Align or Fall Behind: Choosing the Right Programmatic Partner for Retail Media

Part 4 of 4 in the “Retail Media’s Programmatic Future” Series

Most retailers know they need programmatic capabilities. The question keeping them up at night is whether to build or buy—and if they buy, which partner won’t leave them stranded when the market shifts again.

Ninety percent of all digital advertising is now programmatic, and retail media is the fastest-growing channel within it. This series has explored why it’s transforming both marketing and retail economics. Now, in this final article, we focus on how retailers can act fast enough to capture that shift.

Why Programmatic Marketers Should Bet Big on Retail Media outlined the mutual attraction. Programmatic buyers gain commerce audiences and closed-loop measurement in familiar DSP workflows, while retail media advertisers extend reach off-site to scale beyond limited on-site inventory.

Survival of the Smartest: Retail Media’s Race Toward Programmatic Efficiency examined why retailers need programmatic themselves. Automation, standardized measurement, and unified systems reduce costs, improve margins, and meet advertiser expectations.

From Funnel to Tunnel: GenAI Is Collapsing the Path to Purchase showed how AI is compressing buying cycles, making programmatic infrastructure critical to staying visible and responsive as decisions happen in seconds.

Building programmatic retail media capabilities internally takes 18-24 months and millions in development costs. For retailers ready to make their move, the question now is how to build these programmatic capabilities quickly enough and which partners can help them get there first.

The build versus buy reality hits harder than most expect

Internal development timelines don’t match competitive pressures. While your team spends months building basic bidding infrastructure, competitors with established partners are already scaling campaigns and capturing budgets.

Most retail organizations lack the technical depth for real-time bidding, machine learning optimization, cross-channel attribution, and privacy-compliant data activation. Recruiting that expertise takes time retailers don’t have.

The programmatic learning curve is steeper than it looks

Building programmatic infrastructure requires expertise in real-time bidding, machine learning optimization, cross-channel attribution, and privacy-compliant data activation. The platforms that succeed in retail media are those designed specifically for commerce use cases. They understand that retail media campaigns need to respond to stock levels, pricing changes, and promotional calendars in real-time. They provide measurement frameworks that connect media performance directly to sales outcomes rather than just engagement metrics.

This commerce specialization accelerates implementation while reducing the risk of choosing platforms that can’t scale with business requirements or integrate with existing retail operations.

Most programmatic platforms weren’t built for retail complexity

Campaigns need real-time access to product availability, competitive pricing data, and customer lifetime value calculations. Most programmatic platforms were designed to operate independently from commerce infrastructure. They can manage campaigns effectively but can’t integrate deeply enough with retail operations to enable sophisticated commerce media strategies.

The platforms that excel in retail media provide pre-built integrations with major ecommerce platforms. Inventory management systems enable real-time stock level awareness for campaign optimization and automatic pause/resume based on product availability. Customer data platforms enable sophisticated audience segmentation based on purchase history, lifetime value, and predictive modeling, all while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations. Pricing and promotional engines adjust campaign messaging and bidding strategies automatically based on competitive pricing changes and promotional calendar updates.

This integration depth determines whether retail media becomes a strategic growth driver or remains a tactical advertising channel with limited business impact.

Four partner criteria that separate strategy from tactics

Platform choice isn’t just about features and functionality. It’s about choosing infrastructure that enables competitive differentiation and long-term business growth.

Cross-channel orchestration beyond retail inventory

The internet is vast and fragmented. To reach today’s consumers effectively, marketers need both trusted, first-party targeting data for programmatic efficiency and presence where decisions happen—search engines, social media platforms, and retailer websites. That’s why [paid search], [social advertising], and [retail media] together now account for roughly 75% of all digital ad budgets.

Commerce media strategies can’t treat these channels in isolation. Running retail, search, and social separately creates audience overlap, inconsistent messaging, and wasted spend. Platforms that unify them into one framework enable coordinated targeting, audience suppression, and cross-channel attribution that reflect how consumers actually shop.

For retailers without search or social inventory, this becomes crucial. The right platform bridges those gaps, connecting retail campaigns to search and social buys to create a single view of audiences and performance. Without it, retail media risks sitting apart from the larger programmatic strategy buyers increasingly expect.

