The proliferation of retail media networks is exposing a growing disconnect between campaign reporting and customer insight.
Brands may receive valuable performance data from individual platforms, yet differences in attribution, timing, and definitions can make those results difficult to reconcile at a wider level.
To ensure success, CX leaders should assess whether their current data infrastructure can connect these signals to support coordinated customer engagement.
Speaking to CX Today, Outi Karppanen, Lead Marketing Industry Strategist at Supermetrics, argued that brands may understand performance within an individual network, but struggle to combine those findings into one reliable view.
"At the same time, they are getting valuable insights, but it is also disconnected."
The Cost of Disconnected Insight
The expansion of retail media is highlighting the reality that having more data does not equate to a clearer understanding of customers.
In fact, Supermetrics revealed only 30% of marketers are confident that their data is connected, highlighting the gap between the volume of information available and its usefulness.
With many brands often left working across multiple reporting environments with different definitions and measurement approaches, turning campaign data into a consistent, actionable view of customer behaviour is becoming increasingly difficult.
Today, retail media networks can define standard metrics differently and shift report timing, making direct comparisons difficult.
While some networks provide detailed results quickly, others deliver aggregated or delayed data, creating challenges for teams trying to understand how channels are influencing behavior.
“The fragmentation is both the defining of metrics and the speed of when you're getting that data. It's not real time.” Karppanen notes.
This creates a risk for investment decisions, particularly when marketers are comparing performance across networks.
She explained:
“Budget follows the most generous attribution, not the customer's actual being influenced.”
It's data also found that half of marketers are waiting one to three business days for answers from data teams, meaning insights arrive after the opportunity to adjust a campaign has passed.
Without a connected journey view, brands can struggle to distinguish platform influence, whilst reporting can become a significant operational burden.
