Dive Brief:

• Wayfair Inc., which operates online home furnishings and décor retailers including Dwell Studio, Joss & Main and Birch Lane, is rolling out a proprietary display advertising platform dubbed Magellan.

• Magellan was built in-house by Wayfair’s engineering, data science and marketing teams to "dramatically enhance the efficiency of display advertising campaigns through deeper insights into target audiences and real-time optimization," the company said in a press release.

• Magellan arrives weeks after the launch of the Wayfair Next Research and Development Laboratory, an innovation lab focusing on 3-D technology allowing shoppers to visualize items in their homes.

Dive Insight:

Wayfair says Magellan will deliver highly relevant product recommendations across Wayfair.com and within advertisements, leveraging consumer data insights to enhance personalization. That kind of customer-first marketing and communications is a requirement for any retailer both online and offline, experts say.

“The [big box] retailers have always wanted to get local and personal with their consumers, and this goes back even into the 90s and early 2000s. Retailers understand that from a very local market perspective, customer preferences differ,” Rob Hill, Nielsen EVP of Retail Services, told Retail Dive earlier this year. “The data always sat out there in one form or another, [but] you weren’t able to get the real precise data points where you could do it at scale, where you could make the difference.”

Display advertising is key to the collection of data touchpoints that will inform Wayfair's strategy across its brands, chief product and marketing officer Ed Macri said in a statement.

“Building in-house technologies and fostering a highly collaborative environment across departments allows us to eliminate unnecessary silos and deliver on our commitment to always put our customers first,” Macri said. “With Magellan, we can create an even more consistent brand experience for our customers whether through advertisements, the site, email, social or notifications.”

Wayfair last month reported that first quarter direct retail revenue (consisting of sales generated primarily through the sites of its five brands) rose to $711.8 million from $342.5 million, up 92.7% year over year. Wayfair's Q1 total net revenue increased $323 million to $747.3 million, up 76.1% year over year.

Wayfair delivered 3 million orders in Q1 2016, an increase of 66.7% compared to Q1 2015. Average order value was $238 for the quarter, up from $206 a year ago. Wayfair's mobile orders also are growing: 38.6% of total Q1 orders delivered were placed via a mobile device, up from 33.8% year over year.