In this episode
Paul Brenner, SVP of Global Retail Media and Partnerships at In-Store Marketplace (ISM), and Collin Colburn, Vice President of Commerce & Retail Media at IAB, explain why in-store retail media investment stalls — and why the cause is organizational, not technological. Their joint research found that brands, retailers, merchants, and retail media networks each evaluate the same in-store campaign against a separate scorecard with a separate definition of success, and those scorecards have never been placed next to each other. The fix they propose, shopper purchase rate, is not a new KPI or a new technology rollout; it is a framework for aligning existing metrics against a single through line — total investment in, total units moved out. Brenner and Colburn also work through why imported digital metrics like ROAS misfire in a physical store, what changes in an ROI model when the store gets credit for units sold, and why the industry’s shift from exuberant growth to operational execution makes this the right moment for a common measurement language.
Key takeaways
- The barrier to scaling in-store retail media is a lack of alignment, not a lack of measurement technology. The research found brands don’t think of in-store and digital differently — those channels just get executed differently, against separate scorecards.
- The scorecards that plan, execute, and report retail media investment have remained mostly independent. Merchant, merchandising, RMN, and MMM each carry their own view, and the industry never addressed it because digital was expected to keep growing until in-store’s turn came.
- Different stakeholders evaluate the same campaign through different definitions of success — and none of them is wrong. Media teams look at efficiency and awareness, merchants care about product movement, and the retail media network cares about revenue and profit. The problem is that this has never been accounted for in how success gets communicated across those groups.
- Shopper purchase rate introduces a framework, not a new metric. Colburn’s test for any new industry research is whether it adds another KPI; his read is that this deliberately does not. It asks the industry to look at existing metrics — dollars, units moved, shopper behavior — together.
- Digital advertising conditioned the industry to expect a level of precision the physical store cannot deliver. Colburn’s point is that the false sense of precision runs in both directions: because digital can track down to a click, everything upstream gets treated as directly attributable, when the customer journey is messy there too.
- Applying one-to-one digital attribution in a store produces correlation to a tactic, not proof of cause. Brenner notes that price, placement, promotion, legacy linear signage, and printed signage are all operating simultaneously — no single technology can credibly claim the outcome.
- RMN ROI models built on a screen or technology investment paying back through the network’s own growth are thin-margin and hard to defend. When the model instead credits the media with units sold inside the store, Brenner says the ROI jumps to dramatically higher levels.
- Amazon holds so much of retail media revenue partly because RMNs aren’t representing what the physical store contributes. Brenner frames that as the unclaimed advantage — solve the credit problem and the revenue pie chart looks different.
- In practice, in-store digital screens and audio can outperform digital on a per-dollar basis simply because most of the revenue happens in the store. By ratio, the in-store dollar lifts the performance of the entire program once units moved in store are counted.
- One retail media network reached an order-of-magnitude increase in in-store digital investment with no new technology. The RMN made an allocation available to the merchant and merchandising teams and folded the result into an omnichannel view of total units moved.
Chapters
- 0:00 — The strategic disconnect: what if the barrier isn’t technology?
- 2:00 — Colburn on IAB’s commerce and retail media work; Brenner on 20+ RMNs and in-store
- 4:25 — Why the barrier to scaling in-store investment is alignment, not measurement tech
- 5:10 — Independent scorecards: merchant, merchandising, RMN, MMM
- 6:04 — Same campaign, different definitions of success — and none of them wrong
- 7:29 — What breaks when digital-native metrics like ROAS meet a physical store
- 8:44 — The false sense of precision runs in both directions
- 9:50 — ROAS in-store produces correlation to a tactic, not causation
- 12:46 — What shopper purchase rate actually is (and why it isn’t a new KPI)
- 14:19 — The “through line”: standing scorecards up against units moved
- 14:56 — The RMN that grew in-store digital investment by an order of magnitude
- 16:20 — Why the timing is right: from exuberant growth to operational execution
- 18:10 — RFP reality: from screen-payback ROI models to units-sold credit
- 19:03 — Amazon’s share and the unclaimed contribution of the physical store
- 20:01 — Walking a CPG example: traditional ROAS vs. shopper purchase rate
- 23:07 — One year out: from channel orientation to integrated omnichannel
- 25:24 — Staying agile: convening the industry, and talking to people directly
Why the in-store measurement problem is organizational, not technical
Brenner has spent roughly eight years on the in-store side of retail media, watching the commerce side scale on websites and off-site inventory. Throughout that period there was a known ceiling: the shopper volume and the retailer’s revenue still sit in the store. What never got addressed was that the scorecards used to plan investment, execute it, and report on it remained separate from one another. His conclusion from the research is direct — brands don’t think about in-store and digital as different things, they just get executed differently, and the organizational structure never caught up.
