Retail Media Networks Are the
New Walled Gardens

Just when you thought you escaped the grip of the duopoly walled garden, they pull you back in. You clawed your way out of the measurement fog. Built an omnichannel strategy. Started asking real questions about impact, causality, and incrementality.

And now, just when you thought you were free, here comes the next few dozens of walled gardens, dressed in a warehouse vest and smiling like they want to help.

Retail media networks are the hottest thing in advertising right now. Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Uber, Paypal, Visa, and a dozen other companies have figured out how to monetize not just shopper intent, but marketer desperation. Each brings unique access audiences in a specific point in time. Rich first-party data. Closed-loop attribution. It sounds like magic. 

But here’s the catch: magic doesn’t like witnesses. And most retail media networks aren’t offering transparency. They’re offering trust. Trust them to measure. Trust them to report. Trust them to tell you how great your ads performed - on their platform, using their models, based on their incentives.

If that’s not déjà vu, you haven’t been in marketing long enough.

A Familiar Trap in a Shiny New Wrapper

We’ve seen this before. Facebook built its empire on closed-loop attribution. Google did the same. They offered convenient measurement - fast, glossy, and mostly unverifiable. And for a while, we all bought it. We trusted the numbers. We assumed lift. We smiled at the dashboards.

Until the CFO came asking what all that spend actually did.

Most companies learn about incrementality the hard way. When the singer stops, but the singing continues – you realize it was all fake. It sounded great, it looked fancy, but you were not getting what you paid for. To be more explicit – when the budget stops, but sales continue unaffected – most marketers learn that their results were attributed – just not incremental. 

Now, it’s happening again. Retail media networks are positioning themselves as the source of truth. They pitch themselves as measurement solutions, not just media sellers. But make no mistake - this is not neutral ground. These platforms are not unbiased observers. They have skin in the game. The more effective your ads appear, the more media you’re likely to buy. And so the cycle feeds itself.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just good business. For them.

The Illusion of Control

What makes this even trickier is that retail media networks hold valuable data. They do have closed-loop visibility into what gets added to carts, what gets purchased, and even when and where. But what they rarely offer is interoperability. You can’t easily cross-check one network’s performance against another. You can’t always match their data to your own. You certainly can’t peek under the hood of their attribution model.

The result? Marketers are flying blind.

When every network runs its own attribution game, brands lose the ability to measure incrementality across platforms using conversion lift studies. It becomes nearly impossible to know what’s working outside of what each network says is working. And when the fox runs the henhouse, the reports are always going to look great. Until the budget dries up and no one knows why sales didn’t follow.

Don’t Trade One Prison for Another

Retail media has massive potential. That part isn’t in question. But the industry is hurtling toward the same trap it barely escaped. We’re swapping one set of walls for another, and patting ourselves on the back for the progress.

The solution isn’t to walk away from retail media. It’s to walk in with your eyes open and your measurement independent. Run your own measurement using an omnichannel measurement platform. Use platforms that aren’t grading their own homework. Demand access, collaboration, and transparency.

Because the next time someone tells you their ads drove a massive lift - ask them how they know.

And if the answer is “because we said so,” you already know what to do.