Behind the Numbers: How Players Are Trying to Stand Out in the Commerce Media Universe

Audio by Marcus Johnson, Arielle Feger, and Sarah Marzano | Apr 11, 2025

Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson (00:07):

Hey, gang. It's Friday, April 11th. Sarah, Arielle, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER video podcast. I'm Marcus. Today we'll be discussing the latest moves in commerce media. Join me for that conversation.

(00:20):

We have with us two people. Let's meet them. We'll start with our principal analyst who covers commerce media for us based in New York. It's Sarah Marzano.

Sarah Marzano (00:28):

Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (00:30):

Who hasn't been on the show in years, apparently.

Sarah Marzano (00:36):

I've been waiting, I've been waiting for this call.

Marcus Johnson (00:36):

With drama. Welcome back, Sarah. It's good to see you again after... It's been like a week.

(00:44):

Also joining us, one of our senior analysts who hasn't been on this show before, but is a staple on the Reimagining Retail show. She's also in the same city, same studio currently. It's Arielle Feger.

Arielle Feger (00:54):

Yep, it's me. I'm here. Happy to be here.

Marcus Johnson (00:56):

Hello. Hello. Today's facts. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the first moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Arielle Feger (01:17):

I hate these types of facts, Marcus, because they-

Marcus Johnson (01:17):

Why?

Arielle Feger (01:20):

... they mess with my head. I'm like, "What?"

Marcus Johnson (01:22):

I know. This took me a second.

Arielle Feger (01:23):

"How do I... How am I going to position that in my head, in my timeline?"

Marcus Johnson (01:27):

It was either this or it takes 12 honeybees a lifetime's worth of work to make one tablespoon of honey.

Arielle Feger (01:37):

Wow.

Marcus Johnson (01:38):

And that felt sad.

Arielle Feger (01:39):

That's also depressing.

Marcus Johnson (01:40):

But now you've made me say it.

Sarah Marzano (01:41):

Sweet.

Arielle Feger (01:41):

Sorry.

Marcus Johnson (01:41):

I hope you're happy, Arielle.

Arielle Feger (01:42):

Can I share my own fun fact?

Marcus Johnson (01:45):

Oh, yeah. I was going to tell you more about Cleopatra, but please go ahead.

Arielle Feger (01:47):

Oh, no, no, no. No, go, you go ahead.

Marcus Johnson (01:48):

I said, "Weigh in in this section," not, "hijack the section."

Arielle Feger (01:52):

No, I was hijacking.

Marcus Johnson (01:53):

Go on.

Sarah Marzano (01:53):

I have nothing to add for Cleopatra. So let's-

Marcus Johnson (01:53):

No, go on. What do you got for us?

Arielle Feger (01:54):

Well-

Marcus Johnson (01:54):

What's your fact?

Arielle Feger (01:54):

... my fun fact is today is my mother's birthday and I wanted to say-

Marcus Johnson (01:54):

Happy birthday!

Arielle Feger (01:58):

... happy birthday to my mother, and yeah, thanks. Happy birthday, Mom!

Marcus Johnson (02:04):

That's so much better, but I already did the research, so I'm just going to now awkwardly tell you more about Cleopatra.

Arielle Feger (02:09):

Oops. So sorry, Cleopatra. Please tell me more about Cleopatra.

Marcus Johnson (02:11):

But happy birthday to Mrs. Arielle Sr.

Arielle Feger (02:11):

Yep.

Marcus Johnson (02:11):

I don't know if that's her name.

Sarah Marzano (02:11):

That's what she goes by.

Arielle Feger (02:15):

Ms. Arielle Sr. Yeah, correct.

Marcus Johnson (02:20):

So yeah, the pyramid was completed 2000, 2,500, 2500, I don't know how you say it, BCE while Cleopatra ruled from 51 to 30 BCE, and she also wasn't Egyptian.

Arielle Feger (02:40):

Hmm.

