By Leah Logan, Vice President, Retail Media Transformation
Transparency has become one of the biggest topics in retail media measurement. Ask almost any brand what they want from a retail media network and "more transparency" will most likely be near the top of the list.
But transparency isn't as simple as publishing a ROAS number or agreeing to a single attribution window or methodology. That's the trap. The industry often mistakes standardization for transparency, when meaningful measurement requires context.
In Episode 7 of Retail Media Confessions, Andrew Lipsman, Molly Helm (Corporate Vice President, Head of Retail Media at Ace Hardware), and I discussed why measurement has become one of the industry's most debated topics. What became clear is that, in the conversation about transparency, context is king.
Retail Isn't One-Size-Fits-All
Retail media has spent years evolving to meet the expectations of advertisers. Standardized metrics, common reporting frameworks, and familiar media terminology have evolved to help brands compare investments across networks.
At the same time, advertisers continue to overlook the ‘retail’ in retail media. You’d never tell your sales team that you don’t need products in more stores, because you’d surely miss out on a trip opportunity. Why are we forcing these hard trade-offs in retail media investments? Different retailers serve different shopping missions, observe different purchase cycles, and cater to different customer behaviors. Measuring success the same way across every retailer doesn't always reflect how people actually shop.
A purchase made at a neighborhood convenience or drug store doesn't necessarily follow the same decision process as a planned stock-up trip to a warehouse club or mass retailer. Those differences matter when determining the impact of the investment.
Transparency Needs Context
One of the biggest points of discussion was attribution windows. Brands understandably want consistency so they can compare performance across retailers. Retailers, on the other hand, often build attribution windows around their own customers and purchase behaviors.
Neither perspective is wrong. The challenge comes when a single metric is viewed without understanding how to spot the incremental trip amongst different trip missions and purchase behavior. A ROAS number only tells part of the story if advertisers don't understand the intent behind it.
Transparency should mean more than simply exposing more numbers — it should be about providing enough context for brands to understand what would’ve happened naturally based on that specific customer and their shopping behavior vs the change in that pattern driven by advertising.
Better Planning Leads to Better Measurement
As we talked with Molly, it became even more clear that measurement starts (or should start) long before a campaign launches.
One of the questions I continue to ask in all of the work we do is simple: “What are we trying to accomplish?”
If the goal is to drive trips, increase purchase frequency, grow a category, or improve loyalty, those objectives should shape both the activation strategy and the measurement plan from the beginning.
Too often, the industry spends more time debating reporting after the campaign than defining success before it starts. Planning against a clear business objective creates a much stronger foundation for evaluating performance later. If you know what you’re trying to achieve at the onset, you’ll know if you achieved it in the end.
The Industry Is Growing Up
One of the most encouraging parts of the discussion was the recognition that retail media is entering a new stage of maturity.
For years, retailers were expected to operate exactly like digital media companies. Today, there's growing recognition that retail media also has unique strengths that deserve to be evaluated differently.
Standardization will continue to play an important role. So will third-party measurement. But neither should come at the expense of the retail expertise that individual retailers bring to understanding their own shoppers.
The future of measurement is all about finding the balance between efficient evaluation and retailer nuance. Not choosing one in place of the other.
Watch Episode 7 of Retail Media Confessions to hear the full conversation.
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