Platform evaluation tip. Look for platforms that offer integrations across search, social, and retail, even if they don’t own inventory in all three. Ask for examples of audience sharing across channels, cross-channel attribution reporting, and how retail data can be activated beyond retailer sites.

Measurement that proves incremental value

Retail media’s value hinges on its ability to prove incremental outcomes that justify bigger budgets. Platforms with advanced lift testing, cross-channel attribution, and statistically valid measurement give advertisers confidence to scale. When retail media ties spend directly to customer lifetime value, market share, or profit impact, it transitions from test budgets to core programmatic investment.

This level of measurement also benefits retailers. It establishes a consistent proof standard that finance teams trust and elevates retail media into the same budget conversations as channels like search and social. Platforms that deliver this capability remove ambiguity and create the transparency advertisers demand when shifting larger allocations.

Platform evaluation tip. Ask how incrementality is measured, whether testing uses control groups, and how attribution works across channels. Request sample dashboards showing lift calculations and statistical validity. Confirm whether reporting ties ad spend to business outcomes beyond clicks or ROAS.

Automation that scales without adding headcount

Even with cross-channel reach and measurement in place, retail media cannot scale without automation. Manual builds, pacing, and optimization create bottlenecks that slow teams and limit profitability. Platforms with embedded automation reduce execution time, eliminate repetitive tasks, and enable faster reaction to market shifts.

For retailers, this efficiency isn’t simply operational—it’s strategic. Automation holds cost structures flat even as revenue grows, allowing networks to absorb rising advertiser demand without linear increases in staffing. It also enables advanced tactics like dynamic bidding, automated creative refreshes, and real-time audience updates that would be impossible to manage manually.

Most importantly, automation ensures retailers keep pace with buyers. Advertisers accustomed to programmatic speed won’t tolerate slower, manual systems.

Platform evaluation tip. Probe how the platform handles campaign builds, pacing, and optimizations. Ask what percentage of workflows are automated, whether it supports real-time bidding adjustments, and how it scales without added headcount.

Proven ad tech experience through multiple disruptions

Retail media’s rapid rise means many newer vendors are racing to catch up, but experience matters. Platforms with a long track record in programmatic and search have the infrastructure, relationships, and institutional knowledge to adapt as the market evolves.

Ad tech history also signals resilience. Vendors that have weathered multiple waves of industry change—such as the transition to programmatic, the rise of social, and now AI-driven automation—understand how to future-proof their systems. This background provides retailers with confidence that their chosen partner can keep pace with market disruptions while continuing to deliver reliable performance and innovation.

Platform evaluation tip. Investigate the platform’s longevity, past innovations, and track record in search, social, and programmatic. Ask for case studies that show adaptability to industry shifts and evidence of maintaining enterprise-scale clients through previous disruptions.

The ‘vendor versus partner’ distinction matters now

The choice of programmatic retail media platform determines whether you gain a strategic partner that accelerates business growth or acquire a vendor that provides tactical services.

Strategic partners bring industry expertise, advanced capabilities, and integration depth that enable transformational business outcomes. Vendor relationships provide specific services but don’t accelerate strategic capabilities or provide competitive advantages.

The platforms that succeed as strategic partners understand retail media as a business transformation rather than just an advertising channel. They provide capabilities that improve overall commerce performance while enabling new revenue opportunities and competitive positioning.

Conclusion: Partnership choice determines competitive speed

Building programmatic retail media capabilities internally isn’t just resource-intensive—it’s often strategically limiting. By the time most organizations develop competitive infrastructure, market opportunities have shifted and competitive advantages have been claimed by those who moved faster.

Smart retailers are recognizing that partnership choice determines both speed to market and long-term competitive positioning. The right partners don’t just provide technology—they accelerate strategic capabilities that create sustainable business advantages.

[Skai’s Retail Media solutions] enable marketers to plan, activate, and measure campaigns across 200+ retailers—including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Instacart—as part of a broader commerce media strategy. AI-powered pacing, product intelligence, and keyword tools help teams meet shoppers across the journey and tie spend to sales with confidence.

For retailers ready to transform retail media from experimental channel into strategic growth driver, [schedule a quick demo] to explore how the right partnership can accelerate your programmatic retail media success.

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¹ Skai’s 2024 State of Retail Media report ² An internal survey of retail media networks