Winning the Next Chapter of Retail Media Networks: Relevance, Loyalty & Execution (Sherry Smith, President, Retail Media at Criteo)

Retail media has evolved incredibly quickly over the last few years, but the conversation has also become far more financially scrutinized. From your perspective, what phase is the industry actually entering now?

A lot of retailers rushed to launch retail media networks, but many are now discovering that building ad inventory is very different from building a scalable media business. What are the biggest structural mistakes you see retailers making today?

Brands continue shifting budget into retail media, but many executives are starting to question incrementality, duplication, and measurement consistency across networks. What are brands asking for now that they were not asking for even 18 months ago?

One of the biggest tensions in retail media right now is the relationship between trade spend and media spend. How do you think CFOs and commercial leaders should be reevaluating the role retail media plays inside the broader P&L?

As Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart continue to scale, what does the future look like for mid-sized and regional retail media networks? Do you see consolidation coming, or are there areas where smaller RMNs can still build defensible advantages?