Sarah Marzano (02:40):

Shut up!

Marcus Johnson (02:42):

Yeah. Famously associated with Ancient Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian Greek descent. She was actually the last ruler of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, the line of rule established in 323 BCE following the death of Alexander the Great.

Arielle Feger (02:57):

Wow. It feels like a Mandela effect, you know? Cleopatra?

Marcus Johnson (03:01):

Huh?

Arielle Feger (03:02):

Mandela effect? Do you know the Mandela effect?

Marcus Johnson (03:05):

Nope.

Arielle Feger (03:06):

Okay. Well, it's this thing. So a lot of people believe that Nelson Mandela died when he was in jail, but that is not correct. He lived after that.

Marcus Johnson (03:06):

Right.

Arielle Feger (03:17):

And so it's called the Mandela effect when people misremember a part of history or just anything like that. I think a good example is Berenstain Bears. It's spelled with an A-I-N instead of an E-I-N, Berenstain Bears. I think it's still pronounced the same. But anyway, Mandela effect.

Sarah Marzano (03:37):

I'm learning so much.

Marcus Johnson (03:37):

Can that be applied to everything?

Arielle Feger (03:37):

Yes.

Marcus Johnson (03:42):

Okay. I feel like that's most people's lives.

Arielle Feger (03:44):

It's just misremembering.

Marcus Johnson (03:46):

It's just misremembering history-

Arielle Feger (03:47):

Yeah, but it is a fun-

Marcus Johnson (03:48):

... by most people. I mean, me.

Arielle Feger (03:49):

... coin term. I mean, we're all marketers here. We love to coin a term.

Marcus Johnson (03:54):

We do. It's too much, marketers. Calm down.

(03:57):

The last thing I'll say... We've been going real long. Stuart [inaudible 00:04:00] is going to hate this.

Sarah Marzano (03:59):

I have nothing to add.

Arielle Feger (03:59):

Now I really am full on [inaudible 00:04:01] the book... I am so sorry.

Marcus Johnson (04:04):

That's okay. It's half you, mainly Sarah. No, it's mainly me. I spent a lot of time on this, which I shouldn't have. It's not my real job.

Sarah Marzano (04:11):

We share.

Marcus Johnson (04:11):

She was 18 when she became the queen and ruler of Egypt. Most folks at that age are like, "I'm off to college to learn how to do laundry. Pray for me."

Arielle Feger (04:11):

A lot of pressure.

Marcus Johnson (04:21):

Cleopatra, it was more like, "You're now in charge of Egypt, so good luck with that."

Arielle Feger (04:25):

Wow.

Marcus Johnson (04:26):

Anyway.

Arielle Feger (04:27):

Perspective.

Marcus Johnson (04:28):

Today's real topic, an hour later, commerce media.

(04:39):

All right, we're talking retail media. Retail media ad spending will reach $60 billion this year in the US according to our estimates. Amazon's most of that. It might shock nobody. 76% to be specific of that money is Amazon, so they're kind of in charge of steering the ship, so to speak, on retail media. But Walmart has a significant slice, 8% all by themself, which leaves 16% for all other players, of which there are a lot. And we thought we'd start today's episode by talking about a few of the most interesting ones.

(05:21):

Sarah, we'll start with you, you're going to give us a couple, but let's start with one, which of these other guys, so to speak, are making some of the most interesting moves so far this year?

Sarah Marzano (05:31):

Yeah. First of all, I love this topic. There are 80-some-odd retail media networks operating in the United States, and that's according to a research firm mimbi, and they're all sharing about 16% share of retail media ad spending. So it's fascinating to watch how these players are looking to diversify their offerings in order to scale and succeed in a really competitive landscape, and-

Marcus Johnson (05:59):

Is that a share that's growing, even slightly?

Sarah Marzano (06:00):

So the pie is growing, right?

