Why the Next Era of Commerce Media is a Human Challenge

For years, the conversation around commerce media has been dominated by technology and data. The industry has obsessed over the fixtures, including the API integrations, first-party audiences, closed-loop measurement capabilities, and the algorithmic precision of retail media networks. Yet, as we enter a more complex economic landscape, many organizations are finding that the most sophisticated tech stack in the world doesn’t have maximum impact while existing alongside an outdated org structure.

In navigating the evolution of digital media over the years, one thing has become clear: the biggest barrier to success has moved from the technology we buy to the organizational dysfunction that’s emerging. Most brands today are still trapped in a fragmented layout where brand, media, e-commerce, and commerce media teams operate as disconnected units. They each have their own budgets, their own goals, and their own key performance indicators. While this siloed approach may have worked when commerce media was a line-item experiment, it’s now a recipe for duplicated efforts and immense organizational inefficiencies.

Recent research from Deloitte identifies 2026 as a watershed moment for the retail industry, where success will be defined by a brand’s ability to flex its adaptability muscles. With 82 percent of executives shifting capital toward more profitable ventures to offset rising costs, the margin for error has disappeared. In this environment, the organizational silos that once felt like a necessity for productivity have become a critical financial liability.

To win today, brands must transition from a multichannel mindset to a truly holistic strategy. Beyond being a technical shift, this type of structural transformation requires uniting every department under a single vision for business success.

Eliminating Old Assumptions

The first step toward a unified strategy is letting go of the templated thinking that has made commerce media feel stagnant. One of the most persistent assumptions is that first-party loyalty data is the exclusive or only approach to a retail go-to-market strategy. While that data is foundational, relying on it as a solitary crutch limits the ability to scale and reach new and competitive consumers.

Instead, a holistic strategy requires a broader perspective. We need to look outside the traditional approach and integrate diverse tactics that can find shoppers wherever they are, not just where they’ve already been. This means connecting upper-funnel brand awareness goals with lower-funnel conversion goals and going to market in a united way so they’re finally speaking the same language.

This could come to life through thoughtful flighting of brand and commerce campaigns. By integrating them into one holistic plan starting with awareness and then moving consumers to purchase, we're thoughtfully priming the market to drive optimal performance. The funnel is collapsing and organizations have an opportunity to catch up through holistic brand and commerce initiatives. Time and time again, results are higher when brand and performance marketing teams work in tandem.

The Missing Seat at the Table

When we talk about cross-functional collaboration, we usually focus on the tension between sales, brand, and finance. However, in my experience driving these transformations, there’s one critical group that often lacks a big enough seat at the table: the marketing analytics team.

Analytics shouldn’t just be a group that reports on what happened last quarter. They need to be empowered to review performance at a higher level, providing the connective tissue that links performance across all teams. This transformation shouldn’t happen from the bottom up; it requires top-down guidance from the C-suite to ensure that data isn’t being used to justify individual silos, but to drive the entire organization forward.

Moving Past the ROI Trap

Perhaps the hardest conversation to have with a commerce team is moving them away from being only measured on return on ad spend (ROAS). It’s difficult to talk a company away from return on investment because it feels like the ultimate proof of success, but we need to learn to view it more broadly.

ROI is a subjective data point that can be read in a dozen different ways. To build a strategy that reflects real business growth, brands should partner with advanced media mix modeling (MMM) experts who understand the nuances of their specific business and channel performance.

The goal is to understand what’s actually driving performance across an omnichannel buy and, more importantly, what’s setting the stage for the next campaign. Success is found in the ability to measure performance at different levels of the funnel simultaneously and over time.

Practical Steps Toward Integration

If you want to know if your brand has moved from one-off reporting exercises to a strategy with real accountability, look at how you share information. Most organizations aren’t there yet. The brands that have made it are those that have crossed into a united framework where data is not hoarded by individual teams.

Start by implementing cross-functional team days specifically designed to share audience insights, segmentation strategies and learnings to ensure that everyone is speaking the same language before the first dollar is spent. Every decision should be rooted in a primary business outcome such as win-back share over the next few months rather than a campaign-specific metric like sales lift. If a brand is underperforming, the business goal is to return it to the forefront; the campaign’s role is to simply the execution of that broader objective.

Future-Proofing Through Perspective

The next 18 months will likely bring continued macroeconomic disruption. To future-proof a business, leaders must seek perspective outside the walls of their specific division. By understanding the factors impacting the business from different angles — whether it’s supply chain issues, shifting consumer sentiment, new technology — you can better understand which areas of the media plan to prop up and which to pull back.

Ultimately, commerce media success is a balancing act. Every team should have their specific marching orders, but there must be a united vision and connective tissue that facilitates a shared understanding of success. When you replace individual silos with a united vision, you stop just managing media and start driving growth.

Rachel O’Hara is an executive director of media at Iridio by RRD.