Panelists
Rae Guimond – Senior Director, GTM Strategy, PriceSpider
Oscar Ibarra – VP of Sales, Kevel
Davis Kalsbeek – Director – RMN Partnerships, NCSolutions
Lindsay Pullins – Director, Retail Media and Commerce Partnerships, Roku
Moderator – Patrycja Malinowska, Director of Retail, Path to Purchase Institute
Our panel gathered to discuss the growing imperative for full-funnel retail media strategies that align branding and conversion across in-store and digital channels. As Lindsay Pullins (Roku) noted, with Connected TV capturing 20% of U.S. adults’ media time by 2025 and retail media expected to drive 20% of CTV ad spend by 2027 (eMarketer), panelists stressed the need for brands to unify data, measurement, personalization, and activation.
Key Takeaways
CTV & Omnichannel Growth
The rapid adoption of CTV, paired with technologies like QR codes and shoppable emails, is blurring the line between awareness and purchase. Brands must integrate these with commerce signals to create seamless, shoppable experiences.
Measurement Must Mature
Incrementality, market-wide sales impact, and clean room integrations are key to moving beyond retailer-specific ROAS. There was a strong consensus that standardizing metrics across Retail Media Networks (RMNs) is essential to scaling and optimizing investment. Davis Kalsbeek (NCSolutions) highlighted that brands are looking for more access to retailer data at the market and industry level for benchmark visibility and insights to optimize retail media advertising investments.
First-Party Data as a Growth Engine
On first-party data, Oscar Ibarra (Kevel) emphasized that personalization and loyalty require brands and retailers to activate their own data responsibly, layering it with pricing, stock, and market share signals to power more relevant and effective targeting strategies with more real-time optimization options. With consumer demands for social commerce growing and brands exploring generative customer experiences, Rae Guimond (PriceSpider) explained how social is the number one channel for discovery and inspiration for younger generations. Digital shopping continues to increase among over half of Gen Zers in their 20s and Gen Alpha, presenting opportunities for brands to drive awareness and loyalty by leveraging highly personalized shopping experiences with customized suggestions and recommendations based on audience and purchase behaviors.
Balancing Brand + Performance
The panel was unanimous in warning against overprioritizing lower-funnel KPIs at the expense of long-term brand growth. Smart strategies bridge awareness and conversion, mapping media directly to outcomes like household penetration, trial, and loyalty.
Best Practices for RMN Campaigns and Strategies
Lindsay Pullins stressed the importance of consistency in performance measurement: “Pick a KPI and stick to it.” Maintaining a steady KPI across planning and execution is critical for accurately measuring performance and creating more effective strategies. This approach ensures that campaigns remain focused and aligned with overarching business goals.
Final Thoughts
In today’s technology-driven, data-centric landscape, the push for interagency collaboration is more crucial than ever. Brands are exploring innovative ways to improve shoppability, such as integrating QR codes in Connected TV (CTV) and leveraging email marketing. The key lies in layering data from various sources, like shopper engagement habits, retailer attribution, and basket data from PriceSpider with market share insights from NCSolutions. This allows brands to make more informed decisions across annual campaign planning and in-flight campaign optimizations.
Breaking down silos starts with strong partnerships between brands and their retail media and commerce partners, enabling them to combine diverse data signals. This collaborative approach is reflected in the increasing number of partner conversations, pinpointing the need for comprehensive data integration. Brands appreciate having dashboards and insights, but must enhance these with additional data layers for more timely decision-making.
Ultimately, a unified strategy throughout the entire funnel, as well as cohesive planning and execution, is essential. Disjointed efforts fail to meet consumers where they are and, ultimately, cost brands sales.
