The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of its Parts
Earlier this month, our team attended the P2P Retail Media Summit, joining retailers, brands, and tech partners to discuss retail media’s future.
Measurement, AI, and strategy were key topics, but the central theme was clear: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
As the space continues to mature, retail media can no longer be separate from a brand’s larger omnichannel strategy. Leading retailers and brands are expanding their focus beyond media performance to think more holistically about how they create value for shoppers, seamlessly connecting the shopper experience across commerce, media, customer experience and KPIs to win more baskets and accelerate growth.
The imperative for brands is clear: to win, a holistic view of growth with a fully integrated retail strategy as part of an overall omnicommerce approach is crucial.
Retail Media Is Expanding Beyond Online
A primary theme was integrating retail media into the broader customer experience.
Giant Eagle shared how retail media is embedded across loyalty, partnerships, and merchandising. Their guiding principle: every brand action should improve shoppers’ lives.
This mindset permeated the summit, focusing on personalization, social commerce, and AI to create more relevant shopper experiences.
For brands, retail media is most effective when supporting the entire journey and connecting with all customer touchpoints.
Measurement Conversations Are Becoming More Sophisticated
A few years ago, most retail media conversations focused heavily on ROAS.
This year’s dialogue shifted toward more strategic performance questions:
- Are we investing in the right channels?
- Are we balancing short-term sales with long-term growth?
- How should we evaluate incrementality?
- What metrics best reflect business impact?
Marketers were encouraged to evaluate investments as a connected portfolio. Success depends on understanding how channels work together to drive sales and growth.
Off-site Media Plays an Important Role in the Consumer Journey
Another important focus was how brands can better align audience data, creative, and measurement with consumer moments of intent that occur outside of retailer-owned environments.
Consumers spend much of their time researching products, planning meals, engaging with content, and discovering new brands before they ever arrive at a retailer’s website or app. Those moments create valuable opportunities to influence consideration and purchase decisions.
Using premium environments and customized creative helps brands build stronger connections throughout the shopper journey.
AI Is Becoming Part of Everyday Retail Operations
AI conversations felt notably more grounded than in previous years, focusing on practical applications to work more efficiently, including content creation, search optimization, workflow automation, and data analysis.
Sessions highlighted how AI can help teams move faster, uncover insights more efficiently, and improve content discoverability across traditional search and emerging AI-powered experiences.
Aligning Around a Shared Goal
Organizational alignment is now essential as media, merchandising, and CX become deeply interconnected.
Retail media, merchandising, loyalty, customer experience, partnerships, and measurement are becoming deeply interconnected. As a result, many brands and retailers are rethinking how teams work together, how budgets are allocated, and how success is measured.
One idea that resonated throughout the event was establishing a clear North Star for every campaign and activation. When teams align around a shared objective, decision-making becomes simpler, measurement becomes more meaningful, and investments become easier to evaluate.
As retail media continues to evolve, the organizations making the greatest progress are taking a holistic view of growth. They are connecting media with commerce, customer experience, and business outcomes to create more impactful experiences for shoppers and stronger results for their organizations.
