In-store retail media remains underleveraged due to operational complexity and lack of standardization
Let’s be honest, this channel should already be booming. You’ve got customers physically present, decision-ready, standing in the store aisle. That’s a prime opportunity for engagement. But here we are in 2024, and most in-store retail media is still not being used the way it should be. And the reason isn’t that the value isn’t there, it’s the complexity getting in the way.
In-store media is a different beast. You can’t plug it into your digital campaign like a Google ad or a TikTok video. Each store, each retailer, each tech setup comes with its own operational hurdles. Buying inventory, managing asset deployment, verifying delivery, it’s all still fragmented. Without consistent systems for managing in-store as a proper media channel, decision-makers are reluctant to scale it. It doesn’t matter how promising the audience is if your team can’t execute with clarity.
Then there’s the issue of standards, or a lack of them. Measurement varies wildly depending on the retailer. One platform might track impressions on a digital shelf display, another might count foot traffic with zero attribution logic. With everyone grading their own homework, it’s hard for your CMO, VP of Growth, or agency partner to know which results are reliable and which are just noise. This lack of standardization slows everything down. You can’t optimize what you can’t measure properly.
Executives need confidence before they allocate more budget. And there just isn’t enough consistency across retailers, tech tools, and measurement frameworks to make large-scale in-store media investments straightforward. That’s the bottleneck.
We know the potential is massive. eMarketer projects that in-store retail media will exceed $1 billion in ad spend by 2029. That might sound impressive, but it’s still a tiny portion of the total being spent on retail media. It tells you something important: the channel is still mostly untapped.
When systems catch up, when purchasing, management, and attribution become seamless, this space will move quickly. But until that happens, expect continued hesitation. The opportunity is obvious. The execution framework is not. That’s what needs to change.
Organizational misalignment and unclear ownership hinder the effective deployment of in-store media strategies
Here’s the problem no one wants to talk about: inside the average brand or retailer, nobody agrees on who actually owns in-store media. That creates friction. It slows down execution. And it prevents scale.
Most companies still have old frameworks in place. Shopper marketing lives in one bucket, digital media in another, and trade marketing in yet another. These silos mean in-store efforts are either underfunded, ignored, or end up lost in internal politics. It’s common to see in-store budgets treated like a trade cost instead of media investment. That results in tactical, short-term spending rather than long-term strategy. Your head of marketing may not even want to touch it, too messy, not digital enough, hard to quantify.
This internal uncertainty becomes a bottleneck when it’s time to execute. Who writes the creative? Which agency activates the campaign? Who handles billing? If no one can answer those questions fast, the effort freezes. By the time it gets untangled, the opportunity may already be gone. This isn’t a technology problem. It’s structural. It’s about responsibility and leadership.
The most decisive organizations are already changing structure to fix this. Some are phasing out the CMO role entirely, replacing it with a Chief Growth Officer who can connect sales, media, and shopper strategy into one pipeline. Others are appointing Chief Media Officers with the authority to drive integration across platforms, physical and digital.
Jordan Witmer, Managing Director of Retail Media at Salt Media, hit this point directly. He pointed out that once you call in-store a “media channel,” it triggers uncertainty across multiple departments. Everyone starts asking: Do I run this? Who does creative? What agency is responsible? Who gets the bill? And somewhere down the list, sometimes too far down, is the most important question: does it even work?
There’s momentum building. But you can’t wait around for clarity to magically appear. Senior leaders need to draw lines, quickly and cleanly. Decide who owns this and give them the resources. That’s the requirement to move. Without it, your team will keep spinning in internal loops while more organized competitors push ahead.
The obsession with achieving perfect measurement and attribution stifles progress in in-store media
This is where a lot of companies hit a wall. They delay investing in in-store media because they can’t measure it with the same precision as digital channels. But if you’re waiting for perfect attribution before you act, you’re going to miss the actual return, in reach, brand lift, and shopper influence.
Too many marketers expect in-store to deliver exact conversion data, sales, footfall tied to impressions, even real-time ROI. That’s not realistic. Even digital platforms, with all of their tracking capabilities, can’t deliver flawless attribution. Expecting that from an in-store screen or shelf display only sets up false benchmarks that stall action. While the data challenge is real, the bigger issue is mindset.
