Grocery marketers struggle as campaign volumes surge

CHILI publish has released research suggesting grocery retail marketing operations are struggling to cope with the scale of campaign production. The study surveyed 256 grocery retail marketing leaders across five countries.

The findings point to a sharp rise in the number of campaign assets created each month across digital and in-store channels. Many teams now produce hundreds of assets, and in some cases thousands, as retailers support always-on promotions across stores, apps, email, digital advertising and physical displays.

According to the report, 57% of campaigns generate between 50 and 200 variants, while 21% produce up to 500 variants per campaign. More than half of teams run between three and 10 campaigns a month, and 4% run more than 10. Nearly half of campaigns cover more than 500 store locations.

The research argues that output has reached a level more commonly associated with industrial production, while the systems many marketing teams use have not kept pace. Retailers still rely on fragmented workflows, manual approvals and separate tools across teams and external suppliers.

Operational strain

This gap between volume and process is showing up in day-to-day execution. More than half of respondents, 55%, said they rely on parallel production tracks across teams and vendors, while only 42% described their production set-up as mostly automated.

The study suggests many organisations remain dependent on partly manual processes with multiple sign-off stages. At higher volumes, those steps can slow campaign delivery and increase the risk of errors, particularly when promotions are tailored for different stores, regions or countries.

Campaign complexity is also increasing. More than 80% of campaigns now span both digital and in-store channels, and 34% of retailers run campaigns across multiple countries at the same time. That creates additional demands around localisation, language, pricing and compliance with local rules.

The pressure on internal processes is becoming harder to contain. The report found that 55% of marketing leaders frequently see inconsistent application of brand guidelines as local teams take approvals into their own hands to speed up work.

Revenue impact

The financial consequences are becoming clearer. Six in 10 respondents said failures directly affect revenue through missed promotional windows, with most incidents costing between €10,000 and €50,000 and some costing more.

Missed launch windows can carry a wider commercial cost for grocery retailers because promotions are often tied to brand-funded campaigns and retail media activity. Delays or inaccuracies can undermine those relationships and affect future promotional income.

The survey covered grocery retail leaders working in brand, marketing, operations and procurement roles in the UK, US, France, Germany and the Netherlands. It focused on those directly involved in promotional production across in-store, print and digital channels.

Kevin Goeminne, Chief Executive Officer of CHILI publish, said the nature of retail marketing work has changed. "This isn't campaign marketing as we've traditionally known it. It's continuous production at industrial scale. Retail marketing teams are now operating like content factories," he said.

The report links the rise in output to several market shifts, including the growth of retail media, the spread of multichannel promotion and the increased use of personalised and localised marketing, which requires multiple versions of the same message for different audiences, locations and formats.

Retail media has become a particularly important factor because promotions are increasingly sold and measured as advertising inventory. That has put greater pressure on retailers to deliver campaigns accurately and on time, while also producing enough variants to meet the needs of suppliers, regions and stores.

Automation focus

Against that backdrop, the research points to automation as the main focus for teams trying to manage larger campaign volumes. Nearly three quarters of respondents said they had explored AI-driven content generation, while two thirds had piloted workflow automation.

Even so, the findings suggest experimentation has not yet translated into a consistent operating model across much of the sector. The report argues that speed alone is not enough if the production process still allows workarounds, delays or errors.

Goeminne said the main issue was process reliability rather than output alone. "Automation is emerging as the only viable path forward. At manufacturing scale, retail promotions require the same level of reliability as financial or supply chain systems. That means deterministic, governed and repeatable processes with zero tolerance for error.

"The good news is that nearly three quarters of our respondents have already explored AI-driven content generation and two thirds have piloted workflow automation. However, automation is not about speed or efficiency alone. It is about ensuring that every promotion is executed accurately, consistently and on time, across every channel and market. Doing this takes a reliable solution where there is no 'silent workaround' to ensure 100% on-time, accurate delivery."