Benchmarking Retail Media Networks with The Path to Purchase Institute’s Cyndi Loza

Summary

Podcast Summary: The CPG Guys – "Benchmarking Retail Media Networks with The Path to Purchase Institute’s Cyndi Loza"

Episode Details:

• Title: Benchmarking Retail Media Networks with The Path to Purchase Institute’s Cyndi Loza
• Hosts: Peter V.S. Bond & Sri Rajagopalan (Sri SRI)
• Guest: Cindy Loza, Senior Editor at Path to Purchase Institute (P2PI)
• Release Date: April 5, 2025

---

1. Introduction to Retail Media Networks (00:00 – 06:50)

The episode opens with Sri Rajagopalan discussing the burgeoning significance of retail media as a pivotal channel for brands aiming to engage consumers effectively along the purchase journey. Retailers are equipping brands with the tools to target audiences based on detailed purchasing behaviors, utilizing on-site, off-site, and in-store channels to enhance the entire marketing funnel.

Key Points:

• Growth of Retail Media: Retail media has emerged as the fastest-growing channel in the media industry over the past five years.
• Executive Education Program: An immersive four-day Retail Media Strategy Executive Education program has been launched in partnership with Cornell University and The CPG Guys, aimed at equipping industry leaders with best practices in building and optimizing retail media platforms.

Notable Quote:

“Retail media is rapidly becoming the go-to channel for brands, aiming to engage consumers with measurable performance along the path to purchase.” – Shree Rajagopalan [00:00]

---

2. Retail Media Investment Trends (09:52 – 16:28)

Cindy Loza presents findings from P2PI's annual Retail Media Network Ratings and Insights survey, highlighting that a substantial majority (70%) of CPG brands increased their retail media investment in 2024 compared to the previous year. This trend reflects a growing confidence in retail media's effectiveness.

Key Points:

• Investment Growth: 70% of organizations reported increased investment in retail media in 2024, up from 63% in 2023.
• Effectiveness: 80% of respondents consider retail media networks as effective or more effective than other digital media, a significant rise from 69% the previous year.
• Performance Metrics: 82% reported that retail media outcomes met or exceeded their KPI goals.

Notable Quote:

“80% of respondents told us RMNs are as effective or more effective than other digital media.” – Cindy Loza [09:52]

---

3. Budget Allocation for Retail Media (13:17 – 18:10)

The discussion delves into how brands allocate their budgets to retail media, revealing that most investments are incremental to existing budgets. A significant portion of retail media spending originates from shopper marketing budgets, followed by dedicated retail media budgets and national media.

Key Points:

• Incremental Spending: 70% of CPG brands allocate additional funds to retail media beyond their base budgets.
• Source of Funds: 30% derive retail media spending from shopper marketing budgets, 25% from dedicated retail media budgets, and 20% from trade budgets.

Notable Quote:

“Overall, 70% of CPG brands we spoke to said their organization's retail media spend is incremental to base budgets.” – Cindy Loza [13:17]

---

4. Retail Media Tactics and Effectiveness (19:41 – 25:12)

Cindy highlights the most and least effective retail media tactics based on brand advertisers' preferences. Search and sponsored products lead in importance, while in-store audio and digital out-of-home tactics lag behind.

Key Points:

• Top Tactics: Search and sponsored product ads are deemed highly important by 80% of respondents. On-site display, social retailer mobile apps, and off-site display also rank highly.
• Lower Priority Tactics: In-store audio, digital out-of-home, parking lot ads, and TV walls are viewed as less important.

Notable Quote:

“Search and sponsored product ads were deemed at least very important, if not extremely important by 80% of those we spoke to.” – Cindy Loza [19:41]

---

5. Challenges with Managing Multiple Retail Media Networks (25:12 – 36:39)

The conversation shifts to the complexities brands face in managing numerous retail media networks (RMNs). Cindy reveals that half of the surveyed brands work with more than five RMNs, and 30% engage with over ten, anticipating this number to rise.

Key Points:

• RMN Proliferation: Brands are juggling an average of 6 RMNs, expecting this to increase to 11 by 2026.
• Efficiency Concerns: Managing multiple RMNs can dilute focus and effectiveness, as exemplified by Georgia Pacific's experience with 26 RMNs leading to suboptimal results.
• Ownership and Expertise: A significant challenge is the lack of expertise within sales teams to effectively manage and measure investments across multiple RMNs.

Notable Quote:

“Half of our survey takers said their organizations are currently working with more than 5 RMNs, while 30% said they're with more than 10.” – Cindy Loza [25:12]

---

6. Leading Retail Media Networks and Areas for Improvement (31:36 – 37:32)

Cindy discusses which RMNs are excelling based on their survey, with Amazon, Instacart, Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Kroger receiving high ratings across multiple performance metrics. Conversely, some networks like Target's Roundel excel in certain areas but lag in others, such as creative freedom.

Key Points:

• Top Performers: Amazon leads in measurement capabilities and data sharing, while Instacart excels in sales growth and traffic driving capabilities.
• Areas Needing Improvement: Networks like Roundel show strengths in targeting but need to enhance creative freedom.
• Customization and Full-Funnel Marketing: The importance of aligning RMN strategies with brand objectives to ensure comprehensive marketing outcomes.

