Cannes Confessional #4: RMNs Should Chase That Brand Marketing Budget
B2B retail media, the ad tech sophistication gap, and identifying what you 'came from the factory with'.
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Season Finale! Returning July 28
Season 2 kicks off on Monday July 28. Subscribe to the podcast, the email newsletter, or the LinkedIn newsletter and you’ll be notified when I’m back!
Cannes Confessionals #3: The Funnel is Now a Tunnel
A conversation with Microsoft's AI in advertising leader, leadership lessons from eBay's ads chief, and why Andy Jassy prioritizes speed.
Cannes Confessionals #2: Retailers Should Tap Brand Budgets & Small Sellers
Yesterday I shared some highlights from the early hours of the Cannes Festival of Creativity. The announcements are starting to come in hot, but I'll be sharing But first a quick comment on the Retail Media Celebrity Death Match hosted last night by Zitcha, QSIC and Grace &
Cannes Confessionals #1: Where are all the brands?
Its my first year at Cannes, but it's not my friend Lauren's. Lauren Livak is Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute and she and my arch-nemisis Colin Lewis were discussing how the brands and CMOs tended to hang out in the Palais section of the
What I’ve learned from 102 newsletters over 5 months (and my future plans)
I take a moment to reflect on what this journey has taught me so far. I share five key lessons from launching and sustaining this daily(ish) content experiment, and walk through the most popular (and surprising) episodes to date.
My top 6 highlights from the new 'Retailgentic' podcast
The agentic AI wave is coming at blistering speed. Waiting on the sidelines is no safer than it was when retail marketplaces first appeared.
How These 4 Retail Media Leaders Are Using AI Right Now
These examples prove that real problems can be solved with the right tools.
Should We Really Care What Consumers Think About Retail Media Ads?
Here's the reality: asking shoppers about retail media ads is like asking fish about water—they're swimming in it without realizing it exists.
How an RMN's tech stack impacts your advertising results
Advertisers have both a duty and a right to understand how RMNs are built—and how that structure impacts their performance.
Why AI Search Advertising Could Reach $25 Billion By 2029
EMARKETER now projects U.S. advertisers will pour over $25 billion—about 14% of all search budgets—into AI-powered search results by 2029.
How These 4 Retail Media Leaders Make Conference Season Count
The reality is that this year, conference expenses will likely be under more scrutiny than ever before across our industry. Successful conference attendance requires the same strategic thinking we apply to retail media campaigns.
AI
Mary Meeker Is So Back: My Notes From Her 340-Page AI Futurecast
I spent 2 hours reading Mary Meeker’s 340-page AI trends report so you don’t have to... But you probably still should. Here are my 6 highlights for retailers, brands and agencies.
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Meta Says ‘Just Trust Us’ With AI Ads, Will Amazon Follow Suit?
The real question is whether Amazon will preserve the transparency and control that increasingly define its competitive advantage against the black box futures its rivals envision.
Blog
Where Does The Ecomm Team Really Belong? 3 Brand-Side Leaders Share Their Org Charts
The placement of e-commerce teams seems to depend heavily on a company's history, existing strengths, and the gaps they need to fill. Still, it's always interesting to hear how other brands are set up.
Blog
Is Retail Media Actually Kinda 'Mid'? PART 2
On a recent Jason + Scot Show podcast episode, Jason Goldberg argued that all the excitement around retail media fizzles once you step off Amazon’s turf: Sponsored Products Ads dominate, small 3P sellers fund most of them, and regional or specialty networks lack true incremental dollars. I totally took the
AI
Walmart's Sparky AI Assistant: A Late Mover with Early Promise
I remain convinced that shoppers will increasingly turn to their own personal AI assistants for help interacting with retailers, rather than relying on retailer AI assistants who always going to be limited by context from their own walled garden.
AI
AI in real life: how retailers and brands are leveraging AI (real numbers)
Most businesses struggle not with what AI can do, but with envisioning what it should do for their specific challenges. Today I'm sharing four real examples where companies figured out the "what" and can tell you exactly what they got back.
Blog
Career Sliding Doors: The Pivotal Moments That Changed These 4 Ecomm Leaders' Careers
In an industry where tomorrow's challenges are unknown and the landscape shifts monthly, perhaps the most valuable skill is simply being comfortable with the unexpected doors that open along the way.
Blog
Retailers Hit 99% Ad Coverage Without Killing User Experience, New Research Shows
New research from retail media tech provider Pentaleap finds that retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot already serve sponsored products on virtually every search result—97-99 % of queries—while maintaining shopper engagement (CTR and CVR) on par with organic listings.
AI
55% of consumers say they don't trust AI shopping chatbots & recommendations
While 75% of consumers have encountered AI recommendations or chatbots online, only 44% actually engaged with them.
Blog
Walmart is Betting on AI Agents, While Amazon Goes Proprietary
The brands and retailers that get this right won't be the ones with the flashiest AI features. They'll be the ones that make it seamless for both humans and bots to do business with them.
Blog
How retailers 'Do' Sponsored Product ads: 4 takeaways for brands
The follow-up to a killer benchmark report last year from Pentaleap just dropped today, comparing how major retail media networks perform across search terms, categories, and bidding models. I'm doing a 2-parter breaking down my biggest takeaways from the report. In this post today, I'll share
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Brands demand retail media standards. Retailers say it's too hard. Do they kind of have a point?
Before we begin, if you like today's post, you'll love the webinar I'm part of next week: The Retail Media Halo Effect brought to us by Keen Decision Systems and Future Commerce. Much of my thoughts below came from noodling on the very topics