Before Topsort: Fixed Priced Ads and Manual Setup

Sodimac Homecenter is the retail leader of home improvement & construction across Latin America, boasting over 6.5M active customers and over 1000 sellers, in Colombia.

Sodimac's existing fixed-price ad model was holding them back from achieving scalability: Manual efforts were required for campaign management, optimization and reporting, leading to inefficiencies and limited growth potential for their ad business.

In their quest for innovation, Sodimac first partnered with Topsort in 2021 with the goal of launching auction-based sponsored placements that could be user-friendly and provide their sellers with scalability  and transparency .

“Topsort was our gateway to modern and scalable sponsored listing ads”, said Santiago Barrios, Head of Analytics at Sodimac Media.

What Mattered: Easy Integration and Collaboration

Seeing the successful market cases for industry giants like Mercado Libre and Amazon, they knew that reshaping Ad dynamic could be a win-win to their whole retail media ecosystem: improving customer’s ad experience, providing advertisers with a better technology and creating a higher-margin revenue for their ad business.

When searching for the right partner,  Sodimac  had the following priorities in mind 1) Quick integration  2) Intuitive Interface  3) Real time analytics

Quick Integration

Competitors typically take 2-6 months for integration. Topsort's smooth integration process enabled Sodimac to launch their first A/B testing Sponsored Listings Ads on their Homepage in less than 3 weeks.

“In terms of setup, we wanted something that could grant us safe experimentation and rapid scalability”, said Óscar a Head of Sodimac Media - Corporate. “The possibility to start with such a quick MVP really motivated us to move forward at the time”.

Intuitive Interface

Sodimac operates with a huge variety of  retail partners, so a solution that could adapt to the different expertise backgrounds was a priority.They wanted a technology that could offer an ad service to providers who may not be experts or have a marketing team behind them.

"We found in Topsort an accessible path to a complex technology”, highlights Edna Pinzon,  Founder of Retail Media Sodimac

Powerful Analytics

Sodimac wasn't interested in just running sponsored products, they wanted an end-to-end platform that could enable them real-time data analytics  to grant  transparency to their advertisers and get to understand their digital audiences better.

"Topsort Real-Time Reporting changed the way we understand attribution” highlights Santiago, Head of Analytics at Sodimac Media.

Before Topsort, Sodimac tied sales directly to the duration of sponsored product visibility. Our real-time reporting unveiled a more transparent reality, no more delays on clicks or conversions reporting. Sellers know exactly which product was sold and the exact time of the transaction.“This shift wasn't just a strategic adjustment; it redefined our concept of profitability and enhanced our honesty with providers”, adds Barrios.

"After considering various Retail Media Partners like Mabaya,Citrus and Promote IQ, we felt Topsort was the best fit. Witnessing their impressive growth since then has been remarkable. Their innovative approach to optimizing budgets, scaling ad revenue and navigating a cookie-less world has made them the fastest-growing platform in Latam, US, and Europe." - Edna Pinzon,  Founder of Retail Media Sodimac

Sodimac chose Topsort to build their own retail media platform, empowering both their marketplace and vendors with a powerful Ad Infrastructure that included:

• Full access to Topsort Auto-Bidding Algorithm
• Self-Service Campaign Tools to empower sellers
• Sponsored Listings & Banners Ads
• Dashboards with Real time Analytics
• Self Service Payments & other administration features

The Topsort All-in-One Retail Media Solution offers a comprehensive stack, from a Plug-n-Play Platform to Modular APIs. Choose what suits your business best! Talk to an expert!

Topsort Magic: Rapid Scaling of Sodimac Media

Sodimac started with less than 10 brands using the platform in March of 2023, and in a period of five months the number grew to 100+.

Say good-bye to fix-price

With the implementation of Topsort’s Sponsored Listings, advertisers have gained the ability to boost  their products within Sodimac’s premier locations, all while maximizing their ROAs. No longer bound by static placements!

How? Topsort’s Auto-bidding algorithm allows ads to show at the right place and time, making Sodimac sellers only pay when the magic of a click occurs. All automated!

This was a game-changer for sellers! Brands like Challenger S.A.S, Samsung Electronics Colombia, and RTA Design S.A.S experienced remarkable growth, achieving ROAS increases of 9.3x, 8.2x, and 7.9x, respectively.

Sodimac ads have a 1.45% conversion rate now, 20% above the general site conversion rate. As we say in Topsort —Higher ROAS ds = Happy Sellers.

The incremental partners' satisfaction fueled an impressive surge in Sodimac's advertising investment, witnessing a remarkable 33% year-over-year growth in ad spend for 2023 compared to 2022.

Curious  about Topsort Auto-bidding? Explore more over here.

Self-service: The next step for growth

The scalability and transparency of Topsort auction-base technology and AI-first Infrastructure, unlocked a world of opportunities for Sodimac’s growth.

With a whole new understanding of attribution and revenue; a successful response of vendors to the platform usage and a scaling ad revenue… Sodimac decided to keep expanding their ad business with Topsort

The Self-service mode empowers vendors to independently manage and oversee their own campaigns, granting them control over budget allocation and campaign creation.

"Starting from scratch, we've come a long way. Now, not only do providers regularly engage with the platform to monitor the campaigns we run, but we also see a growing number of sellers taking the initiative to create their own” says Barrios, Head of Analytics for Sodimac Media.

Since starting with Topsort Sodimac has run over 1500 auction-based campaigns with +120 active sellers  using the platform, and over 30 are engaged weekly in the review of their result in the platform

The Topsort-fueled transformation

Topsort’s AI-first Retail Media infrastructure enabled Sodimac to build their own Sponsored Products Network, migrating from a fix-priced to an auction-based advertising model, with real-time dashboards and self-service features for their advertisers. But it wasn't just technology that fuelled this transformation.

Toport experts collaborated closely with the in-house team, embarking on an enriching journey of mutual learning and growth.Together, our sales and engineering teams delved into the intricacies of launching an auction-based ad platform and mastering the utilization of Topsort’s real-time dashboards.  All this in-house training paved the way to jointly craft  and execute the onboarding process for their sellers, including both personalized and large-scale training sessions.

"The work done by the Topsort in the induction was invaluable. Not only they made our onboarding process seamless but also empowered our providers to take the reins of the platform”, highlights  Óscar a Head of Sodimac Media Corporate.

Sodimac partnership is an example of gradual and rapid success.

Now, Sodimac is gearing up for the next leap, adding a full suite of ad formats including omnichannel and connecting between onsite and programmatic banner ads - Follow along for the next case study?

We can help you take your Ad Business to the next level! We're not just a service; we're your dedicated partner, bringing expertise, innovation, and results to meet your goals.

Read more about building an ad platform with Topsort or get in touch with us today.