Retail media’s performance needs a little showmanship

Retail media has taken centre stage with promises of high-margin revenue and closed-loop measurement. But behind the curtain, there's a danger that too many actors are rushing to the performance without perfecting the choreography.

This production shouldn’t be organising itself for ‘one night only’, but a long and successful residency. Because in a great performance, it's not just what’s delivered, it's how. The panache, the pause, the sense of when to let the moment land and the audience lean in.

At the heart of retail media is data - real, verified purchases tied to real people. That’s the headline act. Yet some retailers are racing ahead before they’ve grasped just how powerful that signal can be. In doing so, they risk underselling the very thing that makes them diFerent.

Protecting the Ace card

When a brand buys into retail media, it’s not just looking for audience segments labelled “parents” or “pet owners.” It wants to know how that audience was built, when the last purchase was made, and whether it signals a new life stage or a fleeting preference. This granularity is what sets retail media apart—and what turns a static audience list into a dynamic, high-value proposition.

Take P&G’s Point of Market Entry approach to understand when someone suddenly becomes a potential customer based on their purchasing activity. A consumer buying nappies for the first time likely isn’t a one-time customer, they’re entering a whole new category, and that transaction is a vital signal. Retailers who understand that signal for what it is and protect it, rather than handing it over to fuel someone else’s AI model, are the ones that will lead the next act of media transformation.

And it’s not just about recognising the value, it’s about showing it oF. Not with empty spectacle, but with substance. In a space still hooked on surface-level metrics like clicks and impressions, retail media demands a shift to outcome-based thinking. Purchases, not just views. Incremental gains, not inflated reach. True performance, in every sense of the word.

Managing the audience

Of course the pressure to dazzle investors and mimic media giants has led to bold projections. These may drum up excitement, but they can also set up internal teams to fail, pushing them to scale too fast, cut corners on data integrity, or lean too heavily on lookalike models that dilute the retail edge.

Real retail media power lies in its precision; the ability to engage someone who bought Sensodyne toothpaste last week across platforms, consistently and meaningfully. But that only works when connected identity is strong, data is clean, and match rates are high enough to sustain campaigns beyond a retailer’s own walls. This level of integration doesn’t happen overnight, it takes craft and time.

Education is key. Advertisers, agencies and retail media teams alike need to align on what the data can do and what it can’t. Success won’t be driven by those who throw the most money at the channel. It’ll come from those who ask better questions. Who test, learn and scale. Who

resist the urge to play to the gallery and instead commit to building something that lasts beyond the opening night.

And the award goes too...

Retailers have a rare opportunity. They hold signals that no one else can oFer. But to turn that into a repeat performance, they need to protect it, price it properly and use it to deliver real results. That means resisting the temptation to rush the routine and instead leaning into what makes their show diFerent. This isn’t just another ad platform. It’s a category of its own.

So yes, a great performance needs a bit of showmanship. But it’s nothing without the craft, control and confidence to deliver something the audience will remember.