Marcus Johnson (06:00):

The pie is growing? Okay.

Sarah Marzano (06:00):

And the share is growing just ever so slightly as well.

Marcus Johnson (06:00):

Got it.

Sarah Marzano (06:04):

So they're sort of chipping away. So even though throughout the timeframe that we forecast out the individual retailers, even though we have Amazon set to continue commanding more than three-quarters of the share, there are tenths of percentage points shifting there, which is a lot when you think about we're dealing with north of $60 billion, right?

Marcus Johnson (06:23):

Yes. And the dollars are still going up because the pie's getting bigger overall. Got it.

Sarah Marzano (06:26):

Yeah. And I think this year's been really exciting. We had a flurry of retail media announcements starting with the CES Conference this year, and one that caught my eye was Albertsons launching an API that enables their advertising partners to incorporate campaign results directly into their own measurement models.

(06:44):

So measurement is this really big pain point among advertisers when it comes to scaling their retail media spend because right now there are not widely-adapted standards for measurement metrics and advertisers find it quite hard to compare the efficacy of their spend across multiple retail media networks, which is one of the things that slows down advertiser adoption. So I loved this move from Albertsons because it's specifically geared at a real concern that advertisers have and addressing that in a way that meets them where they already are.

Marcus Johnson (07:16):

On the measurement side of things, I was going through your... So you've got your Commerce Media Trends Report 2025. What are we expecting to happen in the world of measurement this year? Because I didn't see anything, I don't think you broke out measurement as one of the big milestones for this year, correct?

Sarah Marzano (07:32):

Yeah. I mean, because measurement is something that we've been talking about for quite some time within retail media and there's been some important moves from industry organizations towards setting the guidelines for what would make up industry retail media measurement standards. So the IAB finalized their guidelines, I believe it was last year, but it takes time for retailers to digest those guidelines and think through how they're going to adhere to them.

(08:00):

I actually wrote an entire report on the state of measurement in retail media that published, I think, in January, and there's a lot of nuances. There are some defendable reasons why retailers might measure certain metrics in a specific or customized way that reflects their own business model. And I think for retailers, they rightly don't want that to get lost in the shuffle if they are to adhere just really rigidly to standards. So there's this push-pull between standardization and transparency in order to help enable advertisers to make really informed decisions.

Arielle Feger (08:32):

I think we're seeing retail media networks take some different steps into their own hands. With this API, I think Albertsons is really not only looking at the bigger trade industries, like the IAB, but also, "What can we do on a smaller scale to help make measurement easier?" They also, I believe, partnered with TransUnion to make media mix modeling a little bit more accessible, which I think is another thing.

(09:01):

So we're seeing these partnerships start to appear with AdTech companies to help maybe not necessarily make it more standardized across network to network, but help at least translate results from one campaign into a brand's own models.

Sarah Marzano (09:21):

Yeah, and I think it's really important to mention that the thought of addressing these measurement challenges that advertisers are having is something that is going to be much more beneficial for that fragmented long tail of retail media networks than it is for the big guys who command so much share of ad spending already and maybe feel a little bit less pressure to adhere because the advertisers they work with are already so dependent on the results of those ad spending pieces. So I love all the work that Albertsons and some other companies are doing to really push this conversation forward because that's really what's going to solve for a lot of this fragmentation.

Arielle Feger (09:55):

Totally agree.

Marcus Johnson (09:56):

We'll throw a link in the show notes to your measurement, your retail media measurement report, and also the trends one as well. So EMARKETER PRO+ folks can click those links and go straight to the reports for more detail on those. They're brilliant.

(10:08):

Arielle, who are you picking?

Sarah Marzano (10:11):

Wait, I have one more thing to say about Albertsons. I wasn't done.

Marcus Johnson (10:11):

Oh, you did?

Sarah Marzano (10:11):

I wasn't done.

Marcus Johnson (10:12):

I thought you were going straight onto your next one.

