PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Retail media may be booming, but many retailers are struggling to figure out how to use programmatic advertising to monetize their websites and mobile apps, according to one company helping them monetize inventory.
While some retailers sell ads using traditional methodson their platforms, Hashim Mian, VP of commerce media at PubMatic, believes there is a significant opportunity to utilize programmatic pipes to increase yield in a smart way that addresses the reasons retailers have been hesitant to use programmatic in the past.
“Today, what happens is they’re leveraging direct sold ads on their platform — it’s not programmatic,” Mian said in this video interview with Beet.TV. “We think there’s a really big opportunity to leverage programmatic pipes to help monetize and increase the yield but do so in a smart way.”
Keeping users onsite and enhancing experience
Recent U.S. retail media forecasts have pointed universally upward, but gravity is also weighing on the opportunity:
- Emarketer expects the sector to reach $62 billion by 2025, and $98.9 billion by 2028.
- But it has tempered its latest expectations, citing lack of standardization and increasing complexity.
Though retail media seems like a relatively new phenomenon, Mian has been in the space for a decade.
He says retailers should have two considerations:
- Ads should keep users on their site and ideally drive them directly to a product page, rather than taking them off the site.
- The advertising should seamlessly integrate with the look and feel of the site to enhance rather than detract from the user experience.
Retail media data powers ad decisioning in CTV
Mian thinks retail media data also has significant potential to power ad decisioning in connected TV (CTV) and other formats.
“I think the promise here really is layering in valuable, high-fidelity first-party data with curated inventory,” Mian said. “Everyone loves the ad format, and now with commerce retail data, being able to target the right user and then measure it on the back end is huge.”
“At the end of the day, what commerce media brings to buyers is the ability to leverage the same data set for targeting, optimization, and measurement,” Mian said.
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