Notable Quote:

“Amazon led the way in measurement capabilities and data sharing, with 86% or more of respondents giving the network at least a good rating in those categories.” – Cindy Loza [31:36]

---

7. Addressing the Disconnect and Future Directions (37:32 – 46:25)

Peter and Sri reflect on the disconnect between survey data and real-time industry sentiments expressed at events like the Commerce Media Brand Summit. They emphasize the need for standardized measurement frameworks and better training for sales teams to manage RMNs effectively.

Key Points:

• Industry Disconnect: While survey data indicates strong growth and satisfaction with RMNs, real-world feedback from industry events suggests confusion and dissatisfaction among practitioners.
• Training and Education: Emphasizing the importance of programs like the Retail Media Strategy Executive Education at Cornell Tech to align industry practices and enhance expertise.
• Future Growth: Despite challenges, retail media is projected to grow, reaching nearly $98 billion by 2028, highlighting the need for structured investment and strategic management.

Notable Quote:

“If there’s an issue, training is an issue, conversations are an issue. We're serving it up on a platter.” – Sri Rajagopalan [29:27]

---

Conclusion and Call to Action (46:25)

The episode concludes with a strong endorsement for the Retail Media Strategy Executive Education program, encouraging listeners to enroll and contribute to shaping the future of retail media. Hosts express gratitude to Cindy Loza and highlight the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the evolving retail media landscape.

Key Points:

• Educational Opportunity: Encouragement to join the Cornell Tech program to gain deeper insights and contribute to industry advancement.
• Continuous Engagement: Invitation for listeners to subscribe, rate, and engage with The CPG Guys podcast for ongoing education and industry discussions.

Notable Quote:

“You own it, you shape it. You will get the outcomes that you want.” – Sri Rajagopalan [30:25]

---

Final Thoughts:

This episode of The CPG Guys provides a comprehensive analysis of current trends in retail media networks, backed by insightful survey data from the Path to Purchase Institute. It underscores the critical need for effective budget allocation, strategic management of multiple RMNs, and the importance of education and training to navigate the complexities of the retail media ecosystem. The hosts and guest collaboratively highlight both the successes and challenges within the industry, offering valuable takeaways for brand marketers striving to optimize their retail media strategies.

Transcript

[Shree Rajagop]

Retail media is rapidly becoming the go to channel for brands, aiming to engage consumers with measurable performance along the path to purchase. Retailers are increasingly empowering brands to accurately target meaningful audiences based on their longitudinal purchasing behaviors and execute media impressions across on site, off site and in store channels throughout the entire marketing funnel. For brand marketers, effectively incorporating retail media into their marketing budgets is essential for growth in today's omnichannel landscape. To address this critical need, Cornell University has partnered with the CPG Guys, along with leading industry executives and visionaries from around the world to launch the first ever retail Media Strategy Executive Education program. This immersive four day program at Cornell Tech May 5th to the 8th, 2025 brings together industry thought leaders and renowned faculty to share best practices for building compelling retail media platforms. You'll discover how to collaborate on creating best in class tech stacks, measure performance to ensure brands Access the necessary KPIs based on Campaign objectives and establish strong partnerships between brands and retailers. In addition, the program covers optimizing brand strategies using AI driven campaign design at scale to achieve marketing goals. By the end of the Retail Media Strategy program, you'll have gained a deep understanding of the retail media ecosystem and how both brands and retailers can accelerate organizational transformation to thrive in the future of performance marketing. See the link in the digital liner note to this episode to learn more.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

About the Retail Media Strategy Executive Education.

[Shree Rajagop]

Program at Cornell Tech May 5th through the 8th, 2025.

[Cindy Loza]

Hi, I'm Cindy Loza from the Path to Purchase Institute and you're listening to the CPG Guys Podcast.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your host, Shree Rajagop and Peter Vs. Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm PVSB Co host and co founder. I also serve as Head of Industry and Client Engagement at Flywheel, the E Commerce accelerator division of omnicomp. Joining me in the hosting duties for today's episode is of course my co founder. He is the Chief Revenue Officer at Think Blue Consulting. He's the patriarch of the Raj family media empire with his daughters Lara and Rhea and his wife Kavita. Most recently, he served as the Chief Customer Officer and President of Sales at General Mills. He is of course the man known as Sri SRI gearing up for Shop Talk. We're, you know, a scant weekend change away from the big event event.

[Sri SRI]

Very, very excited, Peter. You know, looking forward to a couple of really good ones. We're going to be meeting with Pinterest for the first time and getting them on the show. Katherine Maza from Red Media up in Hy Vee. The usual suspects, Walmart Connect, Sam's Map, which and then of course, Peter, what now Shop Talk will tell you is a tradition. The opening kickoff party at Mandalay Bay and then all the dinners we'll host. I can't wait to go. It is the meeting in the minds of the industry. And speaking of minds, I'm excited about today's conversation because definitely what the conversation we're going to have is straight from the minds of one of the experts in the industry when it comes to data insights and following retail media. So I just can't wait. Hey, wait, Peter, I had to ask you a question. I know you went to Halifax to see your mom. Yeah, all good. Enjoy it. What's going on in Canada?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Good, good time. It was great for my, my granddaughter has not seen her grandmother in a couple of years and we're very grateful that we I was able to take some time, get up there and see her. My sister is still up there with my mom. But all is good. It was a nice visit. And of course we're only two days away from part two of my daughter's spring break where we're heading down to Orlando to see a couple of mice.