Arielle Feger (10:12):

I'm sorry, I didn't meant to interrupt.

Sarah Marzano (10:16):

No! We can pause and talk about measurement-

Marcus Johnson (10:16):

All right. Go ahead, Sarah. There's more.

Sarah Marzano (10:17):

... but I'm not done.

Marcus Johnson (10:18):

Please. All right, go.

Sarah Marzano (10:19):

So one other thing I was going to mention is that Albertsons has a new VP of Media and Measurement Liz Roche, and I read a fascinating interview with her that The Drum published in which she was talking about the possibility of Albertsons actually acquiring media and publisher properties and incorporating some of those spaces that right now exist on the open web in the form of offsite advertising into their owned and operated properties, which is-

Marcus Johnson (10:19):

Interesting.

Sarah Marzano (10:48):

... I think such a smart sort of thing to be thinking about because a company like Albertsons is only going to get so far by monetizing their owned and operated channels. Grocery is still penetrated way deeper in terms of physical brick-and-mortar buying. And by moving offsite in this way, Albertsons is able to better scale the value of their first-party data. If they're actually acquiring these properties and incorporating them into their owned and operated portfolio, they're also able to avoid a lot of the challenges that come with moving offsite. Things like brand safety and measurement and attribution getting harder are now solved for, as well as the margins they're able to earn.

(11:27):

So it's not something they've done yet, but I love the fact that they're eyeing that as a next move.

Arielle Feger (11:32):

Yeah, that's really exciting.

Marcus Johnson (11:34):

Did they mention who?

Sarah Marzano (11:35):

They did not.

Marcus Johnson (11:36):

Who are they thinking? Okay. Interesting though.

Sarah Marzano (11:38):

Yep.

Marcus Johnson (11:39):

Arielle, who do you have for us?

Arielle Feger (11:40):

Yeah, so in the same very similar vein in terms of what we were just talking about, the move on to offsite, Best Buy Ads has launched something called Social+, which is helping brands to leverage Best Buy's first-party data for social media campaigns. Right now, the tool's only available for Meta on Facebook and Instagram, but the plan is to expand to other platform or other social media networks in the future.

(12:11):

And I think that this is just a really smart move because as we say, there is more movement into offsite, and I think being able to connect the data to the inventory is going to be... It just really helps keep things a lot more seamless and being able to keep everything in one place helps with measurement, and I just think it's a really smart move and I'm curious to see what other platforms it expands to in the future.

Marcus Johnson (12:44):

Yeah, that's a good one. So we've got Albertsons, Best Buy. Sarah, what else do you have?

Sarah Marzano (12:49):

Yeah, so I had DoorDash on my list as well. I feel like I talk maybe ad nauseum about the unique position that commerce marketplace intermediaries hold within the commerce media landscape. They are typically cross-industry, so they have visibility into multiple verticals, they have cross-merchant purchase data, but they also have really granular data down to a SKU level, which helps them bring value to their advertisers and really understand customer behavior. So I'm always keeping a close eye on them and they had some announcements recently that caught my eye.

(13:20):

The first is a rollout of a few new types of post-purchase ad inventory that are geared at the types of purchases they know customers make, even after they complete a purchase on DoorDash. And what I like about it is that they're integrating it into their service model. So it's something called DoubleDash, and if you buy something off of one of these promoted slots within a certain amount of time, I presume, you're able to add them to your existing order for free. And I think this is such a... I've been fascinated by the post-purchase part of the purchase funnel for a long time, and I think it's a great opportunity for retailers of all types to get more utility out of their customer engagement.

(14:02):

One of the things that we've seen a lot of retail media networks activate on in this space is by enabling non-endemic advertisers to buy ads in these slots, but I love that DoorDash is thinking through ways to keep customers in their own ecosystem during those moments where they know they have high engagement because presumably if you placed an order on DoorDash, you're going to linger a little bit on that post-purchase confirmation page to see when your order is going to be delivered and how that's going. I loved that.

