commerce

Retail media has broken through some critical threshold, and is no longer the straightforward digitalization of shopper marketing budgets.

Advertising using AI-doctored images could spark legal issues if the images are misleading. Plus: the commerce reckoning.

Last year, Shipt went hunting for a DSP, eyeing new programmatic reach and hyper-local targeting down to the ZIP code.

Retail media is entering what might be called its Socratic phase. The closer we to get to understanding an ad campaign’s real impact and business results, the clearer it is that we have no idea how this thing works.

This week, the AdExchanger Commerce Media Newsletter spotlights ZeroClick, an ad network for AI chatbot products launched by a group of familiar faces in the world of ecommerce and ad tech.

Product prices and marketing budgets are flip sides of the same coin. But the phase-in effects of tariffs, combined with vicissitudes of global weather and commodity production, challenge that truism.

Criteo’s Q2 earnings report on Wednesday was marked by flatness.

This year’s Amazon Prime Day event stood out in a couple important ways. One is the blasé results of Prime Day; the other is the guerilla pricing tactics adopted by brands and merchants that sell on Amazon and elsewhere across the web.

New Generation AI, a startup founded last year, is looking to build agentic AI products for brands and retailers of any size. It’s an exciting time, says Jonathan Arena, one of New Gen’s co-founders and a former product lead at Patreon.

With “edible” in its name, how could Edible Arrangements not get into the budding cannabis delivery business?

AI and machine learning services have come a long way in the past couple years, and these changes have introduced a whole new vocabulary for marketers trying to get a handle on how products like PMax work.

Today’s roundup deals with an uncomfortable topic that, at some point, retail media companies must reckon with. It’s not transparency, or MFA, or standardization. It is the issue of rising return rates.

2025 is officially the year that GLP-1 solidifies itself as a force in the advertising world.

Last week, at an industry event hosted by RTB House, a group of retailers took the stage to discuss their plans (and frustrations) with data-driven advertising this year.

The convergence of on-site retail and shopping across the web got a little more converged on Tuesday with the news that Kevel has acquired Nexta.

Chinese advertisers and ecommerce companies have become a force in American shopping. What happens now?

The killer application for generative AI tech in TV advertising right now is very simple: auto-creating videos that small and local businesses can use to run CTV and streaming TV ads.

Retailers should always have a shopper-first mentality – and sometimes that may mean having to deprioritize their retail media business.

Dustin Hinz is CMO of Firestone Walker Brewing, which just launched its first non-alcoholic beer line. Now comes the marketing challenge.

Brands are getting back to basics. They’re rethinking their packaging and trying to figure out how they fit into the new world of retail store shelves. And while they are getting more data-driven, the data is not necessarily for advertising.

In the world of online advertising on big walled-garden platforms – Meta in particular – October through November truly is the season of giving. Of giving advertisers ulcers and panic attacks, that is.

“I always said, I think we need to change our title, because it’s not the old school shopper marketing,” said Anne Martin, director of shopper marketing for Mondelez International, which owns Oreo, Ritz, and a variety of other snacks.

Perhaps you’ve noticed – How could you not? – that there is massive competition among the largest ecommerce retailers to be the quickest, cheapest option online. But the mid-tier of ecommerce marketplaces are suffering.

Pacvue has promoted COO Rahul Choraria to chief executive.

Many of Publicis’ fastest-growing and most strategic business units – including CitrusAd, Profitero, Epsilon and Conversant – earn a large chunk of their revenue from other agencies. Is that a problem?

The New York Times and Instacart are partnering for shoppable recipe videos.

Albertsons is taking that first step into non-endemic advertising next week via a partnership with Rokt to serve ads to people who have already purchased groceries.

A growing number of retail media networks are partnering with ad tech intermediaries and each other to manufacture national scale. And you can add regional grocery chains Wegmans and Giant Eagle to that list.

It’s lawn season – and you know what that means. Scott’s Miracle-Gro commercials, of course. Except this time, spots for Scott’s will be brought to you by The Home Depot’s retail media network.

Sales are way up; ROAS is through the roof across search, social and ecommerce. At least, that’s what the ad platforms say.