Start by defining what your advertisers need to see, like spend, sales, new-to-brand customers, and incremental lift, then build the data pipelines to deliver it consistently. Most networks offer reporting through a mix of self-serve dashboards, clean room access, and API connections to the buying platforms brands already use. Closed-loop sales data and clear methodology are now table stakes for winning advertiser budgets. Our retail media services team helps networks design reporting, stand up the technology, and run ongoing performance reporting for advertisers.

Effective tests measure incrementality: the sales that happened because of an advertiser’s media investments. Proven methods include holdout tests, geo-based matched market tests, and clean room analyses that compare exposed and unexposed shoppers. To isolate lift, set a clear hypothesis, control for variables outside of ad exposure, and give the test enough budget and time to reach statistical significance.

Transparency matters because every retail and commerce media network measures results its own way, so reported numbers often can’t be compared with accuracy. Our research with Albertsons Media Collective and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management found that iROAS varied up to 6.5x based on measurement method alone. Disclosure of measurement methodology allows brands to make informed decisions across networks.

Advertisers use clean rooms to answer specific business questions and build audiences with combined brand and retailer data, without exposing customer-level information. In retail media, clean rooms like Amazon Marketing Cloud let you find overlap between your DTC and retailer customers, build custom audiences, manage ad frequency, and measure incremental impact. Start with the questions that can inform your strategy, like audience segmentation, calculating LTV, and bidding options, and then evaluate the technology to get there. Ovative can help brands set up, query, and act on clean room data across networks so insights turn into smarter targeting and spend.

Onsite retail media runs on a retailer’s own site and app, like search and display ads. Offsite retail media uses that same retailer’s shopper data to reach audiences on other channels, such as social, CTV, streaming audio, and the open web. Onsite reaches shoppers who are ready to buy, while offsite builds demand earlier and extends reach. The strongest plans use both, with closed-loop measurement that ties offsite exposure back to sales.

Retail media refers to ads sold by retailers using their shopper data. Commerce media is the bigger category. It includes any company with first-party transaction data, including delivery apps, travel sites, financial services, and marketplaces, selling ads powered by that data. All retail media is commerce media, but not all commerce media is retail media. We help brands plan across both and help commerce media networks of every type build and grow their ad business.