The language
behind the shelf.

The advertising opportunities a retailer has available to sell (e.g. homepage banners, sponsored products, email placements, offsite audiences).

The number of ads shown within a given shopper experience. Example: Too much ad load can hurt conversion.

The technology process that delivers an ad to the shopper at the right time/place.

A specific location where an ad can appear. Examples:

Search results

Product detail page

Checkout confirmation page

App home screen

Shelf ads (onsite)

Screen networks (offsite)

The brand paying to run campaigns.

A metric that measures the ad spend generated by advertising in relation to the overall sales value, calculated by dividing ad spend by sales value, expressed as a percentage.

Automated auction bidding where ad tech adjusts bids in real time based on shopper signals, real-time inventory availability, conversion likelihood, or target ROAS.

Non-PII data relevant to privacy-safe audience and insight use

The methodology and ruleset used to determine which marketing touchpoints drove a conversion or purchase.

Common Models: Last-Click, First-Click, Multi-Touch (MTA), View-Through (Post-View).

The defined timeframe (e.g., 7-day click, 14-day click, 1-day view) during which an ad interaction is eligible to receive credit for a resulting sale.

Using audience data to target campaigns.

Using retailer audiences used beyond owned properties (typically offsite).

The expected sales volume that would happen naturally without any paid advertising intervention; foundational for calculating true incrementality.

Analysis of what shoppers buy together.

Example: Customers buying pasta often buy pasta sauce.

Useful for:

cross-sell targeting

promotions

audience building

Incremental uplift for a brand beyond the advertised SKU.

Example: Promoting Coke Zero increases total Coca-Cola sales.

Survey- or test-vs-control-based measurement assessing upper-funnel impact (brand awareness, brand favorability, purchase intent) driven by retail campaigns.

Paired with display campaigns, brand pages offer an exclusive area to drive engagement and promote branded content. The brand page builder makes the process of activating simple.

The primary purchase call-to-action area on a product page.

Sponsored placements near buy boxes are high value.

A brand securing exclusive advertising presence within a category.

Example: Only one skincare brand visible on homepage for a week.

Measurement connecting ad exposure (both online and in-store) directly to verified, deterministic transaction data (a major retail media differentiator) via loyalty cards, CRM records, or digital checkout receipts.

A platform that collects and unifies customer data from multiple sources to create customer profiles and usable audience segments.

Commerce media is the monetisation of advertising across commerce ecosystems by using transaction, behavioural, and intent data from platforms where consumers shop or transact to influence purchase decisions.

Includes:

retailers

marketplaces

travel platforms

delivery apps

financial ecosystems

Any shopper behaviour indicating intent.

Examples:

searches

cart adds

repeat purchase

Offsite television streaming ad units targeted and measured using deterministic 1st-party retailer shopping data and closed-loop attribution.

The percentage of ad clicks or visits that result in an order.

Formula: CVR = (Orders ÷ Clicks) × 100

The advertising cost incurred to drive one conversion/action.

Formula: CPA = Spend ÷ Conversions

The cost an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on an ad.

Formula: CPC = Spend ÷ Clicks

The cost to purchase 1,000 ad impressions.

Formula: CPM = (Spend ÷ Impressions) × 1000

The cost paid per individual sales order generated.

Formula: CPT = Spend ÷ Transactions

The ratio of clicks to impressions delivered.

Formula: CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100

Privacy-safe environment for combining advertiser and retailer datasets.

Used for:

audience overlap

measurement

Attribution

Linking consumer records across channels using verified, unique identifiers such as their purchasing habits (e.g., hashed email address, phone number, loyalty ID, CRM record) rather than statistical probabilities.

Digitized video screens, interactive endcaps, and display panels located within physical retail aisles and checkouts.

Improving discoverability + conversion.

Includes:

content

reviews

search visibility

Availability

Ad technology that dynamically creates personalized ad variants at serving time by pulling in real-time retail signals such as stock level, localized pricing, and shopper affinities.

Brand that sells products within the retailer.

Examples:

Unilever

Nestlé

P&G

The actual monetization yield earned per 1,000 delivered impressions.

Formula: eCPM = (Total Media Revenue ÷ Impressions) × 1000

The percentage of available advertising inventory successfully sold and rendered.

Formula: Fill Rate = (Sold Impressions ÷ Total Available Ad Opportunities) × 100

Data collected directly by the retailer.

Examples:

purchase history

app behaviour

loyalty data

Core retail media asset.

Internal promotions run by the retailer.

Compete with paid inventory.

A unified database combining fragmented consumer identifiers (loyalty card numbers, app IDs, hashed emails, cookie data, mobile device IDs) into single distinct shopper profiles.

The net-new sales and revenue generated strictly as a causal result of ad exposure that would not have occurred organically.