[Sri SRI]

So I want to correct something for the audience. Peter said his granddaughter, it's his daughter and his mom's granddaughter.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

My grand. That's right, her grand.

[Sri SRI]

As far as I know you don't have grandkids.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

No, I don't. No, I don't. But it is. My daughter Nadia and I are heading down to Orlando. We're going to do two days at Disney one at Universal seeing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, probably a day over at at Sea World. And then we're gonna go down to Vero beach and see some friends of ours. So we've got a action packed six days in the Sunshine State. Should be a fun time down to Vero Beach.

[Sri SRI]

Pictures are mandatory of the food.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Oh yeah, we're gonna. My friend Scott owns a restaurant on the water called Citrus. It's one of the best restaurants in the state of Florida and I have no doubt he will not disappoint when we show up. So I'll take lots of lots of food pictures. Hey Sree, before we get to our guest, a few housekeeping details to our audience. Please make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform by clicking the follow option. And if you listen on Apple or Spotify. In particular, please leave us a rating. It helps feed the algorithm that makes our podcast more discoverable by other industry contemporaries of yours. While you do, please leave us a review so that we can tailor the content we discuss on this podcast to suit your interests. And we'll remind you that today's episode is part of our Women's Month series where each guest this month is an accomplished leader in our industry just happens to be female. So let's get to our special guest today. SRI as you know, over the past five years retail media has been the fastest growing channel within the media industry. Seemingly every week a new retail media network is launched, offering brands more ways to connect with consumers in closed loop marketing. But are all the retail media networks offering the same level of capabilities to brand advertisers? Well, the Path to Purchase Institute sought to answer this question as part of an annual survey they field in the Retail Media Network Ratings and Insights, part of the 2025 Trends Report. PWI explores how brand advertisers are changing their retail media network spend which networks offer the best capabilities and which capabilities drive interest rather which capabilities drive investment decision. To share with us some of the key findings about retail meeting Networks is the Senior Editor at P2PI. Please join us in welcoming back to the podcast for her third appearance tree, it's Cindy Loza. Hey Cindy, how you doing?

[Cindy Loza]

Good. Hello. Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

It's great to have. You know. Only two more visits and you get the coveted Five Timer Varsity jacket from the CPG guys.

[Cindy Loza]

Something to aspire to. Definitely.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

It's good swag. Trust us, we go all out on this one. It's not quite as cheesy as the Five Timer jacket on Saturday Night Live, which is the smoking jacket. This is a nice jacket you can wear outside. Hey, before we get to the questions that SRI and I prepared, why don't you remind our audience what P2PI is and a little bit of the details behind the trends report you recently fielded.

[Cindy Loza]

Sure. So the Path to Purchase Institute is a publication and member organization that has been serving the needs of the commerce marketing community for more than 30 years. And we do this in a variety of ways. We have shared groups on demand, educational courses, webinars, newsletters, our website pdpi.com and in person events. Our next event is actually our huge Retail Media Summit event and that will be held in Rosemount, Illinois from May 6th to the 8th. We also produce proprietary research reports. Our longest running research report, hands down is our Trends Report. We've been doing it for something like 30 years now and for that report we pull our CPG Brand community to really examine and look into the major trends and issues affecting them and the commerce marketing community. The first half of the trend survey dedicated to retail media was just released in February with our first ever sponsor, TransUnion, and for this year's study we picked the brains of about 70 CPG brand professionals between August 26th and and October 9th that work with RMNs. And honestly, I'm just excited to go through the findings with you. It's fun to talk about and I appreciate the opportunity to just nerd out.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Awesome Cindy. We'll direct our audience to the digital liner notes of this episode where they can find links to your LinkedIn profile, PDPI's website and LinkedIn page, and also the publicly available portion of the Retail Media Insights survey that you published on p2pi.com and also where they can learn more about getting access to the full Trends Report, which members have exclusive access to all right, let's get onto our conversation if we might so digging into all the insights because SRI and I just had an absolutely wonderful time reading through all of the insights and what we're hoping to do today is get some summary observations for you that'll pique their interest in wanting to learn more. Let's start off very basically with what do brand advertiser investments against retail media look like in 2024 versus 2023? Up down the same. What are the highlights from your research?

[Cindy Loza]

Yeah, so it'll probably come as no or a little surprise that a majority of those we spoke to said their organizations increased their retail media investment in 2024. 70% reported at least a minor increase compared to 2023. And this was a slight bump from last year's report when 63% reported at least a minor increase in 2023 compared to 2022. And I want to add that this increase in retail media investment, be it budgetary or retention, seems to be for a reason. In our same trends report, 80% of respondents told us RMNs are as effective or more effective than other digital media. And this is a significant jump from last year's survey when 69% of respondents said the same. We also teamed with sky to produce a separate report, the State of Retail Media Report, which also dropped last month. And in that report, a huge majority, 82% of both CPG brands and agency professionals we spoke to described the results retail media drove in 2024 as meeting or exceeding KPI goals. All that to say investment in RMNS continues to increase over the years from what we can see, and it's probably not without cause.

