Why retail media needs media planning with independence at the centre
Week in focus – The Indie Leader – AMI
Independent retail media planning matters. Not to replace specialist expertise, but to ensure it operates against a coherent plan, not without one, writes Project5’s executive director.
The latest AA/WARC Expenditure Report (April 2026) formally recognises retail media as a standalone channel, valued at £3.75bn. One could argue about the classification of spend, but it’s been obvious for a while that it’s a category that demands proper attention.
The reported 17.5% year-on-year growth also needs context. Some of it reflects activity now being counted more explicitly, rather than entirely new investment.
However, the direction is clear: more and more retailers are scaling first-party data, onsite inventory and off-site extensions – and that trajectory will continue. That growth occurs in a market and time when investment naturally flows toward what is easiest to justify.
Paid search (£17.9bn) remains resilient in part because it is simple to transact and defend. Social is easy to buy. But TV is down 1.2% despite all the evidence as to its effectiveness. Retail media risks becoming the next ‘repeat’ line item on a plan, potentially missing its biggest opportunity.
What happened with search and social has happened here. Huge swaths of investment, built on sophisticated tech-data led ‘plumbing’: the art of activation. Done by smart people who can do adtech and mostly run sophisticated search-like media. Justified by the possibility to count on-platform things at micro levels and often adjust and recalibrate according to that on-platform counting. Nothing wrong with that, to a point. And that point is now.
And that is where media planning and media planners come into play.
Three roles, one system
Media planning works best when channel roles are clear, before the budget is invested.
Retail media tends to sit closest to a potential purchase, operating on the retailer’s own estate. It is powerful at capturing demand, but without proper planning, it can end up monetising demand that already exists, rather than growing it.
That might be entirely on purpose to protect sales and market share, or conversely, all be about new customers or new sales penetration. The media planners’ job is to work that out, then set the rules of activation.
The burgeoning rise of commerce media using retail data off-site can potentially shape consideration among shoppers already in, or close to, the category. When planned right, this can build confirmation bias, suppress existing customers, target category buyers, non-category buyers… the list goes on.
Who’s best placed to work through the options and build the story for the media? That’ll be media planners. Media planners who tend to sit in media agencies, not in the agency commerce team, not on the client side.
As retail and commerce capabilities expand, with wider choice across wider channels, wider formats and wider audiences, delivering brand growth depends on all these things working as a single system; not pulling against each other in separate silos. This is what media planners have been trying to do across all media for decades, and this is no different.
The structural challenge
For many CPG organisations, as widely and frequently reported, the friction is structural. Shopper and brand budgets often sit in separate teams, with distinct objectives, pressures, and KPIs.
Retail media cuts across both. It can drive short-term conversion while also influencing longer-term category growth. But without a unifying plan, activities are optimised within silos, leaving them disjointed. It’s the opposite of agility, and a lack of agility is a risk to brands.
That’s why retail media and commerce media demand planning before buying. Where is switching realistic? Which missions are underdeveloped? What purchasing triggers can be exploited? And what mix of retail, commerce and other media best supports growth? By when?
This is specifically where planners add value: translating business and retail signals into mission-led thinking that strengthens the whole communications approach. Not creating a separate stream of retail-only activity running in parallel. The best planners liberate the best people who can activate and buy media accordingly. Without that direction, they might be brilliantly buying the wrong media for the wrong reasons.
The planning gap
Within agencies, retail media still mostly sits with search, programmatic, or commerce teams. That makes sense for activation. The gap appears when planning isn’t in the room. Someone needs to define retail media’s role and make deliberate trade-offs between demand capture and creation.
That’s why independent planning matters. Not to replace specialist expertise, but to ensure it operates against a coherent plan, not without one.
Better counting and measurement will remain a watch too. The industry will move toward common frameworks, but inconsistencies in attribution, incrementality design and separating media effects from price and promotion will persist for some time.
This is where independence matters again: through proper, unsentimental interrogation of methodology rather than accepting the numbers a platform puts in front of you.
In practice, the operating model doesn’t need to be complicated: start with the mission and growth objective; define whether the job is keep, capture, conquest or category expansion; agree the mix of onsite retail, off-site commerce and other media; and set upfront how the worth of the media will be tested and evaluated.
A planning prompt, not a budget reflex
The Expenditure Report should act as a planning prompt, not a trigger for automatic budget reallocation.
Retail media will continue to grow. The opportunity is to ensure it grows as a disciplined engine of incremental value: adding penetration, protecting margins, and complementing other investments rather than quietly crowding it out.
That requires planners at the centre with the independence and authority to clearly set roles, standards and trade-offs, and a partnership mindset to bring clients, agencies and retailers into the same rhythm.
Sam Drake is executive director at Project5. AMI members write regularly for The Media Leader in 2026 as part of our new Indie Leader series.