Retail media federations sound like a no-brainer: retailers pooling their audiences and inventory to attract bigger ad dollars while keeping their unique value intact. But in reality, making federations work requires solving some thorny technical, governance, and cultural challenges.

In this episode (part three of my retail media alliances series), I dive into what it really takes to build a successful retail media federation. From data clean rooms and identity spines to governance frameworks and cultural hurdles, I explore both the infrastructure and the mindset shifts required to make collaboration work. I’ll also share examples from industry leaders and discuss why some retailers remain skeptical, even as advertisers push for scale and simplicity.

This episode is sponsored by Connected Commerce at Acosta Group

Timeline

[1:00 ] - Breaking down the technical foundation: data clean rooms and identity resolution

[2:15 ] - How Snowflake and Bridge are powering privacy-safe audience activation

[3:45 ] - A fictional example: targeting health-focused millennial moms with cats

[5:00 ] - Governance challenges: who owns the data and what can be done with it

[6:30 ] - Why retailers resist losing control of first-party data

[8:00 ] - Balancing advertiser demands for scale vs. retailer protection of assets

[9:30 ] - Why brands need simplicity, not added complexity, from federations

[10:45 ] - Amazon’s play with Macy’s and retailer skepticism around “letting the fox in the henhouse”

[12:15 ] - The biggest barrier? Retailers’ cultural instinct to hoard data

Links & Resources

• Part 1 of this series How Alliances Could Solve Retail Media's Fragmentation Problem (Part 1)
• Part 2 of this series Meet The First Retail Media Federations & Consortiums 
• Read my article The Other Side of the Story: Why Retailers Struggle with Media Measurement & Standardization
• Subscribe to Retail Media Breakfast Club's daily newsletter
• Follow Kiri on LinkedIn