This week, when retailers and brands gather at Groceryshop, much of the conversation will focus on how quickly commerce is changing. For marketers, the opportunity is to understand what consumers are doing within that change and use those signals to make smarter growth decisions.

Retail media offers a valuable view into real shopping behavior, from what people discover and consider to what they purchase and return to over time. Those learnings can help marketers make more informed decisions about where to invest, who to reach, and where the next growth opportunity may be.

Start with what the consumer is telling you

Consumer decisions are being shaped across more moments than ever. In fact, roughly 80% of shopping trips are influenced by media or other touchpoints, according to March 2026 research by Ipsos. That creates a valuable opportunity for retail media to help marketers understand how shoppers are moving through the journey, which signals matter, and where new demand may be forming.

Today’s path to purchase is fluid across digital and physical experiences. Consumers may discover a product through media, research it on their phone, spot it in a store, and end up buying it through an entirely different touchpoint.

The breadcrumbs from that journey allow retail media to help brands learn when, how, and where to best connect with shoppers. They also can help provide answers to questions like: What did we learn about the customer? What behavior surprised us? Where did we see a signal worth exploring further?

The answers to these questions can shape decisions well beyond the campaign that produced them.

Ghirardelli found a signal worth following

Premium chocolate brand Ghirardelli entered the 2025 holiday season with a clear goal: strengthen its digital shelf presence at Target while driving traffic and sales during an important seasonal moment.

The brand expanded into a broader full-funnel strategy, including a new offsite display and video tactic across premium publisher environments (through Bullseye Marketplace).

That broader media mix helped Ghirardelli reach shoppers across more moments of discovery. The results were made sweeter when 52% of guests reached were new to the brand. Performance also strengthened year over year, with return on ad spend increasing 72%.

That offsite tactic ultimately stood out as the strongest performer, giving the team a new signal about where discovery was happening and where future seasonal investment may have more room to grow.

That gave the Ghirardelli team a clearer signal around the role offsite discovery could play in future seasonal planning and where to test next.

Let each decision create the next question

The strongest retail media strategies create a continuous learning loop, with each campaign adding context for the next decision.

That feels especially relevant at Groceryshop this week, where much of the conversation will focus on AI, unified commerce, new media environments, and evolving consumer behavior. Keeping real consumer behavior at the center can help marketers determine which changes matter most and where new opportunities are emerging.

That is the larger opportunity for retail media: use what consumers are telling us today to make smarter decisions about where to invest, who to reach, and where to grow tomorrow.