Why Retail Media Needs a Rethink | Liz Roche, Albertsons Media Collective @ Shoptalk 2025

One.

Hello, this is omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

And we are back with our live coverage of Shop Talk from the Meta headquarters, which you can find in Surf room A.

Yes, Ann and B.

Surf room A and B.

Wow.

Meta is so big.

They got two surf rooms to the surf locations.

You can still surf.

You just want to go to surf.

B.

Oh, so it's B.

It's not two.

They're not across two.

Oh, no, they've got A and B.

Oh, they got.

But signage says B.

So we just want to make sure that everybody's wayfinding correct directly at Shop Talk if you're looking for us.

Awesome.

All right, well, thanks to Meta, where you can unlock seamless customer centric experiences with Omnichannel ads for making all of our Shop Talk Day two coverage possible.

And joining us today is Liz Roach, the VP of Media and Measurement for Albertsons Media Collective.

Welcome back to Omnitok.

Thank you.

So good to be with you both.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, so let's get into it.

You're two months on the job, right?

About two months in.

It's a new role.

And so for those of maybe that don't remember our first conversation with you, explain your background and what this new role is all about for you.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I am currently the VP of Media and Measurement.

These were separate departments before, and we're bringing it under one roof, really enabling that end to end efficiency and efficacy.

So super excited about that.

Better design for our clients just makes everything a lot easier, but also makes our product better.

And as you both know, I've spent some time in the retail space.

I worked at Meta.

I also worked in the publishing space and I've had some leadership at agency as well, so been kicking around, but this is an absolute dream.

Amazing.

Well, Liz, you know, you said you, you're now covering media measurement.

It's in one category now for you at Albertsons Media Collective.

I'm curious, like, are there any technologies or processes that you've had to change or kind of update to really accommodate moving those, merging those two together and providing those better customer experience?

I think the biggest thing we're seeing is collaborative technology, and that's what our clients want to see.

Haven't heard that stuff.

Is that clean room, API access?

I mean, really being able to bring data to our clients in near real time and let them collaborate in spaces is really the big technological ask.

And we're seeing that from activation all the way through to measurement.

So It's a really interesting space, but we're hearing it a lot and it's something that we're excited about.

And how is like, I'm curious, like how measurement is changing too.

If you can dive into that a little bit now that you know you have joint access to this, this data are like KPIs changing.

Are you changing the types of things you're looking for, how you're gathering the data?

Like what kind of things have updated?

You asked me 14 questions.

Questions, honestly.

And I think first of all, we're seeing a little bit of a compression happening, ok.

Between brand and commerce dollars.

Brand marketers want to tap into commerce type tools and that's where we're seeing those collaborative environments really take off.

But we're also seeing brand marketers want to tap into retail media audiences, but they want to start seeing different types of KPI, different types of measurement.

They want to look at things longitudinally.

They want to start looking up the funnel.

So being able to iterate and build new KPIs and not just stick to ROAS campaign over campaign, which of course we do, and we of course have incrementality across campaigns as well.

But being able to look at LTV and really get into some of those meatier, more longitudinal metrics is what we're seeing the demand for.

Is that different for you?

I mean, does that require a different muscle for you as the leader of this team, or is it just putting things together, watching different things a little more closely?

I think for us it's really about the strategic conversation with our partners, like in our clients.

I mean, part of the reason that we're bringing measurement and media together is to make it so end to end.

The strategy is tight and it's singular.

That's what really enables speed to market, but also speed to insight.

And I think that's really what is driving this.

But having these conversations about, hey, how do we move the needle over the course of the year, over the course of the quarter, and not just what did we do 72 hours before the super bowl, there are new questions that were being asked.

And look, we have data scientists who are eager to dig in.

So we're seeing that happen and it's exciting.

Yeah.

So Liz, you know, one of my least favorite and also probably my most favorite buzzwords at any retail conference is personalization.

Sure.

I'm sure you feel the same way that the dual edge nature of the word personalization.

But one thing I find unique about the personalization idea in the retail media space is Kind of the, the end to end attribution that you can provide as a retailer.

Right.

