Key considerations from Path to Purchase Institute’s annual industry event.
By Victoria Cromie, Mars United/Publicis Commerce Canada
Retail media has become a core growth driver for brands. And the most successful organizations are connecting their activity to a broader commerce strategy rather than treating it as a standalone investment. Two days of presentations and conversations at Path to Purchase Institute’s annual Retail Media Summit in Chicago last week made this abundantly clear.
For Canadian marketers, many of the conversations at this year’s event felt particularly relevant as our market continues to mature. While Canada often looks to the U.S. for innovation and scale, the challenges brands are facing in both countries are remarkably similar: how to prove incrementality, how to connect online and offline experiences, and how to create a purchase journey that feels seamless regardless of where shoppers engage. The main objective is the same, too: placing the customer first in everything we do, in-store and online.
One of the strongest themes throughout the conference was the market’s renewed focus on the customer. While media, AI, and measurement dominated the agenda, many speakers reminded attendees that achieving growth still begins with understanding shopper behaviour. The brands outperforming their competitors aren’t necessarily spending the most but instead are creating experiences that make it easier for consumers to discover, evaluate, and purchase products at every touchpoint.
The role of the physical store was another major topic of discussion. Despite the continued growth of ecommerce, the store remains the most influential moment in the purchase journey for many shoppers. Several sessions highlighted the need for closer collaboration between the merchandising, shopper marketing, sales, and retail media teams in retailer organizations. Too often, these functions operate independently, creating fragmented shopper experiences. The opportunity moving forward is to build truly connected commerce strategies where media, content, merchandising, and in-store execution work together toward common business objectives.
Measurement continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing our industry. Across panel discussions and presentations, there was consensus that traditional metrics such as ROAS can no longer serve as the sole indicator of success. Retail media investments are becoming too significant to evaluate based solely on short-term returns. Instead, brands increasingly are being asked by their organizations to demonstrate incrementality, new customer acquisition, category growth, and long-term business impact.
This shift is especially important for Canadian organizations, whose budgets are often more constrained than those found in larger markets. Every dollar must work harder, making it critical to establish measurement frameworks that connect media performance directly to business outcomes. The conversation is moving from “Did the campaign perform?” to “Did the campaign grow the business?”
Artificial intelligence was, unsurprisingly, woven throughout nearly every discussion. What stood out, however, was the evolution of the conversation around AI, which no longer is discussed as a future capability because it’s already being embedded into planning, optimization, content creation, personalization, and measurement. Much like the way mobile technology has transformed consumer behaviour over the last decade, AI is poised to become an invisible but essential part of the commerce ecosystem.
The overarching takeaway from the Retail Media Summit is that the future of commerce will belong to organizations that successfully connect media and commerce experiences — including the store — into one cohesive strategy. For Canadian brands, the opportunity is significant. As the retail media marketplace continues to evolve and measurement capabilities improve, networks that remain focused on the customer, embrace innovation thoughtfully, and align teams around shared business outcomes will be best positioned for growth.
The industry is moving quickly, but the fundamentals remain unchanged: understand your customer, measure what matters, and create experiences that make shopping educated and easier. Everything else is simply an enabler of those goals.
About the Author
Victoria Cromie is Managing Director-Canada for Mars United/Publicis Commerce, where she is responsible for leading the development of strategies that elevate the company’s brand and deepen its understanding of the Canadian commerce market. Based in Toronto, she is a seasoned marketing and digital leader with two decades of experience working with global brands and a proven track record of building high-performing, cross-functional teams that exceed organizational goals.
This spring, Cromie was named one of P2PI’s Retail Media Award winners for her efforts helping the Canadian marketplace develop a more strategic, integrated, and data-driven approach to commerce that moves beyond siloed execution toward true end-to-end impact.
