Kroger Precision Marketing: three product families, 62 million households, and the parts a brand that does not sell in Kroger can still buy
KPM is not only a media network. Its own site sells insights, media and incentives as separate families, and the one most buyers ask about turns out to be available without a single product on the shelf.
Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 20 October 2026
Kroger Precision Marketing is Kroger's retail media and shopper insights business, branded on its own site as Kroger Precision Marketing powered by 84.51 degrees, and it sells three families of product rather than one: insights, media and incentives. Its own pages state that every solution is informed by first-party purchase data from more than 62 million households, and its self-service front door is the Kroger Ad Platform, which it abbreviates to KAP. The question most buyers arrive with, whether a brand that is not sold in Kroger stores can use any of it, is answered directly in its FAQ: yes, for the offsite audiences. Everything below was read from krogerprecisionmarketing.com on 20 October 2026.
The three families, as the site names them
The about page groups the offer under three headings, and the grouping matters because the buying conversation, the budget and the measurement are different in each.
| Family | What the site says it is for | What sits inside it |
|---|---|---|
| Precision Insights | Finding growth opportunities and understanding consumer behaviour and early category trends | 84.51 degrees Collaborative Cloud, 84.51 degrees Stratum, consumer research |
| Precision Moments | Reaching and inspiring consumers wherever they are spending time, on Kroger-owned media, incentives and offsite properties | Onsite search and display, offsite advertising, connected TV and audio, onsite brand activations, social and influencer, email and push notifications |
| Precision Measurement | Closing the loop between media exposure and store sales so media can be optimised | Incrementality and closed-loop attribution, applied across the media above |
Alongside the media list, the FAQ describes a loyalty and incentive portfolio as a distinct thing: Loyal Customer Mailers and MyMagazine as loyalty vehicles, and Targeted Digital Coupons, New at Kroger offers and custom direct mail as incentive programmes, aimed at objectives from trial and adoption through to retention.
What the data is, in the site's own terms
The FAQ page is unusually plain about the mechanism, so it is worth quoting rather than summarising. Retail media, it says, "leverages a retailer's first-party purchase data to reach shoppers across digital and in-store channels", and it names two advantages: "precision audiences built with verified purchase behavior and closed-loop measurement that provides greater performance insight".
The distinction it draws against the rest of digital media is the one to carry into a planning meeting: "Unlike advertising that relies on demographics and third-party signals like browsing history, retail media reaches consumers based on actual shopping behavior." On audience building it says first-party purchase data from Kroger's loyalty ecosystem, which it puts at 62 plus million verified households, is used to build segments for activation and measurement.
On privacy it states hashed identifiers, adherence to platform rules and regional regulation, privacy-preserving clean room environments where appropriate, and audience freshness and retention windows. It names certification by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Merchant Risk Council, and the home page separately states Trustworthy Accountability Group Platinum certification for brand safety, ad fraud prevention and malware protection.
How it says it measures a campaign
The method is stated rather than implied: performance is measured by matching media exposure to real household purchases across in-store and ecommerce transactions, and the incrementality and closed-loop attribution methods "compare exposed and unexposed groups to isolate true impact".
That is the right design, and it is also the design that needs three parameters before a result means anything. None of the three is published on the public pages, so ask for them in writing and before the campaign rather than after:
- The attribution window. How many days after exposure a purchase still counts. This single number is the biggest reason two retailers' reports cannot be compared.
- How the unexposed group is built. Whether it is a holdout matched on prior purchase behaviour, and on what.
- What counts as a conversion. Any purchase in the category, your brand only, or a specific unit.
Two more worth settling: which inventory in the plan is onsite and which is offsite, because they behave nothing alike, and whether the purchase data is reported to you or given to you. The wider version of that negotiation, across grocery retailers generally and including the trade money question that sits behind it, is in grocery store advertising, where the media and the shelf are sold by the same people.
The answer for a brand that is not sold in Kroger
This is the question the public pages answer most usefully, and the answer is more generous than most buyers expect. The FAQ addresses it under the industry's own label: many non-CPG, or non-endemic, brands can activate KPM's purchase-based audiences on social media and display channels through demand-side platforms, and it names The Trade Desk, Yahoo DSP, and Google Display and Video 360.
So the purchasable thing for a brand with nothing on the shelf is the targeting data, applied in media you were buying anyway. A car dealer, an insurer or a home services business can reach households selected on verified grocery purchase behaviour. What such a brand cannot buy is the onsite and in-store half of the offer, because those formats only work if there is a product to add to a basket.
Self service or managed service
Both are offered and the site is clear about the difference. The Kroger Ad Platform is described as the unified self-service advertising platform, "where brands and agencies plan, build, activate, and measure retail media campaigns across Kroger's onsite and offsite inventory". For offsite specifically, the retail media page says you can activate through your own preferred demand-side platform or let the managed-service team activate on your behalf.
Practically, self service suits a team that already runs paid media daily and wants control of pacing and creative rotation. Managed service suits a brand buying a short burst, or one whose agency is not set up on the platform. The important part is to know which you have agreed to, because it changes who is accountable for pacing when a campaign underspends.
Getting set up, and the two pages to read before you brief anyone
The new client setup page is a form, and it says the details are needed "once we're officially working together", which tells you the sequence: the commercial conversation happens first and the account build follows. Creative specifications and guidelines are published separately under client resources, and they are the pages to read before any creative is commissioned, because retail media formats carry hard dimensions and short file deadlines and a missed specification costs a full cycle.
Questions about Kroger Precision Marketing
What is Kroger Precision Marketing?
Kroger's retail media and shopper insights business, which sells consumer insights, advertising across Kroger-owned and offsite media, and loyalty and incentive programmes, all built on Kroger's own purchase data.
What is 84.51 degrees?
It is the data science arm the business is branded on: the site's own name for itself is Kroger Precision Marketing powered by 84.51 degrees, and two of the insights products, Collaborative Cloud and Stratum, carry the 84.51 degrees name.
How many households does the data cover?
More than 62 million verified households, as stated on the site's home, about and FAQ pages read on 20 October 2026. It describes this as first-party purchase data from Kroger's loyalty ecosystem.
Can I buy it myself, without an agency?
Yes. The Kroger Ad Platform is the self-service route for brands and agencies, and managed service is available as an alternative for offsite activation.
Do I have to sell products in Kroger stores?
Not for the offsite audiences. The FAQ says non-endemic brands can activate the purchase-based audiences on social and display through named demand-side platforms. The onsite and in-store formats need a product in the store.
What does it cost?
The public pages carry no rate card, no minimum and no fee schedule, so there is no figure here to restate. Ask for three numbers as separate lines when you get a proposal: the media cost, any managed-service fee, and any data fee, because a single blended number hides which part of the budget bought inventory.
The question a shopper asks before any of this reaches them
Purchase data is a record of what a household already bought. The decision upstream of it is now often made in a conversation with an assistant: which brand of something is good, whether a particular product suits a specific need, where to buy it nearby. That answer is assembled from product pages, reviews, retailer listings and whatever else can be retrieved, it arrives with no auction attached and no slot to buy, and it is reachable by a brand of any size. AI Knows Us asks those questions across the main assistants and reports which brands get named and which sources each answer was built from.