[Sri SRI]

Cindy, first of all, welcome to the CPG guys for the third time. I really enjoyed this annual conversation we're having on the research report you all put out. Before I move on to the next question, could you take a second to highlight the work you have done with sky on what that report covers that's different from what you did directly with the Pat to Purchase Institute?

[Cindy Loza]

Yes, it's actually, you know, and it's great that, because we kind of work on it both hand in hand and really we just kind of ask some questions in one report and some other ones in the other. And I really encourage others to read the State of Retail Media report because we go into incrementality and how people are measuring it, how they have different definitions for it still, but they also feel a little more, I think almost they feel more confident in their measuring, measuring incrementality measurement, and they seem to be more applying those insights to the organization. So again, I really appreciate. Yeah. That we get to work on both reports.

[Sri SRI]

So Cindy, while we will be putting links on the digital liner notes of this podcast to download them, can you just tell people briefly where they can find these reports?

[Cindy Loza]

Yes, definitely. Check them out on pdpi.com so for.

[Sri SRI]

Folks listening in to our episode today with Cindy, you all know the importance of retail media today. Peter and I heard when we were up at Cagney just a few weeks ago, senior leadership didn't really discuss retail media as a important topic whatsoever because they're concerned right now about volume growth. And unless retail they're really focused on what are the three or four drivers that can get them volume growth back. And in the absence of anything substantiative, what they're focused on is cost cutting. That's at least our high level interpretation. That's why we felt we need to bring Cindy on the show and actually go through the reports. So I'm going to jump to that very next line item, which is the spend or the follow the money trail. So I'd love to ask you what you learned about how much of that total spend on retail media is incremental to base budgeting or base budgets.

[Cindy Loza]

Yeah. So overall 70% of CPG brands we spoke to said their organization's retail media spend is incremental to base budgets. Breaking it down. When we asked how much of that total retail media spend is incremental to base budgets, 30% of survey takers we spoke to said 0. 27% said it was between 11 to 20%, 21% told us it was up to 10%. 18% shared it was between 21 to 40% and 4% said it was more than 50%. Speaking with my research team, shout out to Beth and Heather, you're great. They noticed that the share respondents that reported zero decreased 4 percentage points compared to last year. While this isn't statistically significant, they say that it does indicate a directional that trend.

[Sri SRI]

Peter so if you heard the first number Cindy quoted, it's actually fairly large number which is incremental to base budget. If brands are actually investing that kind of money.

[Cindy Loza]

Right.

[Sri SRI]

This is a survey. Nobody had to reveal the numbers and they've said they are. Why was it not academy? Why is it not top of mind?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

I think what we're going to have to ask Cindy about is where that increment, where that incremental investment is going. Is it, is it going to the usual suspects or is it going to a lot of the emerging retail media networks? That's the big thing. Like if they, if it's just going to the big guys, nobody really wants to talk about it because that's where all the movement is. They don't want to disappoint any of the other customers that they have in the fact. So we'll get to that in a second. But I guess my next question to you is how are brand advertisers actually allocating their budget to retail media? What's going on there?

[Cindy Loza]

Cindy as far as how retail media budget allocations are determined in their organization, we found that 60% of survey takers said they were determined in an annual budget, while 34% reported they were determined campaign by campaign based on objectives. We also had 6% that wrote in various responses. One person shared, for example, that their retail media budget allocations are determined in JBP planning and what they need to commit to stay on shelf and in the good graces of their retailers.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, I think that's really interesting that they can look campaign by campaign and say, okay, if I found something that works and it's driving material value and it's incremental, I'm going to keep investing against it. That's what I hear. But I also hear you say that to some degree because I think we know that most retail media campaigns in the number of campaigns are being done by the trade teams because they're the ones working with most of the retail media networks. I think it would be different if we look at it in terms of the actual dollar share that's going against that. But that's actually very interesting. Sree.

[Sri SRI]

So Peter, I'm using the benchmarks. You and I have read this report cover to cover. So none of this is a surprise to us. Right? I'm still scratching my head, Peter, because one of the most important gathering of retail media leadership is going to happen in the next week and a half, which is at Shop Talk. And I'm looking through who's attending. I understand that versus grocery shop. This is much more holistic in nature and it's much more brand marketing. Advertising not possible, but possible of course being the conference for advertisers or not A and a Brand Masters or Adweek, but certainly a much more holistic advertising conference. But I'm starting to look at who's coming and I'm clearly seeing leadership from RMNs are absent. Now if brands are saying, look, I'm putting incremental dollars, I believe I'm getting better roi. I'm using a large portion of brands have said, hey, I'm actually using it against my jbp. Why is RMN leadership not there and why is it because CES is where the action already happened. I think, Peter, we have to discover that when we actually end up going to Shop Talk this year and ask those questions. Because everything in this report, at least in the first three questions we've asked Cindy, indicates to me retail media is in a healthy place, will actually continue to grow. So keeping that as our backdrop, Cindy, what percentage of a brand advertises retail media spending is provided by shopper marketing and then correspondingly, what is it for national media or trade and dedicated retail media budgets? Could you give us the breakdown and then I'll come back and ask you part B of that?