A performance metric isolating purely incremental sales driven per dollar of ad spend, calculated by subtracting organic baseline sales via test-vs-control experiments.

Formula: iROAS = Incremental Sales ÷ Ad Spend

Retail media within physical stores.

Examples:

shelf screens

checkout screens

audio

sampling

Revenue efficiency of available ad inventory.

Umbrella term. See Media KPIs and Retail KPIs.

Core campaign metric attached to advertising delivery.

Examples:

ROAS

CTR

sales uplift

new-to-brand

The commerce and sales measures used alongside traditional media KPIs

Credits the final interaction before purchase.

Shopper data from loyalty programmes.

Retail media campaigns executed by the network/provider.

Platform where multiple sellers transact.

Examples: Takealot, Amazon.

How products are presented/sorted/promoted.

Consideration-stage activity.

Ad matching surrounding experience - less disruptive than banners.

Customers who have not purchased the brand before - key acquisition metric.

Advertiser not selling directly in retailer ecosystem.

Examples:

banks

telecoms

insurance

auto brands

High-growth opportunity.

Retail audience targeting beyond retailer-owned properties.

Examples:

display web

social

video

CTV

Attribution methodology linking digital ad exposures (onsite or offsite) to in-store physical till transactions via unified loyalty cards or digital payments.

Display ads available across Retailer digital properties, for brands to showcase their message

Advertising on retailer-owned digital properties.

Examples:

website

app

search

product pages

brand pages

Integrated digital + in-store retail media.

Advertising inventory located within properties directly owned and controlled by retailers, i.e web, app, stores, CRM.

Product-specific page.

Premium advertising environment.

Digital media planned and optimised towards measurable actions such as clicks, leads, conversions or sales.

Physical and digital advertising units situated at checkout points, including customer-facing payment terminals, digital screen carousels, and printed/digital receipt ads.

Measurement after a click.

Measurement after exposure without click.

A model-based approach that estimates whether behaviors relate to the same or likely audiences without relying solely on personal identifiable information.

Shopper intent inferred from search terms.

Example: “protein powder” = high purchase intent.

Number of unique shoppers exposed.

Advertising monetisation using retailer assets + shopper data.

Organised retail advertising business.

Includes:

inventory

data

measurement

sales capability

A technological solution or software system that facilitates the management, execution, and analysis of advertising campaigns" within retail networks.

The gross revenue generated for every dollar spent on media (includes both incremental and non-incremental organic sales).

Formula: ROAS = Attributed Revenue ÷ Ad Spend

Commercial model where provider takes % of media revenue.

Projected performance based on current pace.

First-party data shared directly and securely between two mutually agreeing parties (e.g., a CPG brand sharing CRM lists directly with a retailer inside a clean room) without going through an open broker.

Advertisers/agencies launch campaigns themselves

The percentage of total search queries a specific brand captures within a category taxonomy over a selected timeframe.

Brand visibility versus competitors.

Example: 40% sponsored search share.

Product visibility position.

Digital or physical.

Brand activity influencing purchase decisions.

In-store shopping carts outfitted with barcode scanners, weight sensors, and digital interactive screens that deliver contextual ads and wayfinding based on physical aisle location.

Brand-led search/display units.

Audience- and product-targeted display units that appear throughout product detail pages, browse paths, and offsite networks to drive consideration or retargeting.

Auction-based product-listing ads that brands bid on to secure native ad placements in premium, top-row locations showcasing their products on the ecommerce site.

Auction-based keyword-targeted ads that brands bid on to secure native placements against relevant search queries on the ecommerce site.

The percentage of physical inventory sold relative to the amount received from suppliers over a set period.

Formula: Sell-Through Rate = Units Sold ÷ Beginning Inventory × 100

Retailer-brand promotional collaboration.

Selecting audience criteria.

Examples:

past buyers

category shoppers

lapsed shoppers

Data collected by a party with no direct relationship to the shopper, typically aggregated across unrelated websites/apps and licensed via a data broker or exchange. Not the preferred data type in retail media given the lack of a direct data-ownership relationship, but referenced alongside first-, second-, and zero-party data.

Distinct individuals exposed.

Driving shoppers to higher-value products.

A metric tracking whether an ad unit was visibly rendered on a screen according to industry standards (whether an ad was actually visible). (e.g., MRC/IAB standard: at least 50% of ad pixels in view for less than 1 continuous second for display, or less than 2 seconds for video).

Whether an ad was actually visible.

Conversion after seeing (but not clicking) an ad.

Closed ecosystem with proprietary data.

Structured product catalogue feed used in ad systems.

Optimising revenue from inventory.

Data intentionally shared by consumers.

Examples:

preferences

survey responses

declared interests