(14:31):

And then the other piece that they announced within this flurry of announcements is a partnership with a company called Topsort that is going to open up the ability for DoorDash's advertisers to buy inventory on DoorDash as well as other retailers all within the same media buy. There weren't announcements about specifically which retailers were going to be incorporated, but I think it's safe to assume that these are retailers maybe with smaller presences or don't have existing media networks of their own. The advantage to advertisers, of course, is being able to scale their ad buys in a really simple way. And then the advantage to those retailers is that they have access to that infrastructure and scale of demand in terms of advertisers that DoorDash is able to connect them to.

Arielle Feger (15:15):

It's like a little bundle.

Sarah Marzano (15:16):

Yes, yes.

Arielle Feger (15:18):

That's so nice.

Sarah Marzano (15:19):

Yes. And I think that's an exciting way to, again, address some of this fragmentation and give everyone more options without making it a ton harder.

Arielle Feger (15:26):

Yeah. I'm also really interested in the post-purchase process because I think it's something a lot of retailers forget, well, not forget about, but it's something-

Sarah Marzano (15:26):

It's neglected.

Arielle Feger (15:36):

Yeah, it's a neglected space and I think-

Marcus Johnson (15:36):

Deprioritized, yeah.

Arielle Feger (15:39):

... being able to immediately retarget customers with really relevant offers or data or ads is just such a win.

Sarah Marzano (15:49):

Yeah, yeah.

Marcus Johnson (15:50):

Yeah, very nice. Arielle, one more from you?

Arielle Feger (15:54):

I am really, really interested in what Dollar General Media Network is doing. They have partnered with an experiential retail media platform, Recess. And so what they're doing is sampling outside the store within local communities. So Recess works with local community members and they also work with retail media networks like Dollar General, and they are distributing samples at schools, at community events, anything that's happening on that local level.

(16:30):

And I think it's just such a wonderful opportunity to encourage trial outside of the store when sampling in the store is great, you're right there at the point of purchase, but I think sometimes when you are in a different place, you might want to try something new. You might be, oh, your friend's trying it, "I want to try it." So I just think that there's an element of in-person community that's really exciting and then being able to also use that to compliment other retail, like online, in-store campaigns, it's just a really beautiful compliment.

Sarah Marzano (17:07):

It's like the offsite version of in-store retail media. I love it.

Arielle Feger (17:13):

That's exactly it. I'm super excited to see where this goes.

Marcus Johnson (17:15):

Nice. Arielle wins that round. Congratulations to Arielle.

Sarah Marzano (17:19):

What? Just because you're mad at me.

Marcus Johnson (17:19):

Just to summarize-

Arielle Feger (17:21):

That's not fair.

Marcus Johnson (17:22):

Was it not a competition?

Arielle Feger (17:23):

No.

Marcus Johnson (17:23):

Did you not get that email?

Sarah Marzano (17:24):

Jesus.

Arielle Feger (17:24):

We both win.

Marcus Johnson (17:26):

Sure.

Arielle Feger (17:27):

Marcus loses. We win.

Marcus Johnson (17:28):

The audience knows. Whoa! That's probably true.

(17:32):

What do these moves and retail initiatives, what are they telling us about the state of retail media? Is there a common thread? Is there something that... I mean, we mentioned four, there are a lot of others happening. What does this all mean?

Sarah Marzano (17:46):

I think there's a common thread that knits all four retail media networks that we just talked about together-

Marcus Johnson (17:53):

Oh, interesting.

Sarah Marzano (17:53):

... which is this recognition that on-site advertising and on-site inventory, which are really have been the backbone of retail media ad spending, are inherently finite. You're limited to the scale of your digital footprint as a retailer, and so I think more and more, retail and commerce media networks are recognizing, "We need to think outside of the box of our on-site digitally owned and operated inventory for how we're going to further scale our programs."