[Cindy Loza]

Yes, we found that retail media spending is coming from a variety of marketing budgets, most commonly shopper marketing budgets followed by a dedicated retail media budget, national media and trade. This is more or less what we heard last year with just a bit more folks telling us retail media spending is coming from shopper marketing. 30% this year told us this compared to 28% last year. Nearly a quarter also shared this year that retail media is funded by a dedicated retail media budget. That's a 2% increase compared to last year. It is also worth noting that 20% of those we spoke to said retail media is funded by trade, which is a 6% decrease from last year's report.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Wow, that's very interesting understanding where the money's coming from. I Think it's going to be interesting when we start talking about how many retail media networks an average brand advertiser is conducting business with. Because the question is, how efficient is that? Let me remind our audience that we have the pleasure today of speaking with our friend Cindy Loza from Path to Purchase Institute. We're talking about the most recent retail media trends and insights coming from their national trend survey that they put together. So. So as brand advertisers, think about the full portfolio of retail media capabilities from what they told you in the survey. What are the most and least important tactics for brand advertising? What do they really want? What do they really don't care about?

[Cindy Loza]

When we asked our takers how important certain retail media tactics were to their organizations, we found that search and sponsored products were the most important to them. Search and sponsored product ads were deemed at least very important, if not extremely important by 80% of those we spoke to. Also worth noting, more than half of respondents pointed to on site display, social retailer, mobile apps and off site display as at least very important to their organizations. On the other hand, tactics such as in store audio, digital out of home and parking lots and charging stations and TV walls were were seen as less important to those we spoke to.

[Sri SRI]

The TV wall speeder doesn't come at any surprise to me. I don't think this whole notion of in store tv, et cetera is still picking up, really. Streaming TV still, it's, it's unpersonalized.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Right. Sree, What I hear is the tactics that aren't personalized are less interesting to, to the advertisers that are growing quite accustomed to highly personalized, you know, search capabilities. Right? That's a real issue.

[Sri SRI]

Honestly, Peter, I feel streaming TV has to take off first before TV wall static TV walls become relevant in the first place. But I still feel, Peter, the usual suspects of what people are saying are important, like search, rising up to the top, display on site first, then off site. Like literally, if you and I were to predict how this would go, it's literally played out that way, right? I'm still scratching my head in absolute puzzlement. I just came back from the Commerce Media Brand Summit, right? And pretty much these are not leadership for brands, but these are the actual hands on keyboard who are running these budgets every single day. Those are the people that came. I got to listen to a lot of the panels, I got to interact with a lot of people that. We even recorded a couple podcasts there. One was with Chelsea Alexander that we just released a week or so ago. And to Come with Michael Luckier from IGA Independent Groceries Association. And the conversation still said, it is a chaos, it's a mess. We don't have the networks, frameworks. We're pulling back. But then privately people are. What we're learning is the investment is going up by the day. I mean, would you have, if I had asked you independently, Peter, tell me what are the most least and important tactics, Wouldn't you have said exactly what the survey said?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, I mean, obviously search is going to be top of mind because it's quick, it's direct. There is no interpretation. You get an absolutely accurate measurement of ad serve and conversion, typically within 70, you know, within about seven hours, even shorter, maybe even two hours. And you can measure it very effectively. The further you go away from the bottom of the funnel, the longer it takes to actually get a measurement. As to the conversion. A typical conversion when you're doing off site takes more than seven days to actually take place.

[Sri SRI]

I think you're 100% right, Peter. The reason why people hold on to search, you can connect it directly to a roas that I personally believe once upon a time was everything and now kind of artificial inflation of dollars.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

I'm going to add one more reason, sri and we're going to get to this. But most of the advertising and retail media is handled by the customer teams. The teams that call on those retailers, what are they focused on? They're focused on conversion at that retailer. Right. So they're not going to spend an enormous or an inordinate amount of time working on brand building. They're going to work on sales conversion. And that's why search is. Is so I believe why search is such a dominant component of the investment portfolio.

[Sri SRI]

I think we've kind of been advocates of measurement for retail media needs to be anchored on brand objectives. But to measure that, Peter, the campaign has to be developed based on brand objectives. First. Leader after leader after leader from CPG says, I'm losing households, my volume is bleeding. It absolutely has to be anchored on brand objectives. And if you want to gain households back, sometimes that might actually be impressions. What a dirty word. SRI impressions for retail media. That's what brands need today. It isn't just about that's what you need.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

For upper funnel. For upper funnel. When you're doing discovery, impressions is the key metric. You're trying to create awareness or even.

[Sri SRI]

Pdp hover time coming from a retail media ad. Click like, why isn't that measured? Because that means consideration. And I think the point we're trying to make here is pretty straightforward, Peter, that the measurement needs to follow what brands need today. And correspondingly, tactics need to be those that actually can deliver for brands today. All that said, Cindy, I'm going to ask you a chaos question right now. Lots of conversation. Way too many retail media networks. And then Peter and I look at reports we see 77 cents to the dollar is really going to Amazon ads in retail media, Walmart connects the next in line and Instacart has a piece of that pie and then it's everybody else. So pretty crowded field for everybody else. And so how many retail media networks do brand advertisers work with? And can you give us some highlights from your learning there?

