By: Sarah McWilliams Guerra
Let’s stop treating your most measurable marketing channel like a toll booth
Every so often, in a quiet corner of a QBR or slipped into a budget review, someone says it:
“Well… retail media is just a cost of doing business.”
“It’s basically a tax, right?”
But here’s the truth: Retail Media is not a tax.
It’s not a slotting fee. It’s not a hidden surcharge. And it’s definitely not a transactional checkbox you tick to keep your shelf space.
It’s a marketing channel. A powerful one. One that sits at the intersection of brand storytelling, performance media, and conversion. And when done right, it pays you back.
Why the “Tax” Mentality Is Dangerous
Viewing retail media as a tax does three harmful things:
1. It reduces your investment to compliance.
If you’re only showing up in retail media to “check the box,” you’re missing the opportunity to actually drive demand. You go from brand builder to shelf filler.
2. It stunts innovation.
When you’re just trying to do the bare minimum, you don’t test new formats. You don’t try offsite. You don’t explore creative or audience targeting. And you definitely don’t push for incrementality.
3. It limits your results.
If you think of retail media as a sunk cost, you stop asking the most important question: What’s my return?
Retail Media = Data-Backed Performance
Here’s the plot twist: Retail media isn’t a cost—it’s a sales engine.
You’re advertising where your products are sold, to people actively shopping. And you’re getting closed-loop reporting that shows you what actually happened after someone saw your ad.
Name another channel that does that. (I’ll wait.)
It’s Time to Flip the Narrative
Instead of “we have to,” shift to “we get to.”
- You get to reach your exact audience at the point of purchase.
- You get to build awareness and drive trial with first-party data.
- You get to measure what worked (and what didn’t) with real-time sales feedback.
- You get to prove that your ad dollars are driving incrementality—not just impressions.
Retailers are building networks because they know this works. And the smartest CPGs are leaning in—not just to “pay to play,” but to play to win.
Your Media Dollars Deserve a Seat at the Strategy Table
Let’s stop hiding retail media under “trade.” Let’s stop tucking it into a line item labeled “other.” And let’s definitely stop whispering about it like it’s a fee we begrudgingly pay to keep our spot in the circular.
Retail media is marketing. Full stop. It deserves a creative brief. It deserves an ROI target. And it deserves a strategic, test-and-learn approach like any other growth-driving tactic.
Final Thought: You Can’t Cut Your Way to Growth
You can only grow your way to growth. So don’t treat your most measurable, targeted, and sales-connected media channel like a tax.
Treat it like what it is: a competitive advantage.