What you need to know:

• Woolworths’ retailer media business, Cartology, grew its revenue by 29 per cent in the 2022 financial year.
• The rise was attributed to higher digital platform traffic.

Revenue at Cartology, Woolworths’ retailer media company, grew by 29 per cent in the 2022 Financial Year compared to 2021.

The grocery giant, which includes Woolworths and BIG W, reported its annual results this morning, showing $60.85 billion in group sales, up 9.2 per cent year-on-year, and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) at $2.69bn, down 2.7 per cent. Profits rose 0.7 per cent to $1.51bn.

The report gave a glimpse into the success of Cartology, given its individual revenue isn’t reported. Rather, it is “treated as an offset to [cost of goods sold] for external reporting purposes”.

“Cartology had another strong year with revenue growth of 29%,” the company reported. “Higher revenue was driven by higher traffic to the Group’s digital properties and new Cartology products such as digital catalogue performing well for advertisers and customers alike.”

Average weekly traffic to Woolworths’ food digital platforms was 12.8 million for the financial year. Across the group, it was 19.3 million.

Earlier this year, Cartology announced it would acquire out of home player Shopper Media for $150m, subject to an ACCC review.

“Our retail media business, Cartology, continues to grow rapidly and we are looking forward to Shopper Media Group complementing our existing platform (subject to completion),” Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said.

But, the company noted in its results, there was “more to do to improve operating rhythm in Primary Connect and maintain momentum in wiq/Quantium and Cartology”.

Retailer media is estimated to be worth $850m in 2022. Cartology has been suggested by industry observers to be around $300m of that.