Commerce media has spent the last few years borrowing agency language: planning, activation, measurement. What I’ve noticed at recent industry events is that the leading networks have stopped borrowing the language and started borrowing the operating model.
I’ve heard a handful of trends repeated in conversations about what it actually takes to build a successful commerce media network. Here’s what I’ve been hearing, and why I think each one matters.
1: Integration beats isolation
Commerce media cannot win from a silo. Real scale only comes when the media business sits inside the retail operating board and corporate strategy cycle.
A commerce media team is woven into the core company infrastructure whether it likes it or not: a loyalty card switch or an app update – directly impacts the media business.
I find this one interesting because it goes against the way commerce media is usually pitched, as a clean, standalone growth engine. The reality is messier, and the networks that acknowledge that messiness early tend to scale faster than the ones chasing full autonomy.
2: Commerce media literacy must be taught
Agencies have brilliant media planning experts, but they still have to actively train those teams to understand newer media channels, like commerce media, and how they operate across demand planning, category assortment and logistics. Skill alone doesn’t transfer; it must be paired with context and education.
That’s why the strongest teams are built from blended client and agency backgrounds, and why some networks now prioritise kindness and chemistry over technical resumes when hiring. The assumption being that ecosystem nuance can be taught, if the team alignment and collaboration is working well.
Few people talk about hiring philosophy at conferences, Nectar 360 and Douglas Marketing Solutions being notable exceptions, yet it keeps coming up as one of the hardest things to get right.
3: Diagnose before you build
On the buy-versus-build question, the more considered approach is orchestration rather than in-house ad-tech. Organisations are mapping the gaps and partnering their way to a solution, rather than building everything themselves.
The same discipline applies to data. Measurement has to come before technology investment, because you need a clear diagnosis of customer behaviour before you can write a media prescription.
It’s so easy to over-invest in shiny ad-tech before you’ve actually understood the problem you’re solving. The diagnosis-first mindset is typically a media agency habit, and one commerce media has been slower to adopt.
4: AI is already compressing the operational grind
AI is resizing dynamic ad formats across complex online and physical store layouts. A task that used to take days now takes 90 seconds.
That’s not incremental efficiency, that’s a different cost base for creative production entirely, and it’s the kind of shift that changes what a network can realistically promise an advertiser.
5: The store is a logistics problem
Moving digital media in-store changes the skills a network needs. Networks are hiring people who understand physical store logistics: local layouts, wi-fi connectivity zones and electrical installations. At the same time, there’s a real split in ambition across the industry.
High-volume grocery is personalising ads on scanning handsets, while premium retail wants its screens to do something more cinematic and theatrical, injecting drama and visual standout to cut through choice density.
I think this is one of the more underrated trends, because it shows commerce media splitting into genuinely different disciplines depending on the retail environment, rather than one playbook fitting all.
Why this matters
None of these trends are really about technology. They’re about a mindset shift: structure, talent and process all get reshaped once a retailer starts planning with clients, acting with agility and holding itself to the same standards of measurable impact an agency would.
That shift is more challenging than it sounds, because it asks retailers to adopt habits that don’t come naturally to organisations typically built around merchandising and margin, rather than client service.
The organisations succeeding in commerce media are the ones who have stopped thinking like a retailer, and instead tapped into a media agency mindset, operating as a business which happens to own the product shelf.
AI is going to make the gap increasingly obvious: as it compresses the operational work and speeds up delivery, advertisers will notice sooner which networks still can’t measure, plan or execute commerce media at pace. Everyone else is still deciding whether that shift is worth making, and I suspect it won’t be optional for much longer.
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