So I'm curious, what is, what are some of the things you've been doing or, or working on that you're seeing are successful in that arena in terms of personalization and attribution?

Yeah.

So we are laser focused on closed loop everywhere.

So that's, that's really a mandate for us to make sure when we're rolling out media product, we design with the end in mind, which means we're closing the loop at the end of this thing.

And that really enables us to leverage our platform partners off site, leverage our own technology on site to deliver on that personalization promise, but also measure the efficacy.

It's not personalization for personalization's sake.

Right.

We're really focused on the outcome and really focused on delivering.

It's a great way to measure personalization too.

Yeah.

Well, Liz, you're talking about, we keep talking about the changes that are happening in, in retail media.

This is kind of more of like a culture question than it is like what's happening with retail media.

But how would you say things have changed in the types of people, people you're looking to have on your team and the kinds of partners that you bring in, like, especially some of the technologies that you mentioned, like what, what has to be true about those people and those teams to have success as a retail media organization.

So I think from like a tactical approach, speed and agility is paramount for partners.

We have to move at the speed of our clients.

We have to be moving a little bit faster.

Okay.

In order to really deliver on the promise.

And so we need partners that can accommodate.

I think there's a whole cultural element though, Ann, and it's a good thing to point out at Albertsons bias towards action.

It's one of our number one traits.

Okay.

We make decisions and we move and we want to iterate fast and we need partners that would do that too.

So I would say, you know, from a culture perspective, that's where it lands.

How much does education play a role?

I mean, do you still find that you have a lot of education to do with the brands that you're working with on just like having success in retail media, what kind of teams they need to have on their team side?

Like, is that still a component?

I think it's still an active component because we are seeing so much shift in terms of brand marketers wanting to tap in and all media seems like it's becoming commerce media.

So you have these very Educated, low funnel shopper marketers who have been in it, but you have some new folks joining the party.

So the education is a big play.

The technological education is a big play too.

But we have great partners in our shopper teams and our retail media teams on the client side.

Yeah, awesome.

So Liz, I'm curious off that, off that similar vein.

So if you put your industry hat on now outside of Albertsons Media collective, I'm curious, like, are we going to see more change in the retail media space or less change relative to years past?

And if so, what is going to change?

Yeah, good question.

Crystal ball moment.

Yeah.

Which I love.

I love a crystal ball.

Yeah, I love a crystal ball moment.

Kind of our thing.

So I think you're going to continue seeing two trends.

Okay.

The compression between the compression into commerce media brand dollars.

Wanting to start activating audience and start seeing that closed loop is going to continue to to happen through the industry.

Things like CTV where those brand marketers want to play, but also they want the attribution.

You're going to continue to see that.

But from a measurement perspective, I think there's going to be a bit of a paradigm shift because channel by channel is complex and it doesn't really tell a full picture.

Our clients are investing in models, they're in housing models.

They want more data and they want to understand full picture and they want to start indexing these things.

They don't want to look at one off reports across each channel.

So I think moving to holistic measurement, starting to solve for cross channel, you're going to see a lot more of that type of experimentation happening and it's a cool place to be.

So there's a lot more learning and evolution that still needs to happen.

Absolutely.

Even though we've been talking about retail media now for two or three years.

Well, this is where we get to close out the session.

By tapping your extreme personal knowledge about retail media, where would you tell the retailers and brands listening who are on the floor here at Shop Talk or listening at home, where would you tell them to start investing right now?

This is an easy one.

Experimentation.

Invest in experimentation.

Today I believe there are arbitrage opportunities as things are shifting in the marketplace.

And if you can experiment and start redefining what your KPIs look like, redefining your strategies, redefining what strategic continuity means across channels, I think there's a huge.

Opportunity to get ahead and that's across budgets, resources, everything.

All of the above.

All of the above.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Liz, just dropping knowledge bombs on us today as she does.

Thank you so much for taking time with us today.

We really appreciate you.

And thanks again to Meta.

We'll be hanging out out here all day today.

Chris, outside the speaker lounge.

And Meta surf B.

Come stop by and say hello.

And until the next interview, be careful out there.