Carter, an AI-powered privacy-first platform designed to connect retailers and brands, is available starting this week in North America.

Launched by Toronto-based software company Shyftlabs (which focuses on data analytics), the platform is a retail media network that works with both retailers, who want to increase margins and create new budget sources, and brands, who are looking for access to first-party data, real-time reporting, audience segmentation and personalization. Brands could buy ads through Carter, but sell their products through the retailer’s website. Carter allows brands to display ads on retailers’ websites.

The platform connects the dots between these two parties and provides consumers with an enhanced shopping experience, Carter founder and CEO Shobhit Khandelwal tells Media in Canada.

“More than ever, consumers are looking for hyper-personalized experiences alongside extreme privacy and data security. This is what Carter will deliver for consumers through working with retailers and brands,” Khandelwal says.

It also offers a set of monetization, marketing and advertising solutions. Users will be able to manage the campaign flow from the platform, follow step-by-step to create and execute campaigns, and create cross-channel reports to monitor real-time data and analyze key performance metrics. They will also be able to manage budgets across all teams using wallets, and track budget spend with real-time wallet reports.

It also offers creative services – users can upload and preview creatives within the campaign or create templates to streamline the creative process and customize their designs.

According to Khandelwal, the launch of the platform is timely, as the retail media business in North America has grown and attracted new entrants from various sectors.

“Executives and CMOs are now making retail media a crucial part of their strategic plans. However, this rapid expansion is accompanied by stricter data sharing regulations and increased regulatory demands,” Khandelwal says. “This is what led us to developing Carter to offer a seamless solution for integrating retail media into a brand’s portfolio.”

Currently, the platform is working with a pet retailer and they have more than 100 brands on Carter’s platform selling and buying ads from the retailer, Khandelwal says.