Winning Nationally Means Winning at Dollar General

I’ve spent most of my career working with brands and retailers, and one thing I’ve learned is that the most important word in retail media is retail.

Sounds obvious, right? But I think our industry forgets that sometimes.

Retail media isn’t just about advertising. It’s about helping brands grow with a retailer. Finding new customers, driving trips, supporting innovation, and ultimately selling more products.

That’s how I’ve always approached this business, and it’s what we’re building at Dollar General Media Network (DGMN).

We’re a General Store, not a Dollar Store

Let’s clear up one of the biggest misconceptions about Dollar General.

We’re a general store, not a dollar store.

Yes, we sell products for a dollar, and value is central to who we are. But walk into our stores and you’ll find the national brands customers know, trust, and buy every day.

With more than 21,000 stores and approximately 75% of Americans living within five miles of a Dollar General, our reach is hard to ignore. And while rural America is an important part of our business, we serve customers across rural, suburban, and urban communities.

These are the same households’ national brands are trying to reach every day.

If you’re looking to grow penetration, launch innovation, or reach new customers, Dollar General needs to be part of your growth strategy.

Reaching Customers Brands May Be Missing

One of the things that excites me most about DGMN is our ability to help brands reach customers they may be missing today.

We have more than 100 million marketable customer profiles, and roughly half aren’t represented in traditional third-party data.

Think about that.

Our first-party data helps us understand who’s buying a brand, who’s shopping the category but choosing something else, and where opportunities exist to grow.

We can connect suppliers with those customers across our own channels and the media platforms they’re already using.

But reaching more people isn’t the goal. Growing the business is.

The Retail Plan Comes First

I’ve sat through plenty of media presentations over the years. The best conversations don’t start with a product or a rate card. They start with the business.

What’s happening in the category? What are our merchants focused on? Where does the supplier want to grow? How can we help?

At DGMN, we’re bringing together offsite media, search, onsite advertising, DG Delivery, and in-store radio to support those priorities.

But the opportunity isn’t a single media product. It’s how everything works together to grow the retail business.

That’s why we’re focused on closer merchant alignment and joint strategic planning. Media should be part of the growth conversation from the beginning, not something we discuss after the retail plan is finished.

And we must prove the value.

We’re seeing encouraging results, including average incremental ROAS above $5 and a strong relationship between suppliers investing in retail media and those growing their Dollar General business.

But the bigger question is whether we’re bringing new households into the brand, growing categories, supporting innovation, and giving customers more reasons to shop.

That’s what matters.

The Opportunity Ahead

I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the biggest brands in the world, and one thing hasn’t changed. Every supplier is looking for the next opportunity to grow.

I believe Dollar General has a much bigger role to play in that conversation than many brands realize.

Our national footprint, customer relationships, first-party data, and growing media capabilities give us an opportunity to help suppliers grow in ways they may not have considered.

We’re still building, and there’s plenty of work ahead. But the opportunity is real.

When a CPG leadership team sits down to discuss where its next wave of growth is coming from, I want someone to ask a pretty simple question.

What are we doing with Dollar General?

Because if you want to win nationally, you need to win at Dollar General.