To Make the Most of Retail Media, Brands Need to Break Out of its Silos

Retail media networks (RMNs) have emerged as a powerful channel to reach audiences, particularly for brands lacking direct touchpoints with prospective customers. Their proximity to checkout, closed-loop measurement, and shopper data make RMNs highly effective at converting demand and delivering bottom-funnel impact.

However, RMN campaigns are often planned, executed and measured in isolation, creating a disjointed perspective of performance, incrementality and attribution. To unlock their full potential, brands must look beyond retail media.

Shopping Baskets Can’t Tell You Who Your Next Best Customer Is

Advertisers, especially in the CPG sector, have flocked to RMNs for their level of closed-loop attribution. By linking ad impressions to verified transactions, RMNs provide a short and easy-to-understand conversion funnel that gives advertisers confidence their spend will generate a return.

Too good to be true? Without extra effort, it often is. The deterministic shopper data powering this ecosystem is restricted to the retailer’s environment and existing buyer behavior. Purchase history alone doesn’t reveal consumer preferences, off-site channels, or whether they’re open to alternatives.

This traps brands in a logic loop where they can convert known demand while new demand remains out of reach. It may appear productive at first, but repeatedly targeting the same audiences ultimately constrains growth, relegating RMNs to a retention channel.

Brands can supplement RMN data with first-party signals, but this simply deepens existing customer profiles. To generate growth, brands need audience intelligence not beholden to a single platform.

Omnichannel? Full Funnel? Not if Your Data is in Silos

Today, CPG brands juggle budgets across RMNs, connected TV (CTV), social, out-of-home, and the open web. However, most organizations still manage each channel independently, with separate key performance indicators, measurement methodologies, and data sources that trap insights within platforms.

The result is a fragmented view of cross-channel insights. Upper-funnel CTV data rarely informs RMN targeting, while RMN insights seldom feed prospecting on social or the open web.

Without a cohesive view of consumers and influence points, brands duplicate efforts and inflate budgets by reaching the same audience multiple times. Channels that should drive incremental growth instead tread the same ground.

This disconnect shatters the sales funnel, too. With each channel operating in isolation, separate targeting logic dilutes audience signals at every stage.

Don’t Plan by Channel, Plan by Personas

Until interoperability improves, advertisers should turn to off-platform intelligence that provides a unified audience engine with personas that can be ported across environments.

By identifying personas with little overlap with existing customers, brands can allocate media investments more strategically while ensuring the same audience signal powers both awareness and conversion.

A simple persona-powered plan might look like this: identify and reach high-growth prospects across CTV and the open web; reinforce engagement with these segments within RMNs during consideration; then use RMN attribution to measure conversion and validate performance.

Consistent Audience Intelligence Drives Real Growth

Starting with high-growth personas ensures new reach is truly incremental. There’s more to omnichannel, full-funnel marketing than diversifying spend. A consistent intelligence layer must connect a consumer’s first flirtation with a brand to their final purchase.

Platform-agnostic personas enable brands to scale investments without sacrificing precision or incrementality. Following the same audience across the funnel helps determine which channels generate new sales and which capture existing intent.

Centralized intelligence also enables cross-channel frequency management, helping brands avoid overwhelming consumers with repetitive messaging — a common outcome of siloed planning.

Retail media is an almost-perfect conversion channel, but its proximity to purchase means attribution can’t be trusted in isolation, and its data doesn’t guarantee incrementality. To capture its full value, brands must eliminate silos, combine off-site intelligence with on-site activation, and focus on high-growth personas.

Anthony Flaccavento is general manager, Americas for Ogury, an ad tech company focused on privacy-safe targeting of personas rather than specific people.