[Cindy Loza]

Right, so you're absolutely right. CPG brands are juggling a staggering number of RMNs. Half of our survey takers said their organizations are currently working with more than 5 RMNs, while 30% said they're with more than 10. I also want to call out that we expect that number of RMNs marketers engage with to increase within the next two years. Again referencing the state of retail media report, both CPG brands and agency professionals told us they're engaging with an average of 6 retail media networks currently and they expect that number to increase to 8 by the end of this year and 11 by the end of 2026.

[Sri SRI]

Peter, honestly, I don't like the answer from brands. They tell me directly. They tell you directly. They say it publicly. It's obviously on the researchers weight too many. Right? Like six is the running average right now it looks like of which three are large and the rest are followers. And then if you've got over a hundred overall it's just, it sounds on a piece of paper and say let me flip that Peter and ask you a question. How many, how many retailers and trade budgets does a company have to manage as an average?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Well, you've got, it depends on the class of trade you're in. And, and, and let's just take grocery. Grocery. You know there could be 20 or 30 different RMNs if you really go at it. Super regions.

[Sri SRI]

I'm not even going RMNs. I'm just talking trade budgets to do business and be in distribution every day.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

I mean for, I mean how many grocery retailers are there exactly?

[Sri SRI]

Over 100.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah.

[Sri SRI]

And people over time have evolved to figure out how to build customer teams to manage over 100 retailers. Why is RMN such a challenge that people are complaining? Oh, it's 100 RMNs. I don't get ROI. Do you get ROI from the 7 retail chain that you have going through the wholesale distributor that you're writing a trade check to for distribution.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

I think the challenge SRI for most of them is have the retail media experts in the organization trained the trade teams to execute and measure. There is a lack of expertise and as a result of that, the level of investment leaning forward is probably very limited. They're doing it. They're not doing it a lot. And here's the other and here's the evidence that sree some work I saw Flywheel did last year with Georgia Pacific, right? Georgia Pacific was working with 26 RMNs. When we did the analysis of what actually worked, what moved the needle, what made it more incremental, they could have done done much better working with just six of those 26. And that's because they haven't probably done a very good job of actually training the trade teams that call on the other 20 RMMs that they could have gotten rid of to be more efficient and actually make those successful. There's just a lack of expertise.

[Sri SRI]

My biggest takeaway, Peter, single biggest takeaway from Cindy's report and what she's speaking to us today and our own interpretation of the data being out and about in the industry. Cagney talking to people at the Commerce Media Brand Summit CES Shop talk will be upon us. One of the biggest flaws in our industry today is ownership of retail media. Started in sales, wrestled by marketing, and kind of in a little bit of no man or woman's land today in terms of who owns it, will measure it. What are the standards? What are the frameworks? A simple solution for moving forward and getting the most from your retail media dollars. You nailed it, Peter. Train your sales teams. It's not that hard. Let me repeat it. Simple English. Train your sales teams to own it like they do the dollar. I guarantee you for trade budgets, they have ROI down to nano pennies. They will do it for you on retail. This is retail after all. Thoughts?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Sree I guess it's a question I have back to you. If you're a CMO and you want to be best in class around the strategy behind retail media, you want to collaborate, where do you go for that kind of education?

[Sri SRI]

Very straightforward, Peter. Yes, I do, Peter. That's why the CPG guys have created the industry's first executive retail media learning program with Cornell Tech May 5th through 8th at the campus in Roosevelt Island. Who's who? Retail media networks, brands, service providers. Shape the conversation in the industry. Tell them what you really think, get the outcomes that you want. That easy and if you want to know how you can get more information, it's in the digital line. And also this podcast was also the opening statement by Peter of this podcast and every podcast go forward and backwards. So we sincerely hope you will join us for the retail media executive education and shape the industry. Because you own it, you shape it. You will get the outcomes that you want.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

It's like I served you up a fastball over home plate, and like Aaron Judge, you just knocked that one right out of the park. Shree.

[Sri SRI]

It was a grand slam. But Peter jokes apart. Peter, if there's an issue, training is an issue, conversations are an issue. We're serving it up on a platter. So I personally expect to see you there.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

[Shree Rajagop]

Sri.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

It'll be great. All right, Cindy, let's get back to you. You talk to a lot of people about a lot of different RMNs. I think in the research that you shared and made publicly available, there were 12 or 16 RMMs that you rated on a number of facets. What I'd love to hear from you is who were the winners and what was it about them that really resonated with the audience? And I've got to assume that it's not like the person who is working on Amazon is then going and rating dollar general. It's usually a different person because different trade teams. Right. So understanding that, what was it about the retailers that really shined in this survey that made them such standouts?

[Cindy Loza]

Yes. Now I love to talk about this. So as part of our Trends report, and for the sixth straight year, we asked survey takers to rate the retailer media work networks that they work with based on their relative strengths across seven key performance metrics. Those metrics are targeting effectiveness measurement capabilities, roi, data sharing, sales growth, creative freedom, and traffic driving capabilities. We actually rated about 25 networks, but the other results are on for members only on pdpi.com now, it's hard to choose a clear winner because it can really vary based on what metric we're looking at. I can say that at least 68% of respondents who worked with Amazon, Instacart, Sam's Club, Walmart, and Kroger gave those networks at least a good score across every metric I mentioned. Now, if we're looking at leaders among those seven metrics, Amazon led the way in measurement capabilities and data sharing, with 86% or more of respondents giving the network at least a good rating in those categories. Instacart ads pulled ahead of other networks when it came to sales growth and traffic driving capabilities, with 97% of respondents giving the network at least a good rating for these metrics. It also led the way in ROI and creative freedom. And final note, 94% of respondents who worked with Sam's Club Map and Amazon DSP gave the networks at least a good score when it came to targeting effectiveness. But I have to say Amazon was a clear leader between the two in this category as a vast majority who worked with the network gave it an excellent, very good score compared to Sam's Club where a majority gave the network only a good score.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, I think that is a clear indication that the likes of Amazon Marketing cloud their clean room, which allows for audience building, audience measurement, performance. It stands ahead of everyone else is best in class, and that is reflected in your survey results. So that's, that's really good. But also kudos to our friends, you know, Josh Rider and Tim Castelli at Instacart for really growing the reaction of brand investors to what they're offering to the marketplace. Sure sounds like they're making a run at being best in class themselves. Sri, your thoughts?

[Sri SRI]

I really want to say kudos to Instacart for jumping up top in terms of clear winners for measurement, especially outcomes tactics. Like when someone calls you the clear winner, obviously you're bundling all of that and delivering for them. I have an interesting dilemma on that one. We know the Instacart folks personally very well. We know how hard they work at leading this. And if I go back in time in history, they probably even had a leg up on Amazon ads over Covid because they were the mechanism for home delivery for over a year. Like consistently.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

You know, Sheree, they were the first retail media network to come on the CPG Guys podcast when Josh Rider appeared in the summer of 2020.

[Sri SRI]

And so did Ryan, when I can't even remember how long ago that must have been. But Ryan was at Instacart. We're thankful that they did come. They've shaped retail media networks in many ways, at least in the United States, and they continue to do that. Obviously now they're also evolving into tech with the capercard, etc. But this is another one I struggle with. Peter. Privately, brands will say I'm not having growth on Instacart, therefore I'm pulling back. But publicly, clearly they're number one. You and I know they have the capabilities, they have the metrics, measurement for them to be way up top out there. We already know that. It's not a surprise. My guess over here is Instacart is slowly, maybe not at the speed of Amazon moving away from just being lower funnel activation lower on in the consideration set to becoming more of a media channel for food and bev groceries center store Thoughts on that one?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Peter I agree SRI because they have scale. They have so many retailers and marketplaces or so many retailers in their marketplace that it's worth the squeeze for brand advertisers to go to Instacart to do upper funnel advertising, to do programmatic, to do streaming television. That's not the case with a lot of these smaller regional super regionals. So Instacart is a place where you will go and you'll get large retailers in their marketplace, you'll get small regional retailers in the marketplace. It is a really good audience for brand advertisers to reach full funnel capabilities.

[Sri SRI]

Congratulations Instacart. You heard it here first Peter and I believe that you guys can be national media at this point. And the number one reason you can be is unlike any other rmn, not the likes of Google's and Meta who don't have the lower funnel activation very easily. You actually have multiple retailers and your audience sizes therefore can be very relevant. I'm also connecting it back to today's environment of volume challenges, Peter. Instacart offers that luxury that most other true retail based RNs don't offer. So Cindy, let's flip the coin and look at the other side of the coin which is what about those that need improvement? Who are they, what are people saying and what do they need to focus on to get into the game and actually get this glowing praise like Instacart just got from us.

[Cindy Loza]

Yes. So I would say that one of the reasons I like this survey is because we're not just saying this one RMN is the best or this one other one is the worst. It depends on the metric. Some networks might need improvement in some areas, but they're doing well in others. Target's Roundel is a good example. The network performed better than it did last year and more than half of survey takers that work with it gave it at least a good good rating across all metrics except for Creative Freedom, more than half gave it a more than half service. Respondents that work with the network gave it a fair or poor score for Creative Freedom. But on the other hand, it did especially well in targeting effectiveness with 82% of respondents giving it at least a good score. I'll just say that, you know, I encourage everyone to check out all the results of the Trends report on pdpi.com we only shared results for 16 RMNs in the main article, but members of P2PI can access all the results and findings within the Members Only resources section of our website.

[Sri SRI]

Peter 0 Surprise that people are saying, hey, with Target, I don't have creative freedom. If we go back in history, right? Roundel was probably one of the first retail media networks to be born and they've done an incredible job of up and down the chain cross functionally digital being embedded into their merchandising team. Buyers, junior buyers, VPs, SVPs, they know their digital game inside out. And so when you actually invest in ground L, you're getting a full funnel marketing opportunity, albeit it's just on target, unlike Instacart, which is on multiple retailers. But you're getting full funnel targeting. And when buyers are in the game, they totally are going to curb the creative freedom so that you can drive through a sale. That's one of the challenges you're going to have to learn how to deal with. But the return you get back is it's end to end full funnel marketing, which should outweigh, hey, I don't have creative freedom. But then about five questions ago I said it needs to be brand objective based. So it's probably a moment for Roundel to reflect and say, hey, let's design a full funnel campaign where the ultimate goal is lower funnel activation, but it's based on brand objectives and meet brands halfway on this. But net net I understand the reason why. Peter, would you agree?

