Retail Media Networks (RMNs) are revolutionising how trade, merchandising, and marketing collaborate to drive sales, shopper engagement, and brand objectives. In this blog, members of our Retail & Commerce Media Committee explore the key challenges businesses face when aligning these functions and how RMNs provide the missing link.
A big thank you to the following contributors for sharing their thoughts:
Dominik Elias, Product Marketing Manager, Zitcha
Esme Robinson, Director Global Platform Solutions and Enablement, Epsilon
Jason Wescott, Global Head of Commerce Solutions, WPP Media & Chair of IAB Europe's Retail & Commerce Media Committee
Dominik - “One of the biggest issues is that a retailer’s trade and marketing teams don’t always speak the same language. One is focused on moving stock, driving sell-thru, and hitting revenue and margin targets, while the other is often about driving customer traffic, engagement, and conversion across channels. Both are important, and in service of driving sales, but when the teams aren’t working from the same plan, it’s easy for plans and executions to feel fragmented. Retail Media should be the bridge, but that can only happen if it’s planned together from the start. As with so many things, the challenge isn’t the tech, it’s the culture and ways of working. Helping both sides to see clearly how they’re trying to solve the same problem, from different angles, is a major unlock for brands that just want all of the above.
Esme - “As well as organisational culture and ways of working, data and insights provide both teams with the crucial information they require to connect the dots. By sharing data from both parts of the business, the trade team gains better insight into the impact of channels further from the point-of-sale, while the marketing team benefits from the granular sales data, especially for in-store, that the trade team typically relies on. Aligning this will give both teams a common language to understand strategy and impact, even when there are different approaches. Working with the right tech or partners can help with this, centralising data and measurement.
Jason - “One of the biggest challenges in aligning trade and marketing is the shifting power dynamic between brands and retailers. Traditionally, retailers held all the cards as buyers of products (stock), with brands using trade marketing spend to secure distribution and visibility. It’s been a case of “pay to play,” but with little control over how those funds are used.
RMNs have changed this. Now, retailers aren’t just buyers, they’re also sellers of media products. This flips the script, putting brands in the buyer’s seat. Crucially, Retail Media allows brands to retain control over their messaging and targeting, rather than handing everything (budget & execution) over to the retailer. This means brands can focus on building their own identity while still leveraging the retailer’s audience and data.
The challenge is balancing these two dynamics. Brands still need to maintain strong trade relationships to secure distribution, but they now have the opportunity to approach Retail Media as a strategic investment - one that delivers transparency, measurable results, and better alignment with their overall marketing goals.”
Dominik - ”Retail Media is one of the few places where trade and brand money can actually work together and deliver value that both sides can see. If done well, it gives brands a way to turn their trade terms into actual visibility, not just discounts. And for retailers, it opens up new margin opportunities without touching the shelf price. The best RMNs make it easy for merchants and marketers to plan together. Same data, same objectives. The magic happens when we stop thinking of trade and brand as separate pots and start treating them as one, connected investment.
Esme - “Bringing the teams, budgets, data, and measurement together will result in a better outcome. Where there has maybe been separation traditionally, there’s been a view that the different parts of the business are achieving different goals, but by collaborating across every aspect from media planning, promotions, targeting, measurement and insights, both teams have a more comprehensive, holistic view that can achieve the best outcome overall, across the funnel and channels and creating a better user experience which will result in better returns for the retailers and brands.
Jason - “RMNs are putting brands back in control by giving them access to the one thing they’ve always lacked in trade marketing: data. In the past, investing in trade spend often felt like handing over a blank cheque, with little visibility into what worked. Now, RMNs provide brands with real-time shopper insights and measurable results. It’s like switching from driving blindfolded to having a sat nav - brands can finally see where their money is going and adjust course to maximise impact.
Another huge opportunity is the range of marketing tactics Retail Media offers. It’s not just about pushing shoppers to buy; it’s about building connections at every stage of the journey. Whether it’s running video ads to boost awareness or using interactive formats to drive engagement, Retail Media lets brands go beyond pure sales-driving tactics. For example, instead of relying solely on discounts to move products, a brand can use storytelling ads to build loyalty and consideration while still targeting the right audience.
The bottom line? RMNs let brands take back control - not just of their budgets, but of their strategy. They’re no longer stuck playing by the retailer’s rules; they can now align investments with their own goals by creating campaigns that deliver both short-term wins and long-term growth.”
Dominik - “It’s always helpful to start with a shared outcome like growing a category vs just “getting clicks.” A key unlock here is to build Retail Media into joint business plans early in the merchandise buying and planning process. This avoids having Retail Media show up as a tacked-on media buy and enables shared business goals across brand, trade, and marketing efforts to deliver the most important business outcome collaboratively. To do this, it’s helpful to use tech that’s built for how retail teams actually work. For example, including Retail Media budgets in the annual planning process, where terms of trade are often negotiated and funding pools are established, or providing real-time visibility and shared reporting of in-market activities. But honestly, one of the biggest shifts is trust. You need to show all three teams –trade, marketing, and of course the brand – that their investment is working. It’s also important that trade teams see Retail Media as a mechanism to help them protect margin - for example, by investing in Retail Media, they can often avoid going too deep with margin-killing discounts by instead driving sell-through in a much more efficient way.”
