Every marketer wants to know where to place the next best dollar. That’s where EMR Power Rankings come in, providing a snapshot of how channels stack up against one another.  

Here’s the catch: you won’t find retail media in our rankings. Why? The rankings are calculated via our EMRge™ Modern MMM+, and Retail Media Networks’ (RMNs) online and offline sales and customer data are less accessible at the granularity it requires for this weekly modeling. 

So, it isn’t due to their lack of impact. Retail media is a critical component of a holiday full-funnel media strategy. We’re answering:

1. What is the role of retail media during holiday and beyond? What shifts in consumer behavior are we aiming to drive, and how can retail media support?
2. How do we measure retail media across its fragmented ecosystem? How do we maximize its impact? 

The Role of Retail Media—During Holiday and Beyond

Retail media is a full-funnel growth engine during the holiday season. And, it’s a bridge to durable, post-holiday value. Treat full-funnel retail media as an operating system for the season so you can win early visibility, peak-period conversion, and post-holiday loyalty from the customers you just earned. 

Pre-Peak Demand Creation

Shift consumers from passive browsing to active consideration weeks before peak-holiday. Use retail media to hold top-of-search, seed discovery with onsite and offsite audiences, and strengthen product detail pages (PDPs) and reviews so media spend lands on a persuasive shelf. 

Peak Demand Capture

Shift in-market shoppers to confident purchasers. Defend the digital shelf, tune to inventory and retail readiness, and make high-frequency micro-optimizations based on real-time signals from retail media platforms. 

Post-Peak Retention

Shift one-time gifters and trialists to loyal repeat purchasers. Leverage RMN identity and customer cohorts to re-engage new to brand customers with replenishment timing, complementary products, and engaging content; coordinate with CRM and loyalty to manage frequency and grow lifetime value. 

Retail Media Measurement

So, how do we measure retail media’s impact across the fragmented ecosystem? And, how do we maximize its impact? 

We start by analyzing—and anticipating—retailer-specific shopper behavior patterns, especially as they shift during the holiday surge. That context ensures we interpret performance correctly and react to retail media program reporting with intention, not whiplash. Here’s how to get started:

• Build a view of customer behavior trends by retailer and category so you can proactively account for differences that emerge or accelerate during holiday (e.g., shopping mission types, fulfillment services preferences, deal or price sensitivity). This lets you respond to reporting with the right action instead of over or under-correcting. 
• Normalize retailer-reported ROAS across networks, elevating the role of incremental factors so you can compare tactic and partner performance on a true apples-to-apples basis. When the math is consistent, decisions about budget shifts and tactic mix become faster and higher confidence. 
• Anchor decisioning on incrementality and margin impact during peak holiday to cut through noisy reads. This framework pressure tests preseason hypotheses in real time and focuses spend where it creates profitable, incremental demand—not just attributed demand. 
• Translate in-season learning into a post-peak plan: as you see behavior shifts and journey patterns that led customers to your brand, refine retention plays (replenishment timing, complementary product nudges, content that sustains usage) to convert customers who tried your brand during holiday into durable loyalty. 

The net: measure what matters (incremental revenue and contribution margin), compare it fairly (normalized ROAS with consistent assumptions), and adapt it quickly (retailer-specific behavior insights) so retail media delivers both holiday lift and sustained post-holiday value. 

Crush Your Retail Media Marketing Strategy This Holiday

With this retail media marketing handbook as your guide, it’s time to crush your media strategy this season. Want additional support from our integrated media experts? Contact our team or learn more about our retail media capabilities.