What brands actually asked for: one language, one through line
The request coming back from brands in the research wasn’t a technology solution. It was a common language showing that when a given amount of money goes into a retailer, that investment maps to units moved — regardless of which scorecard it entered through. Brenner describes shopper purchase rate as the organizational acknowledgment that the money is all-inclusive and the units moved are all-inclusive. Internally his team uses the phrase “through line”: stand the various scorecards up alongside each other, pull the in-store-relevant metrics out against units moved, and assemble one comprehensive story.
Why ROAS misfires inside a store
Colburn is careful to separate the critique from an anti-digital position. The issue is that digital conditioned everyone to expect precision and simplification that a physical store cannot replicate — and that the same false precision quietly infects digital measurement too, where the ability to track a click leads to treating everything upstream as directly attributable. Brenner’s version is more operational: a one-to-one attribution approach in-store gives you correlation to a tactic. In a real store, price, placement, promotion, legacy linear signage, and printed signage are all live at once. Claiming that one screen or one audio spot caused the lift is a claim the environment doesn’t support.
What changes in an ROI model when the store gets credit
Brenner has a live read on how buyers are modeling this: roughly 20 RFPs in Q4 of last year, and about two a week currently. At the end of last year, most models he was handed asked an RMN to justify a screen or technology investment against its own growth as the payback — thin margin, and difficult to defend. When the model instead gives credit for driving units sold within the store, the ROI moves to a substantially higher level. He reports that requests to build that credit into ROI models have become notably more common since ISM began pushing the framework.
The Amazon gap and the unclaimed physical store
Brenner connects the credit problem directly to market share. Amazon still represents a very large percentage of retail media revenue, and part of the reason is that retail media networks aren’t introducing what the physical store contributes to their own network’s performance. That contribution is the structural advantage RMNs hold over a pure-play, and it goes largely unspoken. Solve the credit-attribution problem and, in his view, the pie chart changes.
Why this framework arrives at the right moment
Colburn’s read on industry timing is that the market has passed peak formation — new retail and commerce media networks are still coming online, but that rate is naturally slowing. The conversation has moved from an exuberant growth phase into an operational, execution-focused one that requires tighter integration between teams and requires retail media to be aligned with the core business rather than adjacent to it. A framework that forces stakeholder scorecards into a shared conversation is a stepping stone toward that alignment.
What a year from now looks like
Colburn expects the debate to move past whether in-store works — he says there’s already a fundamental gut belief that it influences shopper decisions — and past whether it’s worth the investment, toward how in-store fits inside an integrated omnichannel retail experience. That means shifting away from treating in-store as its own channel and toward optimizing it within a broader strategy. Brenner expects the loudest change to come from brands: ISM is in validation phase and had to turn away brands who wanted to participate, and the reaction he hears most is relief that the framework requires no new technology and no retailer-specific in-store method to learn.
FAQ
What is shopper purchase rate in retail media? Shopper purchase rate is a framework for aligning existing retail media metrics — dollars invested, units moved, and shopper behavior — against a single through line rather than introducing a new KPI. It takes the separate scorecards held by merchants, merchandising, the retail media network, and MMM and stands them up against total units moved to produce one view of what an investment returned.
Why isn’t in-store retail media measurement a technology problem? The research behind the episode found the primary barrier to scaling in-store investment is a lack of alignment across brands, retailers, and agencies rather than a lack of measurement technology. Existing scorecards already carry the necessary metrics; they have simply never been placed next to each other or read against a common definition of success.