Esme - ”It’s about bringing together everything we’ve already discussed – having at least some members of the organisation be part of a unified team that can help with joint planning and aligning strategies. Having better budget allocation/unification is helpful, so it doesn’t feel like there are competing requests or unexpected demand on budgets. As of 2024, in the IAB Europe Attitudes to Retail Media Report, only 16% of retailers’ Retail Media teams were integrated into an existing trade sales team. This lack of unification will be felt by customers and brands alike, and bringing them together avoids disjointed experiences. This unified team can use common technologies for planning, activation, and reporting to maintain that alignment.”
Jason - “There are numerous effective strategies/tactics to use for this. But initially, aligning KPIs across trade and marketing is key to maximising ROI. Too often, these teams work in silos, with trade chasing distribution, and marketing focusing on impressions. This leads to misaligned efforts. Shared KPIs, like sales lift or customer acquisition, ensure both teams are working toward the same goals, even if they are just linked to their own specific KPIs, at first (i.e., the impact of increased distribution on customer acquisition).
When trade and marketing align, collaboration improves. For example, if a Retail Media campaign performs well, trade can use that insight to negotiate better retailer support. Clear, shared metrics keep everyone focused and make every euro spent work harder.”
Dominik - “Data is what connects the dots. Both teams need to know what’s selling, what’s not, and that any brand investments are driving results. When Retail Media tools surface real-time sales performance, down to a SKU or a store level, both teams are able to look at the same picture and better partner with brands to drive stronger commercial outcomes. And it’s not just about dashboards. It’s about putting that data in the right format, using the right language. Category performance for the merchant, media metrics for the marketer, and helping both sides make smarter, faster decisions.
Esme - “Data is fundamental to a strategy that can truly prove value both internally and for brands. Better data means better shopper insights that can power personalised targeting at scale. Better data means unifying measurement across any strategy, both on-site and in-store, and being able to isolate impact. Better data means real-time changes aligned with broader strategic periods to capitalise on important moments both at an individual customer level and for the retailer and brand. And better data means there can be a single source of truth, so even if there are organisational silos, the data can speak for itself and prove whether strategies are providing real value, both gross and margin and enabling everyone to keep the customer first and produce customer-centric tactics.”
Jason - “Data has revolutionised marketing, making it far more precise and effective, especially when there is alignment between trade and brand. RMNs use first-party shopper data to target the right customer, at the right time, with the right message. Instead of broad trade promotions, brands can now tailor campaigns to specific segments, like high-intent buyers or lapsed customers, to maximise relevance and results.
For example, a brand could promote premium products to high-value shoppers whilst advertising to deal-seekers during a trade-driven price promotion. This level of segmentation (with trade alignment) ensures budgets work harder, delivering smarter, and sharper strategies that truly resonate with audiences.”
Dominik - “At Zitcha, we recently supported a health retailer navigating a price war with a major competitor. Dropping prices to match would have slashed margins, so instead, the retailer used Retail Media to boost visibility of the higher-priced product, funded by brand investments. The omnichannel campaign ran sponsored placements on their site, across social channels offsite, and throughout digital signage in their stores. All of this was coordinated via a shared plan, and as a result, price and margin integrity were preserved, the product sold through, both the trade and brand teams met their goals, and the brand partner was able to see the power of their omnichannel investment drive their own commercial outcomes. This type of omnichannel orchestration, aligned with a single retail strategy, is where RMNs can really excel.”
Esme - “Currys Tech Hunters partnered with Epsilon to make its first-party data addressable, enriching it with contextual and buyer insights to identify signals of in-market behaviour. This enabled Currys to run Retail Media campaigns on behalf of brands and, through Epsilon’s integration of online and in-store data, measure campaign performance across channels, revealing that 26% of tracked purchases for a specific home appliances brand took place in Currys stores. This enabled all parts of the business to plan and measure the impact of this kind of campaign and inform future strategies.”
Jason - “WPP Media partnered with Tesco in the UK to create an omnichannel journey, enhanced by data, for a well-known confectionery brand. This campaign combined off-site media, on-site (tesco.com), store merchandising (including store-wraps and in-store banners), plus promotional messaging at the physical shelf. This helped boost and connect the mental and physical availability of the brand, from sofa to store, resulting in a +40% YoY sales boost and an iROAS of more than £3. This is a great example of results that can be driven when marketing and trade work together.”
IAB Europe’s Retail & Commerce Media Committee is at the forefront of the Retail Media industry. Members are driving Retail Media growth and shaping the landscape by:
All of the work of the Committee can be found in our Retail Media Hub here.
Find out more about getting involved by contacting Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett [at] iabeurope.eu.
