Retail Media is now part of the modern retail and brand landscape. RMNs have become a significant revenue driver for retailers. 
Retailers are extending advertising opportunities onsite, offsite and in-store while adding more self-service and measurement capabilities 

All this makes 2025 an important inflection point for retail media, as both brands and retailers are tasked with proving that they have built a solid model that can continue to deliver growth.  This opening panel will bring real perspectives from both the brand side and retail side of retail media who will tell us how to build the next era of retail media. 

The 2026 Retail Media Report marks the shift in retail media from its initial startup phase to a period where it must scale and deliver on its promise. Rising expectations now require proving brand growth, building specialist teams, and refining operating models. This includes managing the rise of agentic commerce and using AI to both automate processes and create genuine commercial value.
The panel will address the reality of this new landscape and examine what European brands, retailers, and technology firms must build now to remain competitive.

We'll explore how leading retailers are sharpening their RMN positioning, moving beyond inventory and data to define what truly differentiates their offer in an increasingly crowded market

• Using data and insights to inform creative decisions without reducing creativity
• Exploring how creativity is influencing the customer journey - conversion, incrementality and loyalty

This session looks at how retailers use first-party data improve the shopper experience, strengthen loyalty, increase lifetime value, and improve decisions across trading, marketing and product. And it tackles the trade-offs of how to grow retail media revenue without more ad load or a poorer shopping experience.

Everyone in retail media talks about data — but having data isn’t the same as using the right data, in the right way. This session explores why identity must come first, how to separate good data from bad, and what’s really required to show measurement and incrementality.

Commerce Media Networks are the ‘new kids on the block’ in media. Find out what they offer and what they can deliver, including transparency, measurement, creative, AI-driven decisioning, and integration with broader media plans.

Our closing keynote panel brings together global retail media pioneers to challenge how the industry thinks about its next chapter. Drawing on lessons from leading markets across Europe, the discussion will explore how retail media is evolving into a broader commerce media ecosystem — and what different approaches reveal about scale and value creation. Looking ahead, the panel will examine how AI will reshape planning, personalisation and measurement, and ask a bigger question: what role should retail media play in the future of advertising, commerce and growth?

As retail media partnerships continue to evolve,  data collaboration has become both more valuable — and more complex. This session explores This session explores how data clean rooms can optimised beyond safe data sharing, to unlock smarter targeting, better measurement and incremental growth across retail and media environments

• Removing silos to avoid fragmented planning and duplication of effort and spend
• Integrating planning cycles, investment and measurement to drive growth across connected commerce

1st party shopper data is one of the most powerful assets in retail media. But how does it drive growth? With fragments customer  journeys, multiple touchpoints and competing attribution models, proving impact from insight has become more complex than ever. This session tackles the practical reality od turning insight into action by connecting behaviour, intent and context signals to smarter audience activation. We will also explore how brands annd retailers collaborate on share insights and planning to deliver impact.

We'll unpack how first-party data can be used to move retail media from fragmented activation to a more connected, performance-driven approach, exploring how it drives more relevant targeting, stronger performance and measurable incrementality at scale

• What are the measurements that are indicating growth?
• How to connect performance to wider business outcomes
• How are retailers and brands integrating better measurement into joint decision making?

AI agentic commerce is promising to alter product discovery and force RMNs and brand advertisers to rethink strategies that have driven retail media growth for the past decade. Find out how to prepare for the agentic ecosystem through innovative thinking, better product data and understanding AI interfaces.

This sesssion examines how advertisers can move beyond siloed tactics to align Sponsored Ads, DSP, video and data signals to drive discovery, consideration and conversion while delivering measurable, sustained sales impact.

Agentic Commerce has the potential to change shopper experiences and impact retail media growth. This session is for brands and retail media networks who with to understand:
- Whether agents can become a new demand channel or disintermediate retail media networks
- The implications for sponsored search, which still drive the majority of retail media revenue
- How must retail media measurement, bidding and monetisation models fundamentally change?

Explore how AI-driven decisioning is connecting retail media across the funnel, optimising relevance and performance across digital and physical touchpoints

• What retailers and brands should look for in partners that can connect physical and digital shopper journeys
• What effective collaboration looks like between retailers, brands, tech and agencies

The Seven Challenges for Retail Media are an annual report written by Colin that are based on his insights and ideas coming from working with brands and retailers around the world. The Seven Challenges are normally released in Q1, but Colin is releasing them at Retail Media X as an exclusive for this audience.  These challenges are ideas with nuance that are meant to be both thought provoking and help you stay ahead of the curve.