What I’ve learned from 102 newsletters over 5 months (and my future plans)

In January, I launched Retail Media Breakfast Club—a daily podcast and newsletter—to cover developments in the space and how they affect the various players: retailers, brands, tech providers, and agencies.

Here's what I've learned: we're all still beginners in different ways. You might be a retail-side professional now grappling with media measurement. You could be an Amazon advertising expert trying to decode Walmart's data capabilities. And we're certainly all figuring out what AI agents mean for commerce and advertising together.

So I try to ignore the little devil on my shoulder who’s constantly undermining me (unfortunately the little bugger camped out there for 10+ years) and put out a fresh point of view for folks in and around the retail media industry.

Thankfully, I’ve received enough unsolicited positive feedback to suggest that I’m hitting on something so far. The end product is something I am told is “accessible” — that’s a nice way of saying that I need things to be really dumbed down before I understand them. Then I can pass that onto my readers and listeners. Sometimes the topic will be familiar to a group of readers and therefore the dumbing down is not necessary. But there’s usually other groups of people out there with different backgrounds for whom the concept or breakdown is new information. So while producing daily content is a challenge (more on that later) it has also been very rewarding.

In today's episode/newsletter, I'm sharing an important update about what's next for Retail Media Breakfast Club, along with:

• Key lessons learned from my first five months
• The most popular topics (and what surprised me)
• An announcement

The most popular topics so far

100+ episodes and newsletters gives you a pretty clear picture of what people actually care about versus what you think they should care about. I've been tracking downloads and engagement to see which topics are genuinely hitting home. The results are interesting. Some pieces I thought would be home runs barely registered, while others I almost didn't publish became the most-shared content I've created. Here's what's risen to the top, why I think it connected, and what caught me completely off guard:

1. Is retail media actually kinda "mid"? -- Not surprised by this. This was my “beef” with Jason Goldberg , a man who actually gives me a lot of confidence because he is very highly regarded in our space but isn’t afraid to speak his mind. Jason had a critique of retail media (specifically, its overall size, equity, and opportunity) on his podcast, the Jason and Scot Show and I swung back, writing this post/podcast the next day after the episode came out. Did I think it would be my top performing episode? Kind of. Did I change Jason’s mind? Not yet.
2. How retailers 'Do' Sponsored Product ads: 4 takeaways for brands -- A deep dive into Pentaleap Sponsored Product Benchmark report. This extensive research shows how retailers are deploying SPA, comparing things like ad density and placement across top retailers. This is exceptional research from Pentaleap and since I actually work with them, I got an early track on this research so it was well planned.
3. Retailers Are Learning to Sell—But This Time, It’s Media, Not Products (Part 1/3) -- This was a mini-series I did with the brilliant Jordan Witmer , another person who suffers no fools. This series was a critical discussion about the challenges that brands and advertisers have with RMNs. Poking some bears with this one? Perhaps. I’m sensing a theme.
4. Brands demand retail media standards. Retailers say it's too hard. Do they kind of have a point? Finally, things swing in the other direction for the retailers. Sean Ransenberg from HEB threw out a challenge — are brands expecting too much from retailers when it comes to measurement? I cited similar sentiments I’d heard from other retailers, that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t make sense.

Other popular episodes:

"We're Not Dabbling Here": Amazon's Official Company Line On AI

DSPs Wanted: The Retail Media Revolution 96% of Advertisers Crave

My Notes From an Interview with Costco's RMN leader, Mark Williamson

Why AI Search Advertising Could Reach $25 Billion By 2029

5 lessons learned about the newsletter and podcast & advice I’d give

Five months of daily content creation has taught me some hard lessons about audience building, content format, and sustainable publishing. Here's what worked, what didn't, and what I'd tell anyone starting their own industry publication:

1. LinkedIn newsletters are a secret hack. I gave this advice recently to Danny Silverman when he started his weekly recap newsletter. LinkedIn promotes the heck out of newsletters when you first launch them. It seems like a large percentage of your network is notified when you start one, so use that boost wisely. To talk real numbers, today my email newsletter has 780 subs whereas my LinkedIn newsletter has 5,800 subs.
2. Just like you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, you can’t out-market bad content. It has to be good, and it has to be different. There are already many excellent interview-style podcasts out there, the world really didn’t need another one. Much content is long-form, which I personally love, but I know most people don’t have time. And I hate to say it, but a lot of content out there is boring. There’s no point of view. I don’t always get it right (and I’m happy to be told so) but I can’t stand for inane and bland content, especially with the mountain of AI-generated slop that covers us like an avalanche every day.
3. Podcasts are the hardest format to grow, but spark the most intimacy. This surprised me. My average podcast downloads in the first 30 days: 213. My LinkedIn newsletter views: 2,500. But the podcast generates the most personal feedback — DMs from kind strangers s saying they enjoy the podcast specifically. Perhaps I complain too much that podcasts don’t get enough audience feedback? Nevertheless, there's definitely something about voice that creates genuine connection, even if the numbers are smaller.
4. Video is even harder, and I admit defeat (for now). I started out doing video for a Youtube version of the podcast. It was 3X the effort for 10% of the views/downloads of the podcast. I still think there’s a space for video in the RMBC content repertoire, but it’s tabled for now.
5. I’ve actually been lying to you all. I started this podcast and newsletter with the tagline, "daily retail media insights at 6AM eastern time, every weekday." As the podcast and newsletter started building traction it became clear that listenership fell off a cliff every Friday. I tested different content themes and formats, but nothing really greased the numbers. So I quietly dropped my 5-day-a-week publication down to 4 days a week. Did you notice? (Honest question) The content quality improved and my sanity returned. Sometimes less really is more.

What’s next for Retail Media Breakfast Club

This week will be the final week of Season 1 of Retail Media Breakfast Club. I'll be reporting daily from the Cannes Festival of Creativity this week, sharing relevant announcements and some fun snippets from the Croisette. But after that, I'll be taking a long-awaited holiday with the fam in Europe before heading back to Atlanta with our freshly minted US Green Cards.

The first episode of Season 2 will be dropping in late July. So be sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app, via direct email newsletter, or the LinkedIn newsletter.

And if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast and newsletter to reach senior brand, agency, and retail leaders, let's talk.

Thank you

It has been very exciting covering this space as a pundit for the past 5 months. I quite literally haven’t been able to keep up, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for all you out there with “real” jobs.

The people in this industry are the real reason I decided to come back from my sabbatical/mid-life crisis and commentate on this space in earnest. As my friend Brea Keating says, we are not merry go round people. We are rollercoaster people.

I want to hear from you. What topics should Season 2 tackle? What questions keep you up at night? What would make this content more valuable for your work? Hit me up.