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, I would. And I would also say to those RMNs that did not fare well, particularly around areas of targeting and measurement, I would dive deep into these results and I would spend the better part of the next couple months figuring out what do they need to do. Talk to your suppliers, talk to your brand advertisers and ask them what do we need to do to make this a more compelling offering for national brand dollars. Right? Is it a capabilities issue? Scale's another thing, right? Their ability to scale is going to be challenged by their ability to partner with other RMNs and make it a more national audience. But even within that, you know, if they got low scores on on targetability and they got low scores on measurement.

[Shree Rajagop]

You'Re not going to see a lot.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Of brand dollars shopping around that rmn.

[Shree Rajagop]

So there's a lot of work that.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Needs to be done. Sree, do you agree?

[Sri SRI]

No doubt in my head at all whatsoever. Peter, I think this is awesome that Cindy came on and gave us something to work with. Over here as we walk into Shop Talk.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah. And Cindy, Cherie and I are so greatly appreciative of the fact you took time out of your day to walk us through. We're going to make sure, as we said, we'll have links to the publicly available report in the digital liner notes this episode where they can learn more about the overall trends report and membership in P2PI. Sri and I are going to be talking about this for days to come. We're so glad that you joined us today. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Cindy Loza]

You guys are great to talk to. I always love coming on and we.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Love talking to you too, because you know what, we're a bunch of industry wonks and we like to have a fun conversation. And this is, you know, you bring data to the table. That gets Sree and I every time. We're really excited about that. Thank you, Cindy. So Sree, really great conversation with Cindy. There is, though, a disconnect between what we're hearing from the hands on keyboard people out in the field right now. This survey was taken, what, four months ago. I think the world has changed a lot in four months and that may be some of the disconnect. I also question whether when we talk about budgets increasing, whether that's all going to the two major players in this, in this ecosystem, Amazon and Walmart. Could that also be a reason that while they're getting some increases, the other hundred RMNs are really. People are walking away because based upon a lot of the survey results we saw from Cindy, they're not really pleased with the capabilities that those RMMs offer. What are you thinking, Peter?

[Sri SRI]

Here's my struggle, right? The survey is the survey. The data doesn't lie. So we have to accept the data. Right? And this is coming from hands on keyboard. So I met a lot of these people at the Commerce Media Brand Summit, but I heard completely different conversations. I'm disappointed with my RMN measurement capability. I'm disappointed with my roi. I don't have frameworks. I'm annoyed that every RMN has different measurement. I am going to pull back. My boss wants me to. My leadership wants me to. Brand has taken over the budgets from customer teams. Generally, the word that came to my mind was we are entering a chaos zone. Follow me, Peter. Like a chaos zone, Right? So there's clearly a disconnect between results. What people said three months ago in today's reality, of course, you and I are going to be at Shop Talk and we're going to mingle with a lot of folks Again. And a lot of those folks do actually own the budget and our hands on keyboard. So we'll come back and decipher that here on the CPG guys a little bit more. But for now I am puzzled.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Yeah, we're going to have data doesn't lie. I want to acknowledge that I agree with you. You know, sri, I just think that what we're doing with Cornell this may is so incredibly important to kind of align the industry on how this is going. I just published on our page today an analysis by eMarketer saying that by the end of the decade, no, by 2028, rather not that far. It's actually three years that retail media spend in the US will be just under $98 billion. Right. So we're still seeing growth, the growth rate is declining, but we really as an industry have to get a handle on how this is invested, budgeted, measured. All of those are things. And I think that's why the curriculum that we've developed with Cornell is so integral to how we're going to move this industry forward.

[Sri SRI]

I could not agree more, Peter. Well, you have a chance to shape it. As I mentioned, midway through this podcast you can get clicks to and the link to how to enroll for the program. Get to know more about the program, whatever interests you in the digital liner notes of this podcast episode. More importantly, Peter and I would love to see you there so you can actually shape the conversation with us and create what's right for the industry as a leader.

[Peter Vs. Bond]

Sheree, as always, thank you for taking time out of your day to do this podcast with me. It's the best part of our week. We really love doing it because nobody learns more than we do to our audience. Make sure you're following us on Apple, Spotify or whatever platform you choose. Just make sure you subscribe and if while you're there, you like what we're doing, just give us a rating. Our favorite numbers 5. It's up to you what you give us. And of course we are so grateful to the 30, near nearly 36,000 followers on LinkedIn who tell us that that what we're doing is both educational and entertaining. So we're really grateful for your your loyalty. Thank you Peter to our audience. Again, we look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of the CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye.

[Narrator]

The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGuys LLC where the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGuys LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. The views expressed by CPGuys LLC do not represent the views of their employers or the entity they represent. CPT Guys, LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we present in this podcast.