Every parent has drawn a line in the sand and declared war on screen time… until 5:00 PM hits and the iPad comes flying in to remedy a meltdown so you can make dinner. That’s exactly what’s happening with ROAS in retail media. We all agree it’s flawed. We all agree it’s incomplete. And yet, we keep going back on our word and using it as a gold standard.

In this episode, I unpack new research from adtech publication ADOTAT that puts hard numbers behind what many of us already feel: brands don’t trust retail media measurement, but budgets continue to climb anyway. I break down the incentive structures keeping ROAS alive, the uncomfortable truth about incrementality testing, and what top-performing brands are doing differently to escape the trap.

If you’ve ever questioned whether your retail media measurement is actually telling you the truth, this one’s for you.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – Why ROAS is like screen time for parents: we say we’ll cut back… but we don’t.
[01:00] – Media buyers are frustrated with RMN measurement — so why are budgets still growing?
[02:10] – The collective action problem keeping ROAS firmly in place.
[03:15] – Why CFOs love ROAS (and why incrementality struggles to compete).
[05:30] – In defense of ROAS: when it’s 'good enough' and why incrementality doesn’t always pan out.
[07:10] – What will actually kill ROAS? The brands building their own measurement operating systems.

Links & Resources

• Check out the full Retail Media Research Report from ADOTAT (free for ADOTAT+ subscribers)
• From ‘Fame and Distribution’ to ‘Gaming Attribution’ by Andrew Lipsman
• Read my related articles:
  • The Retail Media Buffet Has Gotten A Lot Less Enticing
  • What Big Agencies Believe About Retail Media
  • Should We Really Care What Consumers Think About Retail Media Ads?
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 11am ET Friday Feb 27, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Last week, a viral report predicting an AI-driven economic collapse rattled financial markets. And honestly, I understand why it spread so fast. The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis paints a clean, compelling doom narrative: AI replaces white-collar workers, consumers disappear, and the economy collapses under its own automation. But I think that story is dangerously incomplete.

In this episode, I break down Eric Seufert’s powerful counter-argument outlined in his new podcast series, The Prosperous Society, which showcases the AI bull case for advertising and the digital economy. I share snippets from Part 1: The Primacy of Distribution and add commentary about why AI may be deflationary for production but inflationary for distribution, why advertising isn’t about creating demand but routing it, and what this means for retail media in a world of AI shopping agents.

If you work in retail media, commerce media, ad tech, or digital advertising strategy, this is a POV you need to hear.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – The viral 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis report and why its AI doomer thesis spread so quickly

[01:00] – Introducing Eric Seufert and his AI bull case for the digital economy

[02:15] – Advertising as demand routing, not demand creation, and why this distinction matters

[04:00] – How targeting shifts the value distribution and drives profitable user economics

[08:02] – AI is deflationary for production but inflationary for distribution

[10:15] – In an agentic commerce world, someone still controls the catalog (and allocation equals advertising)

Links & Resources

• The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis report by Citrini Research
• The Prosperous Society, Part 1: The Primacy of Distribution, by Eric Seufort
• Follow Eric Seufert on LinkedIn
• Read my related articles:
  • While We Debate What's 'Really' Agentic, Retail Media's Foundation Is Already Shifting
  • 'The Biggest Change in My Lifetime' — Marketecture CSO on AI Shopping
  • Dark Search, Broken Signals, and What Comes Next for Retail Media
  • AI Is Claiming Browsing Behavior. Commerce Media Must Compete On Its Data Advantage
  • I Really, Really Hoped That Ads in AI Wouldn't Suck. Now We Find Out.
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 11am ET Thursday Feb 27, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, February 25 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Today I’m diving into one of the biggest debates in retail media right now: brands are demanding standardization, and retailers are saying it’s not that simple. So… do they kind of have a point?

Using a bolognese sauce analogy (stay with me!), I unpack why every retail media network has its own 'recipe' for measurement, reporting, and ad offerings, and why that might not be entirely by accident. We’ll explore the real reasons behind the resistance to standardization, the tension around transparency and comparability, and what brands and retailers should actually be focusing on as retail media growth begins to cool.

If measurement, incrementality, ROAS, and retail media investment strategy are on your mind, this one’s for you.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – Why retail media networks are like bolognese sauce: same dish, wildly different recipes.
[01:05] – How retailers built their tech stacks, and why many weren’t designed for modern retail media.
[02:15] – Brands are voting with their wallets: why most only invest in 6–8 RMNs despite the dozens that are available.
[03:15] – Why specialty retailers push back on standardization (and why Amazon and Walmart aren’t the right comparison).
[04:20] – The technical and economic realities holding retailers back from upgrading measurement systems.
[07:00] – Are brands part of the problem? Custom metrics, attribution windows, and internal misalignment.
[08:45] – What brand surveys really say about measurement, profitability, and standardization priorities.
[09:15] – The path forward: focusing on business outcomes over perfect comparability.

Links & Resources

• The bi-annual Sponsored Products Benchmark reports from Pentaleap
• Andrew Lipsman's piece, The Argument for Retail Media Isn’t “Performance”—It’s Marketing Effectiveness
• Read my related articles:
  • The Other Side of the Story: Why Retailers Struggle with Media Measurement & Standardization
  • Retail Media Unpacked: Why retail media still lacks widely adopted measurement standards
  • Interview with Melanie Babcock, the former head of Home Depot’s Orange Apron Media, on Forbes
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 11am ET Friday Feb 27, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, Feb 25 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

I’ve been ringing the bell about AI disrupting retail media for a while now. The pushback I keep hearing is, “Show me the traffic.” And yes, when you look at last-click data, less than 1% of retailer traffic is coming from ChatGPT. So… what’s the big deal?

I recently joined I joined Destaney Wishon on the Better Advertising Podcast to break down why that 1% number is deeply misleading, and why AI’s influence is already reshaping retail media in ways we simply aren’t measuring yet. In today's episode, a snippet from my conversation with Destaney, we unpack the 'dark search' phenomenon, contextual ad experiences inside LLMs, collaborative bidding models between brands and retailers, and why discovery — not checkout — is the real disruption.

If you care about retail media data, audience targeting, and where ad dollars go next, this conversation is going to make you think differently!

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – The 1% myth: Why AI traffic looks tiny and why we're looking at the wrong metric
[00:30] – “Dark Search” explained: How LLMs influence purchases without sending clicks
[01:30] – The optimistic view: What ads inside AI could look like (and why they don’t have to be disruptive)
[02:00] – Context is king: Why LLM relevance could outperform traditional retail media
[06:15] – Collaborative bidding between brands and retailers inside AI environments
[09:23] – The real disruption: AI shifting discovery away from retailer.com — and what that means for retail media data

Links & Resources

• Watch my full conversation with Destaney Wishon on the Better Advertising podcast: Is Retail Media Ready for AI Ads?
• Subscribe to Better Advertising on YouTube and Apple Podcasts
• Follow Destaney Wishon on LinkedIn
• Malte Landwehr, CPO and CMO of Peec AI, explains his 'Dark Search' thesis on LinkedIn
• Read my related articles:
  • AI Is Claiming Browsing Behavior. Commerce Media Must Compete On Its Data Advantage
  • 7 Ways to Break the Retail Media Doom Loop
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 11am ET Friday Feb 27, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, Feb 25 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Here’s a riddle for you: what’s ugly, chaotic, color-coded, constantly changing but absolutely essential? If you guessed the family calendar, you’re correct. But I’m also talking about how brands are managing retail media in 2026.

Today I unpack why the best-performing brands have stopped waiting for retailers to hand them a clean, unified dashboard, and are instead building their own operating systems on top of retail media networks. Drawing on fresh data from the fifth annual Stratably × Skai State of Retail Media report, I break down the widening gap between brands that are designing systems versus those still juggling platforms. I discuss measurement, incrementality, closed-loop attribution, retail media DSPs, and why only 12% of brands have truly integrated media and commerce data.

If you’re still logging into eight dashboards and hoping your spreadsheet holds, this one’s for you!

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – The 'family calendar' riddle and why it perfectly describes retail media management today

[01:15] – Inside the State of Retail Media report: 166 marketers, 40 interviews, and a growing systems gap

[02:12] – The big numbers: 77% want better cross-network measurement, 68% want operational efficiency, and 52% are shifting budgets to retail media DSPs

[03:16] – The 12% stat that should make you uncomfortable: integrating media spend with commerce data

[04:00] – Why retail media measurement standards exist (but infrastructure fragmentation is still the real blocker)

[06:30] – Retailers’ scaling problem, long-tail advertisers, and why brands are building self-serve control layers

[08:00] – My spicy take: stop asking “Which retail media network should I add next?” and start asking “What system am I building?”

Links & Resources

• Download the fifth annual Stratably × Skai State of Retail Media report from Skai’s website here.
• Read my related articles:
  • The Case for the ‘Long Tail’ of Retail Media Networks
  • Retail Media's Measurement Problem: It's Not Just the Retailers
  • How Can RMNs Tap Upper-Funnel Brand Budgets
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 10am ET Thursday Feb 19, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, February 25 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

I really, really hoped that ads in AI wouldn’t suck. And now… we’re starting to find out.

In this episode, I break down what we’ve learned about how ads are actually showing up inside ChatGPT, following a recent interview with OpenAI’s advertising lead Asad Awan. I share instances where my earlier (admittedly optimistic) predictions were right, what genuinely surprised me, and my concerns, especially if you care about retail media, first-party data, and the future of shopper marketing.

Listen to learn about the architectural separation between ads and the model, contextual targeting vs. surveillance tracking, the “one good ad is enough” philosophy, and what happens when ad surfaces move upstream of the retailer. Most importantly: will AI ads avoid the retail media doom loop, or are we watching it form in real time?

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline

[00:00] – Why my City Hall wedding perfectly explains how ads creep into trusted environments.
[01:01] – The OpenAI interview that reveals how ads work inside ChatGPT and why it matters.
[02:30] – The hard wall between the model and the ad layer (and why it's better than I expected).
[05:00] – “One good ad is enough” vs. the saturation playbook of traditional retail media.
[06:00] – The rise of algorithmic, agentic advertising, and why my Spidey sense is tingling.
[08:35] – The real threat to retail media: AI as a high-intent ad surface upstream of the retailer.
[10:30] – AI agents facilitating purchases behind the scenes, and what that means for first-party data.
[11:45] – The year-three test: will revenue pressure break the wall between ads and the model?

Links & Resources

• Watch the full interview with Asad Awan on The OpenAI Podcast
• Subscribe to Debra Aho Williamson's The AI Ads Economy newsletter on Substack or on LinkedIn
• Read my related articles:
  • Maybe Ads in AI Don't Have To Suck?
  • ChatGPT Ads Are Here. I'm Not Panicking.
  • Should Your Industry Advertise in AI Media in 2026?
  • Why OpenAI's Ad Network Should Concern RMNs
• Join me and Jordan Witmer from Salt XC at 10am ET Thursday Feb 19, for our next LinkedIn Live on When RMNs Come Calling for Your Brand Marketing Budget. We'll be answering questions LIVE -- join us!
• Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, February 25 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn