Quick answer: First-party data is no longer a competitive advantage, it is the entry ticket. Retail media networks that fail to get their data infrastructure right before launching ad products will struggle to attract brands, retain advertisers, and build the measurement credibility that drives long-term revenue. Elizabeth Neubauer-Donovan, EVP and Global Head of Retail and Commerce Media Networks at Acxiom, breaks down exactly what it takes to build a network that brands actually want to spend on.
Retail media has grown fast. Too fast, in some cases. With over 240 commerce and retail media networks now operating across nearly every vertical, the landscape has become fragmented to a degree that is creating real friction for brands trying to allocate budgets intelligently.
Meanwhile, the networks themselves are grappling with a challenge that goes deeper than technology: most retailers have valuable first-party data, but have not yet built the infrastructure or organizational alignment to make it useful.
In this episode the Unlocking Retail Media Podcast, Kevel CEO James Avery and Elizabeth Neubauer-Donovan discuss data strategy, the evolving role of the agency, network collaboration, and what separates the retail media networks that win from the ones that stall. Below are the key takeaways structured as direct answers to the questions retailers are wrestling with right now.
Takeaway 1: Retail Media vs. Commerce Media: Why the Distinction Matters
The market still conflates these two categories, and the confusion costs networks time and money. Retail media networks monetize audiences that are actively shopping within their ecosystem. Commerce media networks, travel brands, financial institutions, hospitality companies, monetize a different kind of captive, high-intent audience that is not transacting at the point of ad exposure.
"Retail media networks are selling things within their stores and their properties, where commerce media networks are not selling anything, but they have that first-party data to drive advertisers to want to run on their owned and operated." — Elizabeth Neubauer-Donovan
Both types of networks share one foundation: they require clean, accurate first-party data. But the go-to-market strategy, the endemic and non-endemic brand mix, and the measurement approach differ substantially. Networks that treat their category as generic retail are leaving strategic positioning on the table.
Takeaway 2: First-Party Data Is Table Stakes. Most Networks Are Not There Yet.
Most retailers have been collecting transaction data for years. That does not mean they know how to use it.
Elizabeth drew on her experience building Marriott's media network to illustrate the point. Even a brand with deep customer relationships and enormous data assets needs to invest in the identity infrastructure, clean room capabilities, and data activation architecture to turn raw data into a compelling ad product. Without that foundation, targeting is imprecise, measurement is unreliable, and brands will not renew.
The practical implication for any network in early stages: before you pitch brands, audit the data.
- Is your identity resolution reliable?
- Can you prove closed-loop attribution?
- Can you segment your audience with enough granularity to deliver relevance rather than reach?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, address it before investing in the ad product itself.
Takeaway 3: The Agency Role in Retail Media Has Fundamentally Changed
The traditional agency-retailer relationship, media buyer meets publisher, no longer describes how sophisticated networks get built. Elizabeth's role at Acxiom, sitting at the intersection of data infrastructure, brand strategy, and network operations, is itself evidence of that shift.
"A lot of brands don't want to bring that in-house because that's not their main line of revenue," she explained. Retailers running grocery businesses, travel programs, or loyalty networks do not have the internal capacity to hire data engineers, ad tech architects, and measurement specialists at the scale required. The agency, particularly one with data infrastructure expertise, becomes the operating partner, not just the buyer.
This model offers retailers a meaningful middle path. They retain ownership of their first-party data and their network's strategic direction. They get access to clean room technology, identity solutions, and activation capabilities without the capital outlay of building that stack independently.
Takeaway 4: Network Collaboration Is the Next Phase of the Market
With fragmentation intensifying, the networks that win will not be the ones that scale fastest in isolation. They will be the ones that find smart collaboration models.
Elizabeth pointed to the CVS-Reddit partnership as an early signal of where the market is heading. Two organizations with different audiences, different inventory types, and different data assets found a model that extended reach and delivered something neither could offer independently.
"I don't like to call it consolidation," she said. "I call it collaboration."
The networks best positioned to participate in those models will be the ones that have clean data, clear identity infrastructure, and the organizational alignment to move quickly on partnership opportunities. Networks that have not invested in those capabilities will find themselves on the outside of deals that would have materially grown their ad revenue.
Takeaway 5: Experiential and Location-Based Targeting Is Where Commerce Media Gets Interesting
A key point in the conversation that is worth unpacking is the experiential champagne example. Elizabeth described a scenario where an airline, using booking data, identifies five women traveling together to a bachelorette party and triggers a branded champagne experience. That is not an ad impression. It is a brand moment, memorable, shareable, and worth far more to the champagne advertiser than a banner placement.
This is where commerce media networks have a structural advantage that pure digital publishers do not. They know who the customer is, where they are going, and what context they are traveling in. Combined with location data, social layer integrations, and experiential delivery capabilities, that data creates advertising opportunities that are genuinely differentiated.
"Everything is social right now," Neubauer-Donovan noted. "We know what's happening within the moment because of TikTok and other social platforms. Those partnerships will be crucial to that location-based first-party data targeting."
Takeaway 6: Stakeholder Alignment Is the Most Underestimated Barrier to Network Success
The final piece of advice Elizabeth offered is the one that most often gets overlooked in the conversation about technology and data strategy.
Getting the first-party data right, choosing the right tech stack, building the right measurement framework, none of it works if the internal stakeholders are not aligned. Merchandising leaders, digital teams, data organizations, and marketing functions all have competing interests. Without executive sponsorship and a shared definition of success, the network will spin in place regardless of how good the infrastructure is.
"If it's not coming from the top and it's not an initiative across the company and you don't have that stakeholder alignment, you'll be wasting a lot of time back and forth."
The retailers building the most successful media networks share one common trait: the initiative has a direct line to the CEO. Not because the CEO is making tactical decisions, but because their visible commitment to the program unlocks the cross-functional cooperation that makes everything else possible.
The Bottom Line for Retailers Entering or Scaling Retail Media
Data first. Technology second. Ad product third.
That sequencing is not obvious when every vendor in the market is selling you the ad product first. But Elizabeth's perspective, shaped by 60 years of Acxiom's data infrastructure experience and her own time building Marriott's network from the ground up, is clear: the networks that will be standing in five years are the ones that got the data layer right before they went to market.
The $170 billion retail media market projected by eMarketer is real. So is the consolidation that will separate the networks worth investing in from the ones that quietly fade away. First-party data, stakeholder alignment, and smart partnership strategy are what decide which side of that line a network ends up on.
Listen to the Full Conversation on Unlocking Retail Media
For more insights like these, tune in to the full episode of Unlocking Retail Media, the podcast where Kevel CEO James Avery sits down with industry leaders and innovators shaping the future of retail advertising.
Listen to this episode with Elizabeth Neubauer-Donovan here.
