Retail Media Pioneers Recap | Advancing Measurement, Transparency & Full-Funnel Impact

Retail Media Pioneers Recap: Advancing Measurement, Transparency & Full-Funnel Impact

Here we review the key takes from two insightful sessions at the conference, including “How can retailers increase their data transparency to optimise advertiser campaigns and unlock an additional revenue stream?” featuring Paul Dahill, Managing Director, EMEA Sales, Koddi, and “How we are embracing a full-funnel future to shape the entire customer journey, raise brand awareness and create loyal advocates” with Rudolf Schneider, Director EU, Retail Media, Amazon Ads and Manant Maheshwari, Global Retail Media Director, Coty.

Key Takeaways:

1. Standardization of Metrics: The industry urgently needs agreed-upon measurement frameworks and KPIs. Without shared standards, brands struggle to evaluate retail media performance consistently across platforms.
2. Multi-Touch Attribution: Moving beyond last-click measurement is essential for understanding the true impact of different touchpoints across the customer journey. Multi-touch attribution enables more informed and strategic decision-making.
3. Connecting Digital Shelf Data: Integrating digital shelf analytics such as availability, pricing, and customer reviews with media activation helps brands optimise campaigns in real time and better demonstrate retail media’s incremental value.
4. Leveraging Clean Rooms: Privacy-safe environments like Amazon Marketing Cloud allow brands to connect their first-party data, closing the loop between exposure and sales and unlocking more meaningful insights.
5. Aligning on KPIs: Establishing shared success metrics early with internal stakeholders is critical to avoiding misalignment and ensuring retail media investments deliver measurable business outcomes.

Measurement and Transparency in Retail Media Networks – what they said:

The speakers highlighted that one of the biggest challenges in the current landscape is the lack of standardised metrics and the ongoing difficulty in connecting media exposure directly to sales outcomes.

Paul Dahill, Managing Director of EMEA Sales at Koddi, explained how flexibility within platforms can support more advanced measurement approaches: “In those platforms, you're able to dial up and dial down, basically change the attribution and bring your own kind of governance… you'd be able to apply your own approach to attribution methodologies.”

This inconsistency across platforms makes it difficult for brands to compare performance or align on universal KPIs.

Manant Maheshwari of Coty underscored the power of strong measurement signals, sharing an example of cross-channel impact: “Journeys that started with Prime Video and Twitch drove 80% new-to-brand shoppers… an astounding feat for an evergreen brand like Davidoff.” These examples emphasised the need for clearer measurement frameworks and transparent attribution models to prove the value of retail media across the entire funnel.

Actionable takes:

1. Adopt multi-touch attribution models to capture the influence of each interaction along the customer journey and go beyond last-click bias.
2. Integrate digital shelf data including availability, pricing, and reviews into media planning and execution to optimise campaigns and more accurately demonstrate incrementality. As Paul Dahill noted, this could include “connecting digital shelf data to bidding platforms like Sky and Packview, but also across DSP as well.”
3. Leverage clean room technologies such as Amazon Marketing Cloud to combine first-party data across the ecosystem, enabling brands to measure holistic performance while maintaining privacy compliance.