Let’s stop pretending.
Retail media was supposed to be the next great hope for digital advertising. A cookie-less future powered by first-party data, real-world purchases, and something everyone could finally agree on: measurable outcomes.

But that dream is curdling. Fast.

Instead of a transparent ecosystem built on trust and outcomes, we got a glorified toll booth, where brands pay to exist, and then pay again for the privilege of being told it worked.

The sell is seductive:
Retail Media Networks (RMNs) offer a “closed loop”—the ability to match ad exposures to actual purchases, both online and in-store. On paper, it's a marketer's dream. But scratch the surface and it feels a lot more like a hostage situation. And the ransom? Your entire media budget.

That’s not paranoia. That’s the game.
Retailers control the media. They control the sales data. They control the store. And more often than not, they’re the only ones grading the results. The same people who sell you the ad are the ones telling you how effective it was. That should terrify everyone.

Walmart Connect, Amazon Ads, Kroger Precision Marketing, Instacart—they’ve become gatekeepers. Want access to customers? Buy an ad. Want decent placement? Buy more. Want attribution? Use their tools. And when those tools show 7x ROAS, don’t ask for the math.

“There’s no way to independently verify anything,” said a performance marketing lead at a Fortune 500 brand. “We just have to take the platform’s word for it. And we do—because we can’t afford to get frozen out.”

The phrase “retail media tax” comes up often. But that’s not strong enough. It’s not a tax if you have no choice. It’s extortion disguised as strategy.

Let’s say you want to know where your money went. You want to understand the actual uplift. The incremental value. Not modeled. Not estimated. Real data.

Good luck.

Third-party audits? Rare. Transparent measurement standards? Inconsistent. Independent attribution? Non-existent. Most RMNs are running on proprietary black-box metrics, with their own dashboards, their own rules, and no obligation to reconcile with anything else. If you’re lucky, they’ll give you a report. If you’re bold, they might give you access to raw data—aggregated and anonymized, of course.

But if you push? If you ask too many questions?

“I’ve seen what happens when brands try to negotiate harder,” said a retail investment consultant. “They start getting less promotional support. Suddenly, you’re not in the email blast. Suddenly, your seasonal campaign isn’t prioritized.”

Everyone in this space knows someone who’s gotten burned. Maybe not publicly, but behind closed doors. A brand that held firm on a joint business plan. A media lead who asked for attribution transparency. A CMO who suggested taking a portion of the budget elsewhere.

And then…
“the support just wasn’t there anymore.”

Shelf space is currency. So is promotional priority. In a world where the line between media investment and commercial relationship is blurred beyond recognition, there’s a quiet but persistent fear that rocking the boat could sink the whole partnership.

It’s not subtle. It’s structural.

Marketers aren’t dumb. They talk. In Slack channels, industry DMs, whispered sidebars at ANA and IAB events—everyone’s comparing notes.

And the mood? Tense. Resigned. Furious. But mostly stuck.

“We know we’re being forced to spend more every year,” said one digital media VP. “But no one wants to be the one who walks away. Because what if you’re wrong? What if your competitor takes that slot and actually gets the boost?”

Retail media could have been the clean break digital needed.
Instead, it’s becoming the new pay-to-play dystopia, where performance is manufactured, accountability is optional, and fear is the business model.

This column is the start of a deeper series. What comes next is going to make some folks uncomfortable. Good.

Because someone needs to say it:

💥 And that’s just the tip of the barcode.

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