Episode Details

A couple of years ago, two neighborhood cats started visiting our house. We fed them, they kept coming back, and then one day they turned up wearing collars that said, “Do not feed unless starving.” It turned out we weren't the only ones feeding them: and nobody really knew who was feeding them, how often, or how much.

Brands have their own version of this problem. When they add up all the attributed sales from every retail media network they spend with, somehow the total can come out bigger than their actual sales. So when Albertsons and Best Buy launched new multi-touch attribution (MTA) capabilities within a week of each other, I wanted to understand what problem they were actually trying to solve. Are brands really asking for MTA? Why did MTA fall out of favor in broader marketing? And has retail media simply never moved beyond last-click attribution? 

In this episode, I expand upon my recent article for The Drum, and dig into what brands, consultants and the retailers themselves are saying. I also set up the bigger question I'll tackle in Part 2: even if retailer-operated MTA is in the retailers' interests, can it still be useful and credible for brands?

This episode is sponsored by GrowthLoop

Timeline

[00:43] - Why retail media attribution can add up to more sales than brands actually have

[01:50] - Albertsons and Best Buy launch new multi-touch attribution capabilities

[03:22] - Why brands may be turning to media mix modeling and cross-network measurement instead

[04:15] - How privacy restrictions and ecosystem fragmentation helped push MTA out of favor

[07:47] - A CPG perspective on why MTA may not answer the incrementality question brands actually care about

[10:04] - What SharkNinja, EOS and other advertisers say they need from commerce media measurement

[11:00] - Why Best Buy and Albertsons say advertisers are asking for MTA

Links & Resources

• On 17 September 2026, Albertsons Media Collective announced Retail Media Incrementality-Based Multi-Touch Attribution, built with LiveRamp and piