Retail Media Breakfast Club

Retail media networks want brand dollars — that part isn’t new. But what is new (and honestly, under-discussed) is the uncomfortable reality that many brands are structurally incapable of spending those dollars through retail media… even when they want to.
In this episode of Retail Media Breakfast Club, I’m sharing highlights from my recent LinkedIn Live with Jordan Witmer of Salt XC. We unpack what really happens when retail media networks go after brand marketing budgets. And why the biggest barrier isn’t capability or demand: it’s internal budget ownership, misaligned KPIs, and wildly different definitions of “credible reporting.” 
If you’ve ever wondered why retail media feels like a slam dunk in one meeting and a total mismatch in another, this conversation will connect the dots!

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:22] – What actually happens when retail media networks come calling for brand budgets?
[01:03] – The single strongest predictor of how a brand will evaluate retail media: who owns the budget.
[01:47] – The friction between sales teams and brand media teams, and why “streaming that goes everywhere” creates tension.
[02:23] – The infamous brief: “Build awareness and drive sales.” Why vague objectives lead to what Jordan calls “franking campaigns.”
[04:45] – What “credible reporting” really means, and why that definition completely changes depending on who you're talking to.
[06:45] – How platforms like Meta cemented themselves in brand budgets, and what retail media networks can learn from their approach.

Links & Resources
Watch the full replay of my LinkedIn Live with Jordan Witmer of Salt XC
Learn about Salt XC
Follow Jordan Witmer on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:How Can RMNs Tap Upper-Funnel Brand Budgets
Brands demand retail media standards. Retailers say it's too hard. Do they kind of have a point?
Why ROAS Refuses To Die

Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, April 1 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

LLMs aren’t just answering questions anymore: they’re becoming the very first step of the shopping journey. In the kickoff episode of this four-part Agentic Commerce Expert Series (sponsored by Mirakl Ads), I sit down with Amelia Van Camp, Head of Agentic Commerce at Mirakl, to unpack what’s really happening as product discovery moves upstream into AI assistants.
We get into what consumers are actually doing inside LLMs today, why 'discovery' now looks completely different from traditional search, and what retailers should prioritize before launching their own shiny AI shopping assistants. If AI agents are scraping your product pages and deciding what to recommend, the real question is: do they trust your data? This episode breaks down how ranking, trust, intent-based attributes, and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) are reshaping the rules of retail.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Why LLMs are becoming the first step of shopping, and what that means for retailers
[00:45] – Amelia’s role as Head of Agentic Commerce and how Mirakl is approaching AI-first commerce
[02:45] – The data behind AI-assisted shopping (including in-store usage)
[05:09] – What makes LLM-based discovery fundamentally different from traditional advertising and search
[06:45] – What AI agents actually look for on your product pages (and why trust is everything)
[08:59] – Intent-based attributes, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and how to optimize for AI-driven ranking
[10:45] – Why retail sites won’t die despite the fact that decision-making has officially moved upstream

Links & Resources
Download Mirakl's agentic commerce white paper: Why marketplaces & dropship platforms win in the agentic commerce era
Follow Amelia Van Camp, Head of Agentic Commerce at Mirakl, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Why OpenAI's Ad Network Should Concern RMNs
‘Dark Search’ Is Making AI-Facilitated Commerce Look Smaller Than It Really Is
While We Debate What's 'Really' Agentic, Retail Media's Foundation Is Already Shifting

Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, April 1 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
I wasn’t expecting a transatlantic debate when I published a piece about Sam's Club’s in-store retail media success. But what followed was a lively pushback from European retail media leaders who argued that in-store has been operating at scale in their markets for years. That sparked a much bigger question: Are US retail media networks behind in physical formats, or are these markets fundamentally different?
This episode is a summary of my recent article for The Drum, in which I break down the critical structural and organizational differences between US and EU retail media operations. From regulation and budget flows, to ecommerce penetration and store density, I unpack why both sides are right, and why understanding these nuances matters if you want to build a smarter retail media strategy in 2026 and beyond.

Links & Resources
My full post on The Drum: Kiri Masters: The critical differences in US and EU retail media operations you need to understand
Drew Cashmore's Retail Media Leapfrog Series: What Europe can Teach the World about Retail Media and Trade, Shopper, Brand. All One Big Bucket of Money
Read my related articles:Sam's Club Cracked the Code on In-Store Retail Media—Here's How They Did It
Three Companies Monetizing Moments That Most Retailers Ignore
Why OpenAI's Ad Network Should Concern RMNs

Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, April 1 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Tom I’m sharing highlights from a conversation I had on the Retailgentic podcast with Scot Wingo, one of the sharpest thinkers tracking agentic commerce and how AI is reshaping the shopping journey. I’ve spent plenty of time talking about the threats AI-enabled shopping poses to retail media — compressed journeys, fewer page views, shrinking onsite inventory — but in this conversation, we go deeper. What happens next?
We unpack what Retail Media 3.0 could actually look like. From collaborative bidding between brands and retailers, to new AI-driven ad surfaces inside tools like Gemini and Rufus, to the promise (and risks) of contextual targeting inside LLMs: this could be the moment retail media stops feeling like margin extraction and starts becoming a true win-win. If brands and retailers are willing to rethink the model, this may just be the best era of retail media yet.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Why agentic commerce is reshaping everything we thought we knew about the shopping journey.
[01:08] – Are AI shopping agents just customer support tools, or are they about to fundamentally change product discovery and accelerate shoppers straight to PDPs?
[02:15] – The uncomfortable truth: some retail media budgets feel like margin extraction. What has to change to create real brand–retailer alignment?
[04:49] – Collaborative bidding explained: how brands like Maytag and retailers like Lowe’s can jointly fund ads, and why this model could become even more important in AI environments.
[06:08] – The ad tech enabling collaborative retail media (including Symbiosys and Ampd) and what’s happening behind the scenes operationally.
[08:15] – Contextual targeting vs. “creepy” behavioral targeting: why I’m hoping AI models learn to target the query (rather than the shopper) and what that means for Retail Media 3.0.

Links & Resources
Watch the Retailgentic epsiode in full: Kiri Master's Round 2: The Ad Wars Come to Agentic Commerce
Subscribe to Retailgentic on YouTube and Apple Podcasts
Follow Scot Wingo on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Dark Search, Broken Signals, and What Comes Next for Retail Media
Why OpenAI's Ad Network Should Concern RMNs
Rufus Is Already Reshaping How Amazon Shoppers Decide

Atlanta-based retail media professionals: Wednesday, April 1 is the next In-Person Atlanta Happy Hour! RSVP here.
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

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