Retail Media & Measurement

Retail media had a notably high-profile week, with two of the sector's most prominent players — Albertsons and Best Buy Ads — making public cases for their measurement maturity. Evan Hovorka's pitch for Albertsons as a retail media powerhouse, covered by Beet.TV, leaned heavily on first-party data depth and closed-loop attribution as the network's core differentiators. Best Buy Ads went further, positioning incrementality measurement as a foundational layer rather than an optional add-on — a meaningful signal that the retail media sector is moving past reach-and-frequency metrics toward outcome accountability. This matters because incrementality has historically been the measurement standard that separates credible media from vanity inventory, and retail networks that can demonstrate it convincingly will have a structural advantage in budget conversations.

The broader measurement landscape is also shifting. Attention metrics are accelerating their bid to replace viewability as the primary quality signal, with the Columbia Journalism Review publishing a skeptic's guide that echoes the same concerns raised about viewability in its early days — namely, that the metric can be gamed, that proxies for attention aren't the same as actual attention, and that the industry risks enshrining a flawed standard simply because it's better than what came before. For retail media networks, which often operate their own measurement frameworks, the attention metrics debate is particularly relevant as they try to establish credibility with brand advertisers accustomed to panel-based and digital measurement norms.