty promises and face hurdles in meeting goals. UX professionals dislike its impact, and retail media reps are exhausted by constant battles. Brands struggle with limited influence at the point of sale, high costs, and poor sales results.

Our goal is to provide a modular retail media platform that addresses these issues, giving retailers and brands control and flexibility to make the ecosystem more efficient.

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Our Modular Platform Offers Many Ways to Work Together

Build Your Own Front-end with SSP & APIs: The Home Depot uses our SSP, Fluid Ad Server, and Yield Management, along with our APIs to build their own, proprietary frontend. This allows them to run campaigns across different channels, including offsite, while leveraging Pentaleap tech to deliver a seamless user experience and higher advertiser ROI.

Optimize How Your Ads Are Served Via a Leading Ad Network: One of our clients in the pharmacy space uses our SSP to optimize sponsored products' relevancy, via a leading ad network. With Pentaleap handling ad serving, our client improved CTR by 3x while delivering a better advertiser ROAS.

Scale Your RMN with Our Full Stack & Services: Staples has scaled up its retail media network as follows:

• Our SSP allows our client to access network demand from a leading retail media ad network.
• Through our Campaign Manager, Staples accesses our DSP and manages direct demand from their vendors — either as self-service or managed.
• Our DSP has built-in APIs, allowing any provider, such as Pacvue, Skai, or Flywheel, to access ad inventory on Staples.
• All sponsored products (network and direct demand) are optimized for relevancy through the Fluid Ad Server.
• Our sales and ad ops team works as an extension of their merchants to provide sales, media planning, and campaign execution support.

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Your support means the world to us as we unveil this new brand—thank you for joining us on this journey.

Any questions? Reach out: ‍learnmore@pentaleap.com

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Andreas Reiffen

‍CEO, Pentaleap