(18:22):

And I think there's so much opportunity and the reason Amazon has been so dominant in the space is because retail media, again, has really revolved around those on-site ads. And Amazon has an e-commerce dominance that no retailers can even come close to matching. But when we think about retailers taking their really valuable data and activating that away from their websites in a way that still allows customers, or sorry, advertisers to reach that retailer's customers and then understand the outcome, that's a really exciting proposition. And it's very cool to see all different types of commerce media networks and retailers realizing this and feeling out what's the unique way I can pursue this?

Arielle Feger (19:01):

Yeah. I think it also shows, to put it in dramatic terms, these smaller players are not going down without a fight. They're willing to try new things, try different ways to make their offerings unique or more curated. So I think when we obviously talk about retail media, Amazon and Walmart, they're going to dominate because of a lot of the reasons we've already said, but I think that what these smaller networks can bring to the table are these unique, more experimental or different ways to help solve pain points.

Marcus Johnson (19:44):

Yeah. Yeah, there was a quote, Sarah, in your research. You said-

Sarah Marzano (19:44):

Oh, are you going to quote me?

Marcus Johnson (19:47):

... "The Amazon retail media playbook is only repeatable to a point. Retailers have modeled on Amazon, but few can hope to achieve a similar scale by following the same steps," which I think sums it up really nicely.

Arielle Feger (19:59):

It's very true.

Marcus Johnson (19:59):

There was a recent presentation that you had put together and in it, you wrote, "Advertisers invest in three to five media networks on average." Is this number going up or down or staying the same? And why?

Sarah Marzano (20:12):

Yeah. So this was a fascinating new survey that Digiday conducted in a partnership with Vantage of retail media ad buyers across agencies as well as brands. And when they asked those survey-takers about how many retail media networks they invested in in 2024, they found that the overwhelming answer was between three and five networks.

(20:33):

But when they asked the same group what their future plans were, they uncovered a couple of things that gave me a lot of reason to feel very optimistic, which is that not only were advertisers saying they were planning to spend more overall, but they were saying they were planning to spend across significantly more networks. So 65% of the survey respondents said that by the end of 2025, they were planning to spend between six to nine networks, which is a significant jump over the three to five, and I think gives a lot of hope to that fragmented segment of the industry that we've been talking about and alluding to.

(21:06):

But I don't think that's going to come easily, right?

Arielle Feger (21:06):

Yep.

Sarah Marzano (21:08):

I think that retailers are going to have to continue innovating and addressing advertisers challenges because six to nine, let's face it, is still a quite small chunk of that 80-plus number that we quoted at the beginning.

Arielle Feger (21:20):

Yeah, and the other thing, which I don't mean to be the rain in the parade-

Marcus Johnson (21:25):

Here we go.

Arielle Feger (21:26):

... but the other thing that I think is important to think about is they're not just competing, retail media networks aren't just competing with retail media networks anymore. They're competing with commerce media, right?

Marcus Johnson (21:35):

Mm-hmm.

Arielle Feger (21:35):

They're competing. I mean, everyone has launched something. We've got everyone from RE/MAX to Expedia to Chase launching media networks. And of course they all do very different things, we've all discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each, but I think as advertisers think about exploring a more holistic media portfolio, we might see the share of retail media networks maybe lessen possibly, and we might see a little more experimentation with financial media, travel media.

(22:14):

But to Sarah's point, I mean, I think that it's a really good sign that the advertisers really want to keep experimenting to keep seeing what networks can offer them. So I think all in all, we're going to see an increase, but I do wonder about the mix.

Sarah Marzano (22:33):

No, I think you're absolutely right, and I would take it one step further because we've talked a few times in this episode about the growth of offsite, and I think as retail medium networks move offsite, they're going to find that their competitive set is now not just their retail peers, but it's going to be the likes of media giants, right?

