Retail Media Breakfast Club

What should retail media networks share with brand partners, and what should they keep sacred? In this first episode of Arming the Rebels, a four-part series for retail media networks that aren't Amazon or Walmart, I'm joined by Anthony Rotio, co-founder and co-CEO of GrowthLoop, to unpack one of the biggest strategic questions facing retailers today: how do you monetize your customer relationships without compromising what makes your business special?
We get into the tension between audience monetization and customer trust, why unique retailer audiences are so valuable to advertisers, and how data governance, audience activation and lifecycle marketing can unlock new opportunities for retail media networks. We also explore what happens when retailers connect the dots across their entire customer data ecosystem, and why protecting the customer experience isn't just nice to have — it's a clear strategic advantage.

This episode is sponsored by GrowthLoop
Timeline

[00:31] – What's holy about a retailer's audience data, and how much customer access should brands actually get?
[03:45] – Why unique retailer audiences matter to media buyers and how retailers can justify incremental advertising investment.
[04:45] – Speed to first dollar: how quickly retailers can build, activate and monetize audiences.
[06:00] – Connecting retail media and lifecycle marketing to unlock richer customer insights and incremental value.
[09:10] – The surprising audience segments retailers can build using purchase behavior and contextual customer data.
[12:30] – Why retailers need guardrails around self-service audience segmentation and protecting customer privacy.
[14:45] – The Commerce Media Investment Index Report and what advertisers are looking for in retail media networks.

Links & Resources
Check out GrowthLoop's new research report: The 2026 Commerce Media Investment Index
Follow Anthony Rotio, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at GrowthLoop, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Are Audiences The Golden Ticket For RMNs?
AI Is Claiming Browsing Behavior. Commerce Media Must Compete On Its Data Advantage
Does Size Matter in Retail Media? It Depends Who’s Buying

I'm sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
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What if the biggest opportunity for advertising in AI isn't just converting shoppers who are ready to buy, but reaching them much earlier in their decision-making journey? Today I'm re-sharing the newest episode from my other podcast, AdGentic, where I was joined by Roger Dunn, Chief Commercial Officer at Thrad, to unpack why brands need to rethink how they approach advertising in AI environments.
Roger brings a fascinating perspective from his 20 years in retail media, and together we explore how advertising in AI is evolving beyond traditional search and sponsored product placements. We discuss the full-funnel opportunity for brands, the emerging formats for AI advertising, the role of retailer and personal agents, and some important questions around brand-controlled information, consumer trust, and where this rapidly evolving channel is headed.

This episode is sponsored by GrowthLoop
Timeline
[00:00] - Introducing Roger Dunn, and exploring why AI is opening up an entirely new frontier for retail media and advertising.
[02:38] - What advertisers get wrong about advertising in AI environments
[04:24] - Show and Tell: Why AI advertising opportunities span the full funnel
[06:33] - Why upper-funnel AI advertising could deliver greater incrementality
[08:00] - Could AI conversations shift retail media investment beyond sponsored products?
[09:33] - Who does an AI agent really work for: the shopper, retailer, or brand?
[11:00] - Why brand-controlled information and AI accuracy matter more than ever
[14:28] - What's next for sponsored agents and the evolution of AI ad formats

Links & Resources
This episode is an AdGentic interview that was published on November 3rd, reproduced with permission, originally titled Ads in AI Aren't Just for the Bottom of the Funnel.
AdGentic is part of the ReFiBuy Media Network, and you can subscribe to it wherever you best like to take in this kind of content:Substack Newsletter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Follow Roger Dunn, Chief Commercial Officer at Thrad, on LinkedIn
Roger also writes the AI Commerce Brief, an excellent weekly LinkedIn newsletter that somehow keeps up with the firehose of announcements in this space.
Thrad is an advertising infrastructure platform for conversational AI
Read my related articles:Is advertising in ChatGPT kind of mid?
Amazon is playing agentic commerce chicken. Other retailers should not.
Agentic Shopping Poses an Existential Threat to Retail Media, Part 1 and Part 2 

I'm sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
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When Liquid Death's Chief Media and Digital Commerce Officer, Benoit Vetere, says retail media will take more than half of the brand's media spend by 2027, you know he's putting some serious money behind the channel. But what's even more interesting is how he thinks about retail media's role in driving growth, winning shelf space, and getting consumers to try new products. I recently listened to Benoit on The CPG Guys podcast with Sri Rajagopalan and Peter V.S. Bond, and there were so many insights worth unpacking.
In this episode, I share six takeaways from Benoit's conversation that I think brands and retailers need to hear. I get into why even retail media's biggest believers are sticking with the major networks, how Liquid Death's brand fandom can drive shoppers into stores, what nobody has figured out about AI shopping yet, and why retail media doesn't need to be a creative showcase. Plus, I unpack what Liquid Death really wants from retail media networks, including better inventory visibility, audience activation, and stronger merchant partnerships. If you're thinking about where retail media is headed, this is a conversation worth paying attention to!

