Dell Technologies Inc. knows a lot about the purchases of Dell-brand and other electronics that inform its retail media network. But the company is making a move to get more out of the data it uses there.
On the network, Dell has long focused primarily on these endemic advertisers that already sell through its channels, according to Breanna Fowler, head of global consumer revenue programs.
She told Digital Commerce 360 that she’s in a “business that lives and dies by units, revenue, margin, conversion rates. Nothing I do can exist without me measuring those pretty maniacally.”
Because of that, she and her team at Dell began to integrate technology from performance-marketing platform Nift. Dell and Nift began working together in the past six months after about a year of discussions, Fowler said.
Nift helps retailers and commerce platforms generate revenue “by turning ‘thank you’ moments into a performance-driven commerce channel,” according to its chief revenue officer, Saket Mehta. He told Digital Commerce 360 that Nift seeks to create “a surprise and delight moment” for consumers.
“I wanted something that was not intrusive to a customer that would really be seen as a value add,” Fowler told Digital Commerce 360. “Nothing that seemed, let’s say, gimmicky. It was really important for me that it didn’t take people off of the purchase path, that it was a nice sort of ‘surprise and delight’ or a ‘plus one’ to what they were accomplishing with us.”
Dell ranks No. 16 in the Top 2000 Database. The database tracks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales and more.
How Dell approaches its retail media network
“If you’ve got a site and you’ve got shoppers and you are advertising anything, that’s essentially a retail media network at its very core,” Fowler told Digital Commerce 360. “Now the step that we’re building on top of that is considering potentially non-endemic advertising and opening up to a wider variety of types of placements — and types of advertising — that we would allow on the site and in our owned marketing vehicles.”
Fowler told Digital Commerce 360 that Dell, like any other business, looks for ways to grow revenue outside of directly selling its products.
“I think Nift’s going to be a strategic part of that, ongoing, but I don’t think they’ll be the only strategic partner that we start to play with in that retail media network space,” Fowler said.
She said there are multiple facets to make that happen. She also said it’s important for “brands that are considering monetizing their audience and their traffic” to realize they can’t limit themselves to a single facet.
“It can’t just be one,” Fowler said. “There should probably be five to 10 things that you’re doing to think about how you’re monetizing and growing revenue. And really be open-minded. Any of these ideas could be wildly successful, and some of them may not be and that’s OK.”
Fowler said Dell will try some tactics that might not work. If they don’t, then they “cut bait — great.” If they do and Dell decides to keep them, they might choose to supplement integrations with other levers to drive revenue growth.
She noted that it takes “a little grit, little tenacity” to get such programs off the ground. Furthermore, she said sometimes it’s not just about the developers. Integrations often require several technology and security reviews in advance. That’s the difficult part, she said.
“Strategically, I know retail media networks are sort of the buzzword,” Fowler said. “I think we might find a bunch of retail media network graveyards after everybody jumps on the bandwagon and then realizes, oh, this takes actually more work than we thought and it’s not just a cash machine day one.”
Dell integrates Nift into retail media network strategy
Mehta told Digital Commerce 360 that Nift uses about 20 different consumer “touch points” to help retailers personalize offers.
Mehta said Nift requires its clients to pay a cost per click to join its ad platform. Additionally, its clients must show a gift for consumers that is either a free item or worth at least 50% of the retailer’s average order value.
“The reason why we require that is it’s not traditional affiliate,” Mehta told Digital Commerce 360. “It’s completely bespoke and unique, but that allows them to acquire the same customer for the same cost as they would on other channels.”
He said if it costs a client $50 to acquire a new customer through a different marketing platform, that client might acquire the same customer for $20 on Nift “while giving them $30 of value. And so they’re able to pass back more of that value to the customer.”
Mehta noted that Nift has about 8,000 gifts on its platform. The advertisers provide suppression lists — sets of customers they want to exclude from marketing — to Nift. From there, Nift works to help its clients acquire new customers. A brand’s existing customers would not consider it a good experience to receive offers incentivizing a gift with a first-time purchase, he said.
Q4 sales drivers for Dell, Nift in 2025
In Q4 2025, Mehta said, Nift powered more than 180 million “experience-led moments” across platforms. More than 12 million customers chose to opt into offers, according to Nift.
“Because these moments are opt-in and high-intent, brands saw double-digit conversion and materially lower acquisition costs,” Mehta said.
Furthermore, opt-in discovery drove conversion rates between 10% and 12% for clients using Nift, according to the company. It also maintained cost per acquisition (CPA) in the low-to-mid $20 range, Nift said.
Dell used Nift as part of the consumer electronics brand’s broader commerce media strategy, Mehta said. The brand sought to “monetize customer moments outside of the core purchase flow.” As a result, it began including Nift on what it calls its “welcome series.”
That meant including Nift in the “thank you for purchasing a Dell product” messaging. Once Dell introduced Nift into that process, it saw a click-through rate of about 13%. Nift also experienced a conversion rate between 11% and 12% for post-purchase offers from Dell, Mehta said.
In Q4, Fowler told Digital Commerce 360, Dell found that its third-party electronics sales “showed the most upside” over the brand’s plan going into the holidays. In aggregate, she said, third-party electronics were Dell’s biggest driver in Q4. Dell sells products from other brands including Bose, Sony, Samsung and Logitech. Those products “are always consistently big drivers around the holidays.”
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