What goes wrong when you apply ROAS to in-store media? A one-to-one digital attribution approach produces correlation to a specific tactic rather than a defensible causal claim, because price, placement, promotion, and legacy printed and linear signage are all influencing the same purchase at the same time. Brenner and Colburn are not proposing to replace ROAS — they expect ROAS and iROAS conversations to continue.
Does adopting shopper purchase rate require new technology? No. Brenner points to a retail media network that produced an order-of-magnitude increase in in-store digital investment with no new technology rollout and no new KPIs — it made an investment allocation available to the merchant and merchandising teams and folded the results into an omnichannel view of total units moved.
Why can in-store media outperform digital on a per-dollar basis? Because the majority of a retailer’s revenue occurs inside the store. Once units moved in store are counted in the return, the in-store dollar lifts the measured performance of the whole program by ratio — not because the media is inherently more impactful, but because it sits where the transactions happen.
How does this connect to Amazon’s share of retail media spend? Brenner argues that a significant part of Amazon’s share persists because retail media networks aren’t representing what their physical stores contribute to campaign outcomes. Crediting the store properly surfaces an advantage that pure-play competitors don’t have.sident, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB) and Collin Colburn, Vice President, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB.
About Paul Brenner
Paul Brenner is Senior Vice President of Retail Media and Partnerships with 25+ years of leadership in media, entertainment, and ad tech. He has led innovation in audio and broadcast, driving advancements in audience measurement, in-car experiences, and data attribution, and later scaling in-store audio advertising through strategic growth and partnerships. Known for identifying high-impact technology and revenue opportunities, Paul now focuses on evolving the in-store retail media landscape.
About Collin Colburn
Collin Colburn serves as Vice President, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB where he leads the Commerce Center of Excellence. In this role, he drives innovation, education, and standards across the commerce ecosystem to help brands, retailers, and technology partners deliver better media opportunities, customer experiences, and business outcomes. Prior to IAB, Collin led Growth and Go-To-Market Strategy at Horizon Commerce and spent over a decade at Forrester, where he pioneered the firm’s performance marketing and retail media practice. He partnered with B2B and B2C CMOs to advance their marketing strategies, while also expanding Forrester’s Fortune 500 client portfolio. Collin’s insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Digiday, and MediaPost. A popular industry speaker, Collin has keynoted global industry events in addition to being a quarterly guest on Bloomberg TV.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Greg Kihlström: Hi, I’m Greg Kihlström, host of The Agile Brand, and here’s a question for you. What if the biggest barrier to scaling your retail media investment isn’t technology, but a fundamental disagreement on what success even looks like? Agility requires not just adopting new tools, but also being willing to challenge the measurement frameworks we’ve grown accustomed to. Today, we’re going to talk about the nuanced world of in-store retail media measurement and why the old rules may no longer apply. Specifically, we’re gonna cover why the standard approach to measuring in-store media, often borrowed from digital, is creating friction and stalling budget growth, how to create a unified measurement language that aligns brands, retailers, and agencies around a common definition of success, and practical steps to move in-store
[00:00:45] Greg Kihlström: media from experimental budgets to scalable, repeatable investments grounded in actual product movement. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Paul Brenner, SVP Global Retail Media and Partnerships at Instore Marketplace, and Collin Colburn, Vice President Commerce and Retail Media at IAB. Collin and Paul, welcome to the show.
[00:01:49] Collin Colburn: Thanks for having us.
[00:01:50] Paul Brenner: Thanks, Greg.
[00:01:52] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, looking forward to this. And before we dive in, though, why don’t you each give a little background on yourselves and your roles at, at your orgs.
[00:02:00] Collin Colburn: So Collin Colburn. I, at, at IAB, I lead our, uh, commerce and retail media initiatives, which includes a lot of work around measurement standards, in-store media, and just generally helping the industry build a common language across brands, retailers, agencies, technology providers. And a lot of the work that we’re doing today is less, it’s less about inventing new standards or new metrics, ’cause we’ve done a lot of that. It’s more about, um, helping the, uh, the overall ecosystem understand, uh, where measurement or what, which measurement approaches are right for certain types of business questions. And, um, I think what we’re gonna talk about today
[00:02:45] Collin Colburn: very much aligns with that, uh, with that recent work.
[00:02:48] Paul Brenner: Yeah. Um, I guess over the last eight years really focused on retail media and the in-store component. So, um, now working with over 20 retail media networks around the world, um, focused on in-store, um, screens and audio. Uh, but I, I guess historically, over 30 years, I’ve found the most success with any advertising-driven medium by looking at the greater good. Um, and so I’m a big advocate of what IAB does. Um, I’ve done things in the past with FCC and, you know, standards bodies across the world, um, always trying to take myself and our solution out of the equation and look at the greater good. Um, and that’s why I really put a lot
[00:03:35] Paul Brenner: of effort behind this, and everyone will benefit. That works itself out, um, at the end. But, um, I really enjoy this work on shopper purchase rate because, um, that gives, uh, that gives Collin a reason to talk to me.
[00:03:48] Greg Kihlström: [laughs] Love it. Well, yeah, let’s, let’s dive in, though, and, and, and now and, and talk about, uh, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the, the research here as, as we start from, from the, what I call the, the strategic disconnect here. So the, the research uncovered that the primary barrier to scaling in-store media investment isn’t a lack of measurement technology, but more a, a lack of alignment. Can you expand on this? You know, what, what is, what does this mean exactly? What is this lack of alignment, and why is it so pervasive across brands, retailers, and agencies?
[00:04:25] Paul Brenner: Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting because, you know, I’m, I’m about eight years into this, and watching the commerce side of retail media explode based on digital websites, off-site, all those kinda things, um, there was always this known factor that that business will grow to a l- a place that is, you know, a certain level of achievement when the shopper volume and the revenue of the retailer is still in the store, right? That’s always kind of been the path that’s been followed. Um, but when you look back, the scorecards that plan investments, execute investments, um, show the results and the KPIs of investments have remained mostly independent,
[00:05:10] Paul Brenner: right? Merchant, merchandising, RMN, MMM, um, and that just was never addressed. It was always just digital side will continue to grow and at some point in the future will address in-store. And so what we found in this research is that the brands don’t think of them differently, it just gets executed differently.
[00:05:30] Paul Brenner: And so what they really want is a common language that shows when a certain amount of money goes into this retailer, regardless of what scorecard or reg- regardless of what path in the door, that the amount of investment shows the amount of units moved. And so that’s what shopper purchase rate really is, is to not say a tech solution is the answer, but organizationally you have to address that the money is all-inclusive and the units moved are all-inclusive. Um, that’s the, that’s the feedback we got from the brands by doing this research.
[00:06:04] Collin Colburn: And I think it c- just goes, it goes to the, the organizational operational challenge that we’re facing in the industry today, is that different stakeholders, as Paul just alluded to, are, are evaluating the same, um, campaign or the same media through a different definition of success. ‘Cause you have-
[00:06:23] Collin Colburn: … media teams that are looking at, um, efficiency or, um, being able to drive awareness. You have merchants that care obviously about product movement. You have the retail media network that obviously cares about investment and growing revenue and profit. And none of the… One of the important things is that we’re not saying that I think that any of this is wrong. It’s just that it’s, um, it’s a feature that we have not really accounted for in the way that we evaluate success of a campaign and the way in which we think about how we should be communicating across these different stakeholders. ‘Cause it’s, it’s almost like, you know, the louder you scream, um, isn’t gonna get people to pay
[00:07:08] Collin Colburn: attention to what you’re saying anymore. It’s just gonna get them more annoyed at you. Um, it’s about figuring out, how do I take what I’m trying to say and say it in a way that’s gonna make sense to the person that I’m talking to, and I think that’s, that’s, that’s a really big unlock, I think, with a lot of the research that, um, Paul and the, and the ISM and, uh, Catalyst teams, uh, really uncovered here.
[00:07:29] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. And so, you know, so- some of this points to the assumpt- the assumption that in-store media should be held to the same standards as digital as a, a source of the problem. You know, what, what’s, what’s wrong with this premise and, you know, what are the specific consequences of applying digital native metrics like ROAS to a physical environment?
[00:07:55] Collin Colburn: I, I’ll, I’ll start there ’cause I’m pretty passionate about this one in the sense of, like-
[00:08:00] Collin Colburn: … I’m not, I’m, I’m, we’re, we’re, we’re, I, I don’t, uh, speaking on behalf of myself and the IAB, like we are not anti-digital obviously.
[00:08:07] Collin Colburn: Um, digital obviously has been incredibly valuable for the advertising and media, um, industry. The, the, the problem is that, um, digital marketing and digital advertising has conditioned all of us to expect a level of precision that, um, cannot be… It’s precision and also, like, too much simplification in a way, where, um, the store, the physical store environment is incredibly messy. [laughs] And, and it’s not one-
[00:08:44] Collin Colburn: … that is perfectly replicable, if that’s a word-
[00:08:44] Collin Colburn: … um, to the way in which digital operates. Now, the, the other thing that I like to point out is that, um, digital itself is also not completely, um, you know… Our, our, our, our false sense of precision also goes towards digital too.
[00:09:02] Collin Colburn: Like we l- I, it’s almost like because we can track everything down to a click, we, we believe that everything upstream can also be directly attributable to a, a next, you know, a next step or a next click or a next decision in, in the customer journey.
[00:09:36] Collin Colburn: … it’s a very messy [laughs] imperfect, um, world. And, um, I think the, I think we’re, what we’re shining a light here o- on is that, like, the physical retail environment just, um, is emblematic of that, of that messiness.
[00:09:50] Paul Brenner: Yeah. Yeah. I think the, some of the real-world implications are that if you take a digital one-to-one attribution approach, a ROAS approach, what you end up doing is correlation to a tactic, right?
[00:10:06] Paul Brenner: So, and that’s, that’s what we kind of have been s- stuck into as a silo is this audio ad or this screen ad, we’re doing the most we can to show that when this ad played, this lift happened, right? When in reality, in a store, to Collin’s point, is I’ll, I’ll steal kind of, um, uh, um, Todd Hassenpflug’s words is, you know, there’s so many different aspects that a brand is investing in store, price, placement, promotion, you know, so many things that are happening around that that could also be contributing to that, you know, to the, to the outcomes of that. But what you really wanna know as a brand is you made a total investment with this retailer, this merchant, this merchandiser, and units sold at this level. Do you really need to know which
[00:10:51] Paul Brenner: specific tactic thing that attribute to, to technology? Yeah, maybe for efficiency’s sake, to Collin’s point. But you’re really looking at a pretty messy environment with a lot of legacy linear signage, printed signage that’s not going away, and like how can you really say that this one tech thing was the cause of your ROAS and your outcome? I think that’s the, that’s the kind of wedge you get stuck into because the retail media people are used to that. That’s just the way they see it as a, an option of, you know, one of 12 things on a wheel, and they have to perform to earn budget and to earn growth. It doesn’t apply that way to in-store, and I think that’s really what we’re trying to make sure is that regardless of what tech you chose for the store,
[00:11:36] Paul Brenner: the metrics exist today through those scorecards to just remodel the way that those things align and tell a consistent story from brand to brand, from retailer to retailer, which RMNs probably don’t love, um, you know, and indices, if you will. Um, but that’s really what we’re trying to accomplish here is to just make it more universal, um, across all the different verticals and different retails.
[00:12:01] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, and I mean, to both of your points, it’s, it’s definitely there’s, there’s a lot of things tangled in there. I mean, there, you know, each vendor has incentive to- Try to get credit for the win, so to speak. Each internal team at an organization is likely incentivized to, you know, wanna get their w- their win as well, and then just, you know, to your other point, clicks are really easy to measure versus other things in the physical world that, that are quite… You know, so in other words, you, you’ve got, you’ve, as, as you both already highlighted, there, there’s a lot of things to untangle there. You know, you, you briefly mentioned shopper purchase rate. Let’s, let’s talk a little bit more about, about this and, you know, as a, as a potential framework to, to
[00:12:46] Greg Kihlström: help people wrap their heads around this. At a high level, you know, how, how do you describe shopper purchase rate and, you know, how does this help to, to redefine success?
[00:12:57] Collin Colburn: I’m, I’m happy to start because, you know, from my lens, um, the thing that I always, whenever, whenever members like Paul and others come to us with, with new research, one of the things I always like to look at is, like, are we introducing, uh, new things, and are they new metrics or are they new frameworks? Because I think the last thing we need is a new, like, KPI, um, and that’s, that’s, that’s not, that’s exactly what this does not do, at least the way that I’ve, that, that I’ve read through it and, and understood and worked, you know, in the conversations I’ve had with Paul and others. It’s introducing the i- the, the, the conversation starter t- for the industry to start thinking about multiple metrics together. Um, like when,
[00:13:42] Collin Colburn: when we look at the store, I think that there are… You can piece together that answer for a more precise understanding of how did media in the store result in shopper consideration, shopper purchase.
[00:13:56] Collin Colburn: We just have to bring all those metrics together, and that’s what this is doing. It’s looking at dollars. It’s looking at units moved. It’s looking at shopper behavior. Um, all, all those things and more, um, because it’s really taking those scorecards from those different stakeholders and providing a framework to, um, to s- to, to actually have that conversation in a productive way across the different organizations that are involved.
[00:14:19] Paul Brenner: Yeah. We, we use the word through line a lot, Greg, in our, in our internal conversations. Essentially, what we do with the, and we’re in validation phase with a bunch of brands right now, is to just stand those various fourcar- st- scorecards up alongside of each other, look at the metrics that relate to in-store against this through line of units moved, pull those out into one comprehensive story. So we’re not reinventing anything. We’re not… And, and to Collin’s point, we’re not bringing a new KPI. We’re essentially saying these things go together when they really haven’t been put next to each other-
[00:14:56] Paul Brenner: … right, in, in history. And I can give you examples. I mean, we, we really, I initiated this research because more than a year ago, I started working with a large RMN that the leader came from a merchant organization, and he initiated a lot of what we’re talking about on his own, where there was no new tech rolled out. There was no, um, you know, new, new advanced development, new KPIs. It was essentially the RMN had an allocation of investment made available to the merchandising team, to the merchant team, to which they can spend money against, and through that, it was added to the omni-channel view of total units moved, right?
[00:15:38] Paul Brenner: So you could see side by side which of these specific areas of the business drove the most, um, units moved for you. So we’re seeing this in practice. It’s just kind of piecemealed together across different RMNs in different ways. Um, but again, I, I think all we did was introduce the framework. The interpretation of how to execute that organizationally was brought to life by the RMN and the, and the merchant side of the organization, and we’ve seen, um, literally an order of magnitude in, in growth of investment, um, towards digital in store. So it can be effective without having to roll out a bunch of new tech to answer the questions.
[00:16:20] Collin Colburn: It’s also, like, it’s really good, it’s really good timing, um, too, because where we are in the industry is we’ve, we’ve, we’ve hit that point of growth. We’ve hit that point of, um, you know, everyone is, uh, th- there are more retail media networks coming, or commerce media networks coming online. Like, we’re starting to see that, that lessen naturally. Um, and a lo- and the conversation, I think, has moved from, um, sort of that exuberant growth phase to more of an operational and execution-focused, um, phase, where it’s gonna require tighter integration between these teams. It’s gonna require that retail media is more aligned rather than sort of adjacent
[00:17:06] Collin Colburn: from, um, the, the, the core business. Uh, so this, this framework just happens to be at a good time, I think, in the industry’s evolution to be a, a stepping stone towards that greater alignment.
[00:17:18] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like that. The, the, the maturity of the, uh, of retail media, uh, has reached that point where, you know, a common language like SPR, you know, for instance, would be, would be beneficial. And I think the other thing, you know, I know we touched on some of the internal reasons why this is important. I think the, the obvious thing that I know, you know, everybody, everybody knows this intellectually, but customers are not thinking about the thing that, which thing they clicked on or where they looked or whatever. They’re, they’re just, they’re buying the product or not, right? And so I think anything that helps us kinda get back to this, like customers don’t just, uh, interact on a single channel or, or think in a, in a single way, anything that can remind us all
[00:18:04] Greg Kihlström: of that is, is gonna be helpful in, in measuring effectiveness, right?
[00:18:10] Collin Colburn: And it’s really about, like- The, this, this next phase when it comes to measurement of commerce media, it’s about more fit for purpose, um, measurement.
[00:18:20] Paul Brenner: I did about 20 RFPs in Q4 of last year, and then I do about two a week right now, um, for new business. And at the end of last year, most of the models that were presented as, “Hey, fill this in for us,” had an ROI based on an RMN investing in a screen or technology and expecting their own growth to be the payback, and that just is very difficult. It’s very, very difficult. It’s, it’s a thin, it’s a thin margin, right?
[00:18:50] Paul Brenner: But if you can show how you get credit for the business of driving units sold within the store, the ROI jumps, uh, uh, just amazing levels, right?
[00:19:03] Paul Brenner: Um, and so that’s- that’s actually become more common for me to be asked about since we’ve been pushing this, this SPR is how do I, how do I give credit to, to the other things, and I can include that into my ROI model. You know, it… That’s, that’s just kind of happening naturally, and I think the other conversation I get a lot is when you look at the allocation of retail media and Amazon still being a very large percentage of that revenue, that’s because the retail media networks aren’t really introducing what the physical store contributes-
[00:19:35] Paul Brenner: … to their RMN, right?
[00:19:37] Paul Brenner: There, there’s that advantage over Amazon and nobody’s really talking about, and if you can solve for this problem of giving credit towards the right things, I think you’ll see a very different pie chart, um, you know, for the, for the sake of RMN. Now I’m try- trying to support Collin’s point on what’s the next level of growth here, and it’s really about capturing what the physical store truly attributes to that investment, you know?
[00:20:01] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and- and then maybe to- to make that even more practical, maybe if you could walk us through a, a hypothetical example. What i- what is a, you know, a CPG brand runs an in-store campaign, what does the conversation look like in the, you know, f- I’m sure many are familiar with what it might look like using a traditional ROAS model, but how does, how does a traditional ROAS model compare with the shopper purchase rate framework conversation?
[00:20:29] Paul Brenner: Yeah, we’re not, we’re not trying to replace ROAS either. I mean, I think-
[00:20:32] Paul Brenner: … you’re never gonna convince anybody. I mean, I’ve, I’ve sat in panels in front of Collin where he’ll pose the loaded question and wait for the fist to start flying on [laughs] you know, how important it is to always have that general ROAS-
[00:20:45] Paul Brenner: … conversation, iROAS conversation. Um, those will still exist. You know, what, what we’ve seen in practice is that if you take the key points in the scorecard that all reflect money goes in, right, to an RMN and, or a merchant. Here’s my total investment as a brand in this campaign, right, or against this product. Um, that money goes in, look at all the various KPIs that are existing in those scorecards, aggregate them into one view, right?
[00:21:20] Paul Brenner: And show this total investment got this many units sold. It might be units sold off just the website, off the stores, you know, off the different, um, ways and programs that are being made available. And then show the brand what their total return on that investment was. Um, so I’ll go back to the example I used with our, our, one of the RMNs is when you look at as a total investment and total units moved, what you’ll often find is that the in-store digital screen or audio outperforms the digital world, not because of any factor that it’s not as, you know, impactful, it’s just that the majority of the revenue occurs
[00:22:05] Paul Brenner: within the store.
[00:22:07] Paul Brenner: So by ratio, it naturally shows a better performance on the dollar, you know, the dollar invested in that media type. So that’s, that’s really the effect of it, right, is you’ll see a dollar into digital and a dollar into a in-store. When you factor in units moved in store, the dollar in store actually lifts the entire program to a much higher level of performance, right? Because you’re giving, you’re giving credit to everything that was applied. So that, that’s really the practical effect of it. Um, I don’t know what that does long-term [laughs] to what, you know, the way money flows, uh, in, you know, one of the different doors into the retail and retail media network. That’s, that’s probably
[00:22:52] Paul Brenner: the next phase here, right? Is, is, you know, the linear curve dropping, the digital curve rising. Where does that intersect point? Um-
[00:23:00] Paul Brenner: … that, that’s all yet to come, but I can… In practice, that’s what we’re seeing in this, in this sh- shopper purchase rate.
[00:23:07] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Well, um, thanks, thanks both for joining today. Got a couple last questions as, as we wrap up here, and, you know, first one is, if we were having this interview one year from today, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?
[00:23:24] Collin Colburn: I think we’ll, um… Where we’re at today is very much like not necessarily like whether in-store works or not. I think everyone has this gut fundamental belief that, yes, obviously in-store is a impactful place to be able to-
[00:23:39] Collin Colburn: … um, lure or change shoppers’ decisions. Um, I think we’re, we’re, what we’re debating is like, is it, is it, is it worth it sort of thing. Like-
[00:23:50] Collin Colburn: … i- is it, is it gon- is it gonna be worth the investment? Whether you’re a retailer that’s looking to s- potentially stand up, um, media in the store and have it as a, as a core offering, or as a brand who’s looking to invest in those, um, those offerings. And I think what we’ll move to in a year is, is, is more of a discussion around how in-store fits into a more integrated omni-channel retail experience. Um, so really shifting from, like, this, um- Like channel orientation that it’s in right now, like the channel of in-store, and more about how we optimize in-store within a broader, a broader strategy.
[00:24:31] Paul Brenner: Yeah, right now we’re in validation phase. Um, we had to turn away brands. We had so many that wanted to participate in it. Um, we just were overwhelmed by the number of people that wanted to be in it. So I think a year from now, I think you’ll hear a louder voice from the brands. I, I think what you’ll hear is the brands saying, “This makes a lot of sense to us, Mr. RMN, Mrs. RMN. How can we, how can we do this more?” I, I just based on the responses I’ve had and the, and the way people have said, “Okay, so I don’t have to learn another tech, I don’t have to learn the way one re- retail media network’s doing in-store versus another. This could be a universal framework.” I like that. You know? I, I don’t have to learn anything new. I just have to be presented the information
[00:25:17] Paul Brenner: in a different way. So I, I feel like a year from now you’ll hear a louder, a louder voice from the brands about this.
[00:25:24] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah. Sounds great. And last question for each of you, uh, what do you do to stay agile in your role, and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
[00:25:34] Collin Colburn: It’s the hardest part, I feel like, of my, [laughs] of my job, is, um, trying to stay on top of everything that’s going on in our industry, and, um, just making sure that I’m spending a lot of time listening, not only like to things like podcasts, but also, you know, just what’s going on generally within the, the, the business world, and how that affects, um, our in- our industry. Um, I’m very lucky in the sense that the IAB really is like the industry convener, so I get to talk to all aspects, all corners, if you will, of this, um, industry in terms of retailers, brands, agencies, the tech providers. Um, and everyone comes with, um, how they see the ecosystem evolving, and that really helps me
[00:26:19] Collin Colburn: stay on top of what’s, what’s going on. So, um, in some ways I’m lucky, and then other ways, um, it’s incredibly, it’s incredibly challenging ’cause people also expect, uh, expect us to know everything that’s going on. [laughs] And it’s very difficult. I basically give myself grace and I’m like, “I can’t be omnipotent.” [laughs]
[00:26:34] Paul Brenner: [laughs] That’s a hard job. I, I l- I like to talk to people. I, I do read media, of course, like everybody else, but it’s so hard to really know what you’re reading about and what’s been written for marketing purposes or has some opinion to it. I try to talk to people as much as I can and just get their real perspective and read their body language and, you know. That, that to me is more valuable. Um, and plus people are really willing to say more when you’re connected with them, right, and you’re in a, in a conversation. Um, that’s my strategy, is really get as much face time with people that I think are influential as, as I possibly can.
