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With US commerce media ad spending projected to reach nearly $70 billion in 2025, understanding how to effectively operate in this space has become critical for marketers.

"The reality is, there are so many different options… It's not always just technology. It's the delivery, the effectiveness of collaboration across commerce," said Marc Cestaro, senior vice president of North American sales at InfoSum, at last week’s EMARKETER Summit on commerce media. "We've seen that grow to new customers, new advertisers, new businesses, new retailers."

At the panel, experts shared strategies and perspectives on how brands and retailers are navigating the rapidly evolving commerce media ecosystem.

Strategic approaches for navigating retail media

For a brand like Kettle & Fire, which began as direct-to-consumer before expanding into retail, the transition to retail media required developing frameworks for channel prioritization and budget allocation.

Niccolò Gloazzo, senior director of media and omnichannel at Kettle & Fire, recommends starting at the bottom of the funnel first.

"The easiest one to launch is sponsored product advertisement, and that's going to move as many units as possible," he said. "Because when you are at retail, your goal is always to drive velocity."

This strategic approach becomes especially important when evaluating disparate opportunities across retailers of different sizes. Gloazzo suggests that smaller retailers can sometimes be ideal testing grounds for new formats and placements.

"If you can test something like a new placement with a smaller retailer and then evaluate performance, I think it's a great starting point," he says, while noting that budget constraints must always be considered.

Measurement considerations

Measurement remains one of the most complex aspects of commerce media. While return on ad spend (ROAS) is commonly used to compare performance across platforms, Gloazzo cautions against over-reliance on this metric.

"ROAS is not my favorite one, because a lot of retail media platforms right now take into consideration in-store sales, within the evidence sales," he said. "Some have 14 days attribution, some have 30 days attribution."

Instead, he recommends looking at metrics like digital penetration and new-to-brand customers to understand the true impact of investments. For more mature brands, he suggests running incrementality tests and leveraging third-party solutions to understand how the entire marketing mix influences revenue across retailers.

"As you start to scale and invest more dollars into your media mix, you're going to get more and more noise in the overall ecosystem," said Gloazzo. "It's going to be really hard to tell the story to leadership about where you should invest your dollars."

Building for future success

When asked about which companies are best positioned to succeed in commerce media, Cestaro emphasized that success isn't determined by who has the most data, but rather by approach and mindset.

"It's the ones most leaning forward, the ones not waiting and asking what someone else wants," he says. "How do you take that leap? How do you showcase that your products, your features, your improvements are worth it?"

For brands feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the space, Gloazzo recommends a focused approach: "Always focus on those opportunities or retailers that have the highest probability of succeeding in the future. Focus on those retailers that have the highest opportunity to become one of your top three, top five retailers, and start step by step, knocking out one after the other."

As the commerce media landscape continues to evolve rapidly, staying nimble and being willing to test and iterate will remain essential strategies for both brands and networks looking to capitalize on this growing opportunity.

Watch the full session.

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