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Retail Media's Trust Deficit: Why Incrementality is Key for NZ Marketers
The rapid expansion of retail media faces a critical challenge: proving true incremental value beyond last-click attribution. Marketers globally are questioning the actual growth driven by these platforms, highlighting a fundamental trust issue in current measurement practices. Adopting incrementality testing is proposed as the essential solution to validate campaign effectiveness and build confidence.
What Happened
- •Retail media expenditure is rapidly increasing, with numerous new networks emerging globally.
- •Despite reported strong returns, marketers are struggling to ascertain the true incremental impact of these campaigns.
- •The industry lacks a standardised, credible method to quantify how much growth is directly attributable to retail media.
- •A significant 'trust problem' exists due to opaque measurement and overreliance on last-click models.
- •Incrementality testing is identified as the critical path forward to accurately measure campaign effectiveness.
- •This approach helps distinguish between sales that would have occurred anyway and those genuinely driven by the media spend.
Why It Matters for NZ Marketers
- •NZ marketers are increasingly allocating budgets to local retail media networks, making transparent measurement crucial for ROI justification.
- •Without robust incrementality, NZ brands risk misallocating funds, believing they are driving new sales when they might only be capturing existing demand.
- •Local retailers launching their own media offerings need to establish trust and clear value propositions to attract and retain NZ advertisers.
- •Smaller NZ brands with limited budgets require precise data to ensure every dollar spent on retail media genuinely contributes to growth.
- •The competitive NZ retail landscape demands that marketers can definitively prove the effectiveness of their media investments against other channels.
- •NZ agencies must evolve their measurement strategies to advise clients accurately on retail media performance.
Strategic Implications
- •Prioritise incrementality testing over simple last-click attribution for all retail media investments.
- •Demand greater transparency and advanced measurement capabilities from retail media partners.
- •Allocate a portion of media budgets specifically for testing and learning about incremental lift on various platforms.
- •Integrate retail media data with broader marketing analytics to understand its contribution to the overall customer journey.
- •Develop internal capabilities or partner with specialists to design and execute effective incrementality experiments.
- •Use incrementality insights to optimise campaign strategies, budget allocation, and platform selection for maximum new growth.
Future Trend Signals
- •The shift towards performance-based retail media will increasingly hinge on proven incremental value.
- •Retail media platforms that offer robust, transparent incrementality solutions will gain a significant competitive advantage.
- •Increased demand for independent third-party measurement and verification in the retail media space.
- •Greater integration of retail media data with broader customer data platforms for a holistic view of consumer behaviour.
Sources
Editorial note: This analysis is original, AI-assisted editorial content. All source material is attributed with links. No full articles are reproduced. Short excerpts are used under fair dealing principles.
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