Sponsored by RMIQ | Retail Media Performance Advertising for Lean CPG Teams: Get discovered, sell more, improve ROAS, on Instacart and more. All in risk free pay-for-performance set up (no retainer). 

Growth rarely happens in straight lines.

Early wins feel great, until complexity sets in and the real test begins.

For CPG brands, that test increasingly plays out inside retail networks. Getting listed feels like success. Launching campaigns feels like progress. But many lean teams find themselves in the same position: campaigns are running, results look acceptable, yet there’s a feeling that more performance should be possible.

Usually, they’re right.

The gap rarely comes down to budget. It comes down to whether retail media is being managed as a true performance channel, with SKU-level optimization and a system designed to compound learnings over time.

Use these seven questions as a rapid self-assessment to determine your next priorities.

Are Your Foundations Solid?

1. Do you have enough distribution for retail media to matter?

Retail media works best when products already have distribution and SKUs are moving.

If your SKU isn’t available on enough physical or digital shelves to create a meaningful opportunity to scale, retail media won’t solve the problem. Retail media can accelerate sales velocity, but it cannot create product-market fit or compensate for limited distribution.

Quick check

• Are your SKUs rotating consistently?
• Is sell-through healthy at your current distribution?
• Are you confident the issue is visibility, not availability?

If not, focus there first.

2. Is your product detail page ready to convert?

An ad drives the click. The product page closes the sale.

On platforms like Amazon, Instacart, and Walmart Connect, advertising spend amplifies whatever your page already does, whether it is good or bad.

A strong page answers four questions immediately:

What is it?

• Clear product title
• Clear main image
• Understandable without prior brand knowledge

Why buy it?

• Benefits visible above the fold
• Specific value, not generic claims

Why trust it?

• Certifications
• Third-party validation
• Credibility signals

What do others think?

• Strong review volume (but even 5 will make a difference)
• Competitive ratings

Quick check

Can a shopper who has never heard of your brand understand what the product is, why it’s valuable, and why it’s trustworthy in under 10 seconds?

If not, improve the page (and sometimes packaging) before increasing spend.

3. Do you know which SKUs are worth advertising?

Not every SKU deserves retail media investment.

Some products can absorb advertising costs and remain profitable. Others cannot.

Retail media ultimately succeeds or fails at the SKU level, where profit is made.

Quick check

• Which SKUs can support advertising costs and still generate margin?
• Which products already show strong organic velocity?
• Which products are structurally difficult to profitably advertise?

Start with the products that can win.

Are You Optimizing What Matters Most?

4. Are you optimizing performance at the campaign level or the SKU level?

More than 30% of keywords generate no revenue. Others consume the budget inefficiently through overbidding or underbidding.

Looking only at campaign averages makes it difficult to see which combinations of products and keywords are creating value, and which are draining spend.

📦 Free Resource: RMIQ’s keyword research tool helps brands identify relevant keywords before campaigns launch and make more informed keyword, bidding, and budget optimization decisions. 

Quick check

Can you optimize:

• Spend by SKU?
• Keywords by SKU?
• ROAS by SKU?

If you’re optimizing ROAS at the campaign level, you’re making decisions based on averages rather than knowing which keywords for which SKUs to pause, where to adjust bids, and which products deserve more budget.

5. Are you acquiring new customers, or re-converting existing ones?

Retail media can do two different, basic jobs:

1. Acquire new-to-brand shoppers
2. Drive repeat purchases from existing customers

Both matter. But they should not be evaluated the same way.

Campaigns focused on existing customers often produce stronger short-term ROAS. Campaigns focused on acquiring new customers may look less efficient initially while creating greater long-term value.

Quick check

What percentage of retail media revenue comes from new-to-brand customers?

If you don’t know, you’re missing an important measure of future growth.

Are You Set Up to Scale?

6. How many networks are you managing well?

Retail media becomes operationally complex quickly.

Every network requires:

• Setup
• Campaign management
• Reporting
• Optimization

Complexity compounds as networks are added.

For many organizations, two to three actively managed networks is the practical limit before operational burden outweighs incremental return.

Quick check

Which networks are you actively optimizing?

And which are effectively running on platform-recommended settings?

Remember: native platform optimization is designed to maximize spend, not margin.

7. Are your retail media learnings compounding across networks?

Many brands treat each retail media network as a separate project.

They build expertise on Amazon, then start over on Walmart. Then start over again on Instacart.

The strongest operators don’t start from zero every time, and they don’t copy and paste, either. While each network is different, some SKU-level learnings, conversion insights, and keyword trends can be applied across platforms. Brands use shared insights as a starting point and adapt them to each network rather than rebuilding from scratch.

Quick check

When you launch a new network:

• Are you bringing forward existing insights?
• Or are you rebuilding everything from scratch?
• Are you leaving room to learn and adapt?
• Or are you simply copying 100% of what works on other networks?

If your approach is always either zero or 100%, your retail media strategy still has room to grow.

What These Questions Are Really Asking

All 7 questions point to the same issue:

Are you treating retail media as a performance channel or simply as a budget to deploy?

The brands getting the most from retail media focus on:

• Strong distribution
• High-converting product pages
• SKU-level profitability
• Meaningful measurement
• Cross-network learning
• Active optimization

Most importantly, they use technology and AI tools to make retail media execution manageable for lean teams.

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Questions about Retail Media? Contact Us.

RMIQ | Retail Media Performance Advertising for Lean CPG Teams 

Get discovered, sell more, and improve ROAS on Instacart, Walmart, Whole Foods and beyond.