Andrew Lipsman is an independent analyst and consultant at Media, Ads + Commerce. His industry coverage specialises in retail media—which he is known for anointing as “digital advertising’s third big wave”— and other areas of the digital media, advertising, and commerce ecosystem. He is also a founding advisor and strategist at retail media consultancy, Colosseum Strategy.

In this episode Lipsman argued that the future of retail media is, in essence, the future of all media. Lipsman stresses that transactional and retail data will become the foundational mechanism for targeting and measurement in the advertising landscape, moving beyond less reliable behavioural data. He elaborates on how retail media networks are evolving from lower-funnel performance to include upper-funnel formats and extend across various retail channels.

Lipsman further contends that retail media will redefine search, display, and even TV advertising by leveraging high-fidelity transaction data to prove true incrementality of sales and brand building, ultimately challenging traditional marketing metrics like Return on Ad Spend.