This episode is sponsored by GrowthLoop
Timeline
[01:29] Why even retail media believers are prioritizing the biggest networks over smaller players.
[04:00] How Liquid Death's brand fandom can drive shoppers into retailers like Walmart for exclusive products.
[06:15] Why nobody has AI shopping figured out yet, and what brands are doing to adapt.
[08:00] Why retail media doesn't need to be a creative showcase to deliver results.
[11:15] How retail media can protect physical shelf space and help challenger brands steal market share.
[12:39] Why retail media technology matters more than retailers might realize.
[15:15] Benoit's retail media wish list: real-time inventory, audience activation, and merchant buy-in.
Links & Resources
Listen to the full CPG Guys episode with Benoit: Liquid Death's Benoit Vatere - Brand Disruption in the Agentic Age
Subscribe to The CPG Guys on Apple Podcasts and YouTube
Follow Benoit Vatere, Chief Media & Digital Commerce Officer at Liquid Death, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Retail media is a creative wasteland. So what.
Drama and deceit in the world of retail media
How Alliances Could Solve Retail Media's Fragmentation Problem (Part 1)
How RMNs & Vendors Can Market Themselves Better
Why RMNs Keep Their Tech Stacks Secret

Check out Basket Case, a project I’m part of with The Drum and QSIC, an irreverent and lively podcast series talking shop: latest episode
I'm sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

The honeymoon is over for retail media. Sponsored products are reaching saturation, and the networks looking for their next growth opportunity are facing some pretty unattractive trade-offs. So what if there's another way to generate high-margin revenue without building a sales team, disrupting the customer experience, or cannibalising existing advertiser relationships?
In this special episode of Retail Media Breakfast Club, I'm pressure testing Nift, a commerce media marketplace that lets brands offer customers gifts at key moments in their journey. I look at whether this really is a win-win-win for advertisers, retailers, and customers, and why so many retail media networks are still sleeping on it. From the economics and customer experience to the operational hurdles, ownership questions, and where Nift actually makes sense, I'm digging into what retailers need to know before they jump in.
What I cover:
Why sponsored product ads are reaching saturation and where retail media growth could come from next.
How Nift works and why gifts might be a better customer experience than traditional advertising.
What Planet Fitness and Foot Locker are seeing from Nift partnerships.
The revenue opportunity, margins, and the business case for retail media networks.
The biggest objections from retailers, including control, ownership, and advertiser relationships.
Where Nift fits into a retail media strategy, and where it doesn't.
An important disclaimer: this edition was commissioned by Nift to provide an independent assessment of its commerce media offering. Nift engaged me knowing I’d be including my usual spicy take and seeking anonymous feedback from the RMN community. That’s why this bonus edition of Retail Media Breakfast Club is called ‘Pressure Test’.
Timeline
00:00 – Why the retail media honeymoon is over and the search for the next revenue opportunity.
02:46 – What Nift actually is: a marketplace connecting brands, retailers, and customers through gifts.
04:20 – Are gifts genuinely better than ads? What Planet Fitness and Foot Locker say about customer experience.
07:34 – Why Nift's advertiser demand could be a major advantage for retail media networks.
09:37 – The three big objections retailers have: control, size of the prize, and doing something new.
10:30 – The revenue opportunity: what a retailer could realistically make from a single placement.
13:13 – Where Nift makes sense for retail media networks, and the organisations most likely to benefit.
15:06 – My verdict: should retail media networks adopt Nift, and what does it mean for the future of commerce media?

Links & Resources
Huge thanks to Nift for sponsoring this episode! Learn more about Nift
Read the newsletter version of this podcast: The future of retail media is.... gifts? [PRESSURE TEST]
Read my related articles:Beyond banner ads: how retailers are monetizing the moments that actually matter (The Drum)

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What happens when shoppers stop searching with keywords and start having conversations with retailers? And what does that mean for the future of retail media?
In this episode, I'm revisiting my recent article for The Drum and unpacking some fascinating insights from Forrester on the future of conversational commerce and why the humble retail search bar might be about to undergo its biggest transformation in decades. I explore what this shift means for retailers, brands, and retail media networks, from AI-powered shopping assistants and conversational ad formats to the infrastructure retailers need to build to keep up. If you've been thinking about AI shopping, agentic commerce, and where sponsored product advertising goes next, these are insights you should be paying close attention to.

This episode is sponsored by GrowthLoop
Timeline
[00:55] – Why a chatbot-style government website offers a glimpse into the future of retail website design.
[02:13] – How Google and AI assistants are changing shopper search behaviour, and why traditional retail search struggles to keep up.
[04:05] – Forrester's ADVICE framework: the three requirements retailers need to understand for conversational search.
[06:46] – Why keyword-based sponsored product advertising breaks down when shoppers start asking conversational questions.
[09:33] – Kroger's conversational ads and why automatically extending existing campaigns into shopping assistants is an interesting starting point.
[10:58] – The shift from “search and select” to “review and accept,” and what that could mean for retail media economics.
[12:52] – Why retail media leaders should use the AI shopping opportunity to finally fix product catalogs, taxonomy, and underlying retail technology.

Links & Resources
An earlier version of this piece was published to my column at The Drum on October 27 as 'Retail media was built on the keyword search bar. Its days are numbered'. It is reproduced here with permission.
Forrester: Agentic Commerce? Conversational Commerce? The Future Of Owned Digital Shopping Experiences by Emily Pfeiffer 
Forrester: To Prepare For The Future Of Owned Search, Take Our ADVICE by Emily Pfeiffer
Follow by Emily Pfeiffer, Forrester Principal Analyst, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Should retail media get back to what it does best? (The Drum)
The Political Gift of an AI Mandate
‘I’m a realist’: Gopuff’s head of ads on why it handed its onsite adtech to Instacart (The Drum)

Check out Basket Case, a project I’m part of with The Drum and QSIC, an irreverent and lively podcast series where we talk shop.
I'm sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn