Retail Media Breakfast Club

In this episode, I share snippets of a recent episode of the Flywheel Commerce Collective podcast, and take you inside how Clorox has evolved its approach to data clean rooms. In short: an experimental investment just a few years ago has now become a foundational pillar of modern marketing. What’s changed? A lot. I break down how clean rooms are no longer just a “nice-to-have” piece of tech, but essential infrastructure powering personalization in a privacy-first world.
I dig into real-world examples shared by Tiffany Tan, Head of eCommerce Growth Accelerator at Clorox, including how Clorox tailors messaging based on context, behavior, and intent rather than demographics. From back-to-college campaigns, to crisis-driven demand spikes, this episode explores how brands are finally getting closer to the “why” behind consumer behavior, and what that means for the future of retail media and AI-driven marketing.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Clorox’s early investment in clean rooms and the 2023 CES context
[00:51] – Tiffany Tan’s recent insights and how the conversation has evolved
[01:00] – Publicis acquires LiveRamp for $2.2B — why this validates the space
[02:00] – Clean rooms reframed as a personalization enabler, not just technology
[03:30] – Brita example: tailoring messaging for back-to-college moments
[05:12] – Crisis scenario: lead in water and high-intent consumer behavior
[08:15] – Measuring success: why personalization is cumulative over time

Links & Resources
Listen to Tiffany Tan's full appearance on The Commerce Collective Podcast: How Clorox is building toward 1:1, personalized marketing in a multi-retailer world
Subscribe to The Commerce Collective Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Follow Tiffany Tan, Head of eCommerce Growth Accelerator at The Clorox Company, on LinkedIn
Follow Emma Irwin, Brand Marketing Manager @ Flywheel & Host of The Commerce Collective Podcast, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:LiveRamp's Acquisition: Three Hot Takes That Matter To Retail Media
Whoever Owns the Budget Determines What Retail Media Is Allowed to Be
The Retail Media Buffet Has Gotten A Lot Less Enticing

EMARKETER is teaming up again with Bain to survey retail media network leaders for a unique insight into the forces shaping the industry. The survey is intended for people working in-house on retail media teams, and it is global this year! The survey is also double-anonymized. The survey organizers will not know, nor are they trying to determine, which specific retail media network a respondent works for. The goal is to understand broader retail media trends, not attribute responses to individual companies. Please take the survey here. 
In Atlanta? Join the Commerce Media Happy Hour on Wednesday May 20! RSVP here
I am sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

I’m coming to you from an airport lounge (because business travel is always glamorous, right?) with the breaking news that I couldn’t ignore: Publicis has acquired LiveRamp in a multi-billion dollar deal. And it has major implications for retail media.
In this episode, I unpack the biggest reactions from across the industry and what they really mean. From the bull case calling this the smartest deal of the decade, to serious concerns about neutrality, consolidation, and whether identity infrastructure can still be trusted: there’s a lot to digest. I also dig into the retailer-specific angle: are retail media networks truly owning their data, or just renting it? And why that question just became urgent.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Recording from Atlanta Airport + why this acquisition grabbed my attention 
[00:32] – Breaking down the $2.2–$2.5B Publicis–LiveRamp deal 
[01:00] – Reflections from RampUp: the role of data collaboration and RampID 
[02:10] – Top industry reactions: “smartest deal of the decade” vs. skepticism 
[03:15] – The neutrality problem: consolidation of identity under holding companies 
[05:00] – The retailer wake-up call: who really owns your customer data? 
[06:00] – Product debate: can LiveRamp evolve, or is the model fundamentally broken? 
[07:30] – What I’m watching next for retail media networks and data ownership

Links & Resources
My full article on The Drum: LiveRamp’s new owner raises harder questions for retail media
Read my related articles:Five Ad Servers, Four Takeaways, and One Thread That Tied RampUp Together
"We're All Holding Our Breath"
The ‘Costco Velocity’ Tech Stack Is Coming Together. Here's How the Pieces Fit.

In Atlanta? Join the Commerce Media Happy Hour on Wednesday May 20! RSVP here
EMARKETER is teaming up again with Bain to survey retail media network leaders for a unique insight into the forces shaping the industry. The survey is intended for people working in-house on retail media teams, and it is global this year!
Important to know that the survey is also double-anonymized. The survey organizers will not know, nor are they trying to determine, which specific retail media network a respondent works for. The goal is to understand broader retail media trends, not attribute responses to individual companies. Please take the survey here. 
I'm sharing comedy skits about retail media on Instagram! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Dollar General has been making serious waves in retail media. In this episode, I break down what’s really going on beneath the surface of their latest announcements. From AI-powered in-store audio to a fully unified on-site and off-site media buying solution, it might look like a story about better tech… but there’s a much bigger shift happening here.
I dive into insights Kathryn Mazza shared on a recent episode of the Omni Talk Retail podcast that reveal the economic pressure forcing retail media networks to evolve. I also unpack why trade dollars are drying up, what it actually takes to win brand budgets, and why the sequencing of building a retail media network could make or break its future. If you want to understand where retail media is headed — and how Dollar General is positioning itself ahead of the curve — this one’s for you.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Dollar General’s back-to-back announcements and why they matter beyond the headlines 
[01:19] – The real problem: why retail media networks are running out of trade dollars 
[01:54] – The importance of full-funnel offerings to unlock brand marketing budgets 
[03:23] – Why shifting to brand dollars is no longer optional — it’s survival 
[04:30] – What agencies actually want (and why most RMNs fall short) 
[05:45] – The overlooked power of in-store media in a changing retail landscape 
[07:15] – The strategic sequencing behind building a profitable retail media network

Links & Resources
Watch the full Kathryn Mazza episode on Omni Talk Retail: ChatGPT Wants Your Ad Dollars, DG Goes Full Funnel & Audible Opens A Bookless Bookstore
Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail hosted by Chris Walton: YouTube & Apple Podcasts
Follow Kathryn Mazza, Chief Growth Officer US @ Barrows Connected Store, on LinkedIn
Follow Chris Walton, President & CEO @ Omni Talk, on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:How Can RMNs Tap Upper-Funnel Brand Budgets
The Last Mile of America: Inside Austin Leonard's Plan For Dollar General Media Network
Managing a Multi-Retailer RMN Stack: The Operational Reality

I'm keynoting at Xnurta's Signal to Scale summit on Tuesday May 19 in Chicago. This is the room to be in if you work in retail media, care about what AI actually changes, and want to leave with something you can put to work. A full day focused on agentic AI, modern measurement, and the strategies the best teams are already building toward. Reserve your spot here.
EMARKETER is teaming up again with Bain to survey retail media network leaders for a unique insight into the forces shaping the industry. The survey is intended for people working in-house on retail media teams, and it is global this year! The survey is also double-anonymized. The survey organizers will not know, nor are they trying to determine, which specific retail media network a respondent works for. The goal is to understand broader retail media trends, not attribute responses to individual companies. Please take the survey here. 
In Atlanta? Join the Commerce Media Happy Hour on Wednesday May 20! RSVP here
I'm sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Last week, I stepped onto the stage at the Digital Shelf Summit here in Atlanta for a debate that’s been heating up across the industry: is agentic commerce an existential threat to e-commerce traffic? I took the “yes” side — boldly — and in this episode, I’m unpacking my full rebuttal to the idea that this is all just hype.
I walk through where I agree with the skeptics (because yes, some of the data has been overstated), but more importantly, where I think the industry is missing the point entirely. This isn’t about transaction share: it’s about where decisions are being made. If AI shifts the moment of product discovery and comparison upstream, what happens to the retail media model as we know it? Let’s dig into the real implications before we all get too comfortable.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Setting the stage: My debate at Digital Shelf Summit and why this topic matters now
[01:25] – Breaking down the “agentic commerce is a hallucination” argument
[03:15] – The critical flaw: Measuring transactions instead of decision-making moments
[04:30] – Why retail media depends on consumer behavior that may be disappearing
[06:30] – New data reveals a shift toward direct-to-product-page shopping
[08:00] – The hidden trade-off: Higher conversion, fewer ad impressions
[10:30] – My final takeaway: The real hallucination isn’t disruption, it’s thinking nothing will change

Links & Resources
Andrew Lipsman's guest post on The AI Ad Economy: An Agentic Commerce Reality Check
Subscribe to Debra Aho Williamson's newsletter The AI Ad Economy
Subscribe to Andrew Lipsman's newsletter Media, Ads + Commerce
Criteo's 2026 COMMERCE & AI TREND REPORT
Adobe's Quarterly AI Traffic Report (April 2026)
Read my related articles:No Incentive To Sound The Alarm
Dark Search, Broken Signals, and What Comes Next for Retail Media
The 3 Ways Agentic Commerce Could Destroy Retail Media
Agentic Shopping Poses An Existential Threat To Retail Media (Part 2)
OpenAI is killing Instant Checkout. Don't dance on the grave of agentic shopping yet (The Drum)
Loyalty data is becoming retail media’s strongest defense (The Drum)
Retailers, here’s how your media network can still thrive in an AI-shopping era (The Drum)

I'm keynoting at Xnurta's Signal to Scale summit on May 19 in Chicago. This is the room to be in if you work in retail media, care about what AI actually changes, and want to leave with something you can put to work. A full day focused on agentic AI, modern measurement, and the strategies the best teams are already building toward. Reserve your spot here.
EMARKETER is teaming up again with Bain to survey retail media network leaders for a unique insight into the forces shaping the industry. The survey is intended for people working in-house on retail media teams, and it is global this year! The survey is also double-anonymized. The survey organizers will not know, nor are they trying to determine, which specific retail media network a respondent works for. The goal is to understand broader retail media trends, not attribute responses to individual companies. Please take the survey here. 
In Atlanta? Join the Commerce Media Happy Hour on Wednesday May 20! RSVP here
I am sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn

Most retail media networks are built to look backward. But what if the real opportunity is predicting what customers will do next? In this episode, a reprise of my recent article for The Drum, I dig into a fascinating new model that challenges the industry’s reliance on transaction data and closed-loop attribution.
I’m unpacking my recent conversation with Marco Steinsieck, former head of Sephora’s media network and now GM of Backpack Media, an education-powered commerce media network built on Sallie’s ecosystem. I also play a snippet of Marco's recent appearance on The Middlemen podcast to explore how life-stage signals — like planning for college or making first financial decisions — might be a far more powerful indicator of future purchases than anything sitting in a transaction log. This one raises big questions about where commerce media is headed and whether the current playbook is already outdated.

This episode is sponsored by Mirakl Ads

Timeline
[00:00] – Why most commerce media networks are stuck selling the past 
[00:30] – Marco Steinsieck's big idea: predicting future purchases, not past behavior 
[01:04] – Life-stage data vs. transaction data: why one is a leading indicator 
[02:00] – Inside Backpack Media and how education data powers predictive modeling 
[03:15] – Lessons from Sephora: building a high-performing media network without massive scale 
[04:00] – The privacy-first challenge of building media inside a financial institution 
[07:30] – Is this really “commerce media”? Rethinking the definition of the category 
[09:00] – Why predictive commerce is still unproven, and what needs to happen next

Links & Resources
Marco Steinsieck profile on The Drum: Meet the former Sephora exec betting commerce media can predict the future
Marco Steinsieck's full appearance on The Middlemen podcast: Beyond Transactions — Marco Steinsieck (Backpack Media)
Subscribe to The Middlemen on YouTube and Apple Podcasts
Follow Marco Steinsieck on LinkedIn
Read my related articles:Best Buy Wants To Become An Ad Platform, Not Just Another RMN
Sam's Club Cracked the Code on In-Store Retail Media—Here's How They Did It
Retailers Hit 99% Ad Coverage Without Killing User Experience, New Research Shows

I'm keynoting at Xnurta's Signal to Scale summit on May 19 in Chicago. This is the room to be in if you work in retail media, care about what AI actually changes, and want to leave with something you can put to work. A full day focused on agentic AI, modern measurement, and the strategies the best teams are already building toward. Reserve your spot here.
EMARKETER is teaming up again with Bain to survey retail media network leaders for a unique insight into the forces shaping the industry. The survey is intended for people working in-house on retail media teams, and it is global this year! The survey is also double-anonymized. The survey organizers will not know, nor are they trying to determine, which specific retail media network a respondent works for. The goal is to understand broader retail media trends, not attribute responses to individual companies. Please take the survey here. 
In Atlanta? Join the Commerce Media Happy Hour on Wednesday May 20! RSVP here
I am sharing comedy skits on Instagram about retail media! Follow along: @retailmediabreakfastclub
Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
Follow Kiri Masters on LinkedIn