A retail media network sounds like an extra source of income that is already in the house and only needs collecting. If you own the space, you sell it to the partners who want to sell there anyway. That sum does add up, it simply adds up for far fewer retailers than the market currently suggests.
I have seen the question from both sides, as a buyer of space inside a retail media network run by someone else and as someone weighing up whether to offer his own.
- The first condition is not reach, it is return visits and permission to recognise someone.
- A retailer carrying almost only its own goods ends up selling advertising to itself.
- A retail media network is a sales business and needs someone accountable for closing deals.
- Partners pay for proof, not for visibility, and that is where most conversations break down.
- Whoever decides on placement should not be the person accountable for advertising revenue.
Table of contents
When a retail media network is actually worth it
The first condition is not reach, it is repetition. You need people who come back regularly and who may be recognised when they do. Heavy footfall without a login or an order history produces impressions, but no data anyone will pay a premium for.
The second condition is an assortment that carries brands belonging to other companies. A retailer carrying almost only its own goods ends up selling advertising to itself and moving money from one cost centre to another.
The third condition is the one most often overlooked. A retail media network is a sales business, not a marketing project. It needs someone who sells media space, closes deals and is accountable afterwards. Without that role it stays a presentation.
A retailer who does not meet these three conditions still has something to sell, just not a network. A joint activity with one supplier, cleanly invoiced and honestly evaluated, is the better route in that case and costs nothing to set up.
Reach is not the hard part
Most companies do not underestimate their visibility, they underestimate the proof. A partner shifting budget wants to know what the spend did, in a form they can compare against other channels.
This is exactly where the conversations break down. Internal figures are rarely prepared in a way an outsider will trust. The market is working on shared definitions, among other places in the IAB Tech Lab working group on retail media, and anyone starting now should align with those terms rather than inventing their own logic.
A retail media network also depends on the figures looking the same every month. Changing the definition halfway through, because another cut of the data sounds better right now, destroys exactly the trust that justifies the premium in the first place.
The second point is the space itself. Every advertising slot in your own shop is a slot that used to sell something. That calculation belongs on the table before the first contract is signed.
What a retail media network changes inside the company
The moment advertising income appears in the plan, buying gains a second objective. Suppliers who pay become more visible than suppliers who do not. This is not abuse, it is the built-in mechanic, and it works even when nobody says it out loud.
The second internal effect concerns the space in the store and on the home page. It used to be a question of design and suddenly becomes a question of sales. That shift is not a problem as long as it is said out loud. Left unsaid, it produces decisions nobody can justify afterwards.
That is why I consider the separation more important than the technology. Whoever decides on placement should not be the person accountable for the advertising revenue. How this feels from the side of the buying brand, I have described under retail media as a brand channel.
What I would settle before the start
I would begin with a single slot and three partners and do nothing for half a year but report cleanly. That sounds slow, but the reputation of a network is built on the reliability of its numbers, not on the number of its formats.
I would also answer up front who sets the price. In many companies it comes from instinct and gets corrected downwards at the first objection. The space is devalued before it has established itself. A retail media network needs pricing logic that can be explained, even when it is uncomfortable.
And I would fix in advance which part of the space is never for sale. A retail media network without that line eats up, over time, the very experience customers originally came for.