Chelsey Alexander, Founder and CEO of Open Gate Consulting, pointed out how brands already know the opportunity is there. Millions of people walk through stores each day. Upper-funnel awareness is built-in by default. But teams are holding back because they can’t measure the lower funnel, the final sale, with absolute certainty. That hesitation turns into lost opportunities, every day.
Matt Claisse, Media Director at SMG, was even more clear: the expectations in the U.S. are off. He made the point that wanting full attribution from in-store campaigns is a flawed ask, it’s not achievable, and it isn’t even something digital consistently delivers. Markets like Europe, where limitations on digital targeting are stricter, have embraced in-store approaches more easily. Their retail media infrastructure grew from the physical environment first, so there’s less resistance to activation without perfect measurement.
The obsession with attribution isn’t just a technical challenge, it’s strategic misalignment. And for leadership teams, this requires a shift. Stop expecting precision where it can’t exist yet. Focus instead on establishing directional data, testing regularly, and building momentum while the tech improves. You don’t need a complete feedback loop to make strong decisions, you need confidence that the trend line is good and improving. That’s how new media channels grow.
Push your team to move based on verified potential, not theoretical perfection. You’ll move faster, and the advantage will belong to you, not your competitor still waiting for the perfect dashboard.
Leading companies are adapting their internal structures to better support retail media initiatives
The way your organization is structured matters, especially when the pace of change is fast and the environment is complex. In retail media, this is exactly what’s happening. Brands that are seeing traction aren’t just experimenting with new tactics; they’re changing leadership roles to support more unified, agile strategies.
Retail media doesn’t fall neatly into traditional department lines. It spans media buying, sales, shopper marketing, analytics, and technology. Most legacy structures weren’t built for this. As a result, forward-looking companies are reshaping leadership to eliminate overlap and create end-to-end accountability. That means less debate about who owns which part of the campaign, and more execution.
Some are replacing Chief Marketing Officers with Chief Growth Officers. The shift is logical, growth isn’t a compartmentalized function anymore. It cuts across customer acquisition, retention, performance media, and physical touchpoints like in-store displays and signage. If you want cohesion at a strategic level, your leadership structure has to reflect that convergence.
Others, like Liquid Death, are appointing roles specifically focused on media execution across online and offline. Benoit Vatere, Chief Media Officer at the company, leads this unified approach. Having someone responsible for media as a whole creates tighter alignment, not just within marketing but across partnerships, category management, and data strategy.
Jordan Witmer, Managing Director of Retail Media at Salt Media, highlighted the growing influence of roles like VP of Media. These roles sit at the crossroads of brand and performance, with influence that spans across departments. As media becomes more fragmented across platforms, digital, programmatic, in-store, centralized leadership ensures resources are directed at what actually drives results, not just what fits into traditional reporting lines.
If your retail media roadmap feels stalled, your structure may be the issue. Clear ownership, integrated teams, and leadership alignment are prerequisites, not optional upgrades. The brands making moves here are doing more than reassigning titles. They’re rethinking accountability and throughput from the top. That’s how they’re moving faster. That’s how they’re winning.
Key executive takeaways
- In-store complexity slows adoption: Executives should prioritize streamlining internal processes and aligning with retail partners to reduce friction in buying, managing, and measuring in-store media campaigns. Until operational complexity is addressed, scaling will remain a challenge.
- Lack of ownership creates execution gaps: To unlock in-store retail media’s potential, leaders must assign clear functional ownership and accountability. Redesigning roles around integrated responsibilities, like growth or media leadership, will accelerate alignment and progress.
- Attribution obsession stalls momentum: Decision-makers should move away from demanding perfect measurement and instead focus on strong directional data and clear upper-funnel value. Inaction driven by impossible attribution standards leaves valuable reach and shopper influence untapped.
- Structural change drives results: Organizations seeing success are evolving leadership roles, adopting positions like Chief Growth Officer or Chief Media Officer, to unify strategy across media channels. Executives should consider similar structural shifts to increase speed, clarity, and market responsiveness.
