Retail Media Is Not Just About Retailers Any More

Why It Matters

By unlocking pre‑purchase intent data, brands gain a holistic view of the shopper journey across retailers, enabling more efficient media spend and stronger performance than siloed first‑party retail media.

Key Takeaways

• Flipp’s merged platform reaches 400 M shoppers in 27 markets
• Blix delivers 30‑40% lower CPC and 80‑90% higher CTR
• Tjek reports 59% of users visit a store after seeing an offer
• Cross‑retailer intent data gives FMCG brands a full‑funnel advantage

Pulse Analysis

Retail media has traditionally been anchored to a retailer’s first‑party data and on‑site ad inventory. That model limits advertisers to the moments when a consumer is already inside a specific store’s ecosystem. The emerging layer of multi‑retailer shopper apps, digital leaflet aggregators, and deal platforms flips this paradigm by capturing intent the moment a shopper opens an app and begins planning a purchase. These platforms record explicit product searches, list additions, and circular views, turning them into high‑confidence audience signals that can be activated across the broader digital landscape.

The shift is already delivering concrete results. Flipp, after merging with MEDIA Central Group, now serves over 400 million shoppers and claims a 103% lift in purchase intent with a 4:1 incremental ROAS. Poland’s Blix leverages more than 1.1 billion e‑leaflet views to offer brands 30‑40% lower cost‑per‑click and dramatically higher click‑through rates. In Scandinavia, Tjek’s suite of shopping apps reaches two million users, with 59% of them visiting a store after engaging with a digital offer. These metrics underscore how pre‑purchase intent data can be monetized more efficiently than traditional retail media.

For brands, especially those with distribution across multiple chains, the ability to aggregate intent across retailers closes a critical visibility gap. Instead of piecemeal insights from each retailer’s silo, advertisers obtain a unified picture of shopper behavior, enabling precise off‑site campaigns that complement on‑site retail media. As the ecosystem matures, we can expect ad‑tech vendors to build dedicated tools for intent‑based targeting, and retailers may increasingly partner with aggregators to retain a share of this emerging revenue stream. The result will be a more integrated, data‑rich retail media landscape that benefits advertisers, platforms, and ultimately, the consumer.