Arielle Feger (22:48):

Yes.

Sarah Marzano (22:48):

Entities like Google, entities like Meta. And retail media is really growing up as a format, and the consequence of that is that advertisers are going to start judging it as a more mature marketing activation. Right?

Arielle Feger (22:49):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (23:00):

Yeah.

Sarah Marzano (23:00):

Advertisers expectations are set by really sophisticated companies, and that's going to come for retail media where there's not the excuse anymore that, "This is an emerging channel, we're figuring things out," so I think that's going to be fascinating to watch as well.

Arielle Feger (23:13):

Absolutely.

Marcus Johnson (23:14):

Yeah. Yeah, just because it moved from three to five networks to six to nine doesn't mean that they're just going to fall into your lap. You're still going to have to compete for those. And our Karen Jacobs had a really good quote, I thought it sums this up nicely, saying, "Brands are becoming more selective about where they invest as the demands for better measurement, improved audience segmentation, and clearer visibility on ad performance rise, attendees at this week's inner inaugural Commerce Media Brand Summit in Atlanta noted."

(23:40):

Let's end with this, folks. Arielle, I'll start with you. Some of the main challenges/top concerns for advertisers when it comes to retail media at the moment are what?

Arielle Feger (23:50):

I mean, we've mentioned it, it's no surprise. I would say measurement and standardization is pretty much one of the top issues. I think advertisers are squeezed and they really just need to prove that the dollars they're putting in are worth the dollars they're getting out. So I think that's really going to impact how retail media networks build out their offerings. Like I said, we're seeing partnerships emerge for better measurement solutions. So I do think that that's a big challenge, but also a big opportunity. I'd like to be glass-half-full in that way. There's definitely opportunity there.

Marcus Johnson (24:32):

Very nice. Sarah?

Sarah Marzano (24:33):

Yeah, so I think to Arielle's point, we've talked a lot about the top challenges and a lot of them have to do with just how difficult it is to scale retail media buys across more networks.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]In that same Digiday and Vantage survey, they asked the ad buyers who were taking the survey about their biggest challenges when it came to buying and scaling their retail media strategy, and I think what was fascinating as I reviewed those survey results is that I wasn't remotely surprised by the top challenges. They're things that I think as an industry we're recognizing and maybe finally coming around to addressing in a really meaningful way. But I think what really stood out to me was where ad buyers were saying they weren't struggling really clearly, so I have a few of those written down to review because I thought they were fascinating.

(25:18):

Fewer than two in 10 brand marketers said that they struggled with a lack of leadership or internal buy-in behind retail media efforts, and fewer than one in 10 said that retail media had an unclear value proposition. And when advertisers were asked about whether they felt overwhelmed by the abundance of choice in the market, just 3% of them said that that was a really meaningful challenge to their strategy. Right?

Marcus Johnson (25:18):

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Marzano (25:42):

And so I think for me, it paints this really clear picture of ad buyers that feel actually all in on retail media, but are just begging us to make it easier for them to buy it and scale those buys across more networks and report on it and understand it. So there's this really clear call to action that only the retail and commerce media networks can answer.

Arielle Feger (26:01):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (26:02):

Yeah. Very nice. Well, that is all we have time for for today's episode unfortunately. That's where we'll leave it. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you first to Arielle.

Arielle Feger (26:09):

Thank you so much for having me.

Marcus Johnson (26:11):

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Sarah.

Sarah Marzano (26:12):

Thanks for having me. I missed you guys.

Marcus Johnson (26:15):

We'll give it a while. We'll see Sarah in 2026.

(26:19):

Thanks to the whole editing crew, Victoria, John, Lance, and Danny. Stuart runs the team and Sophie who does our... What's she do? Social media is what she does. Thanks to everyone for listening into the Behind the Numbers show, an EMARKETER video podcast. We'll be back on Monday discussing the explosion of sports for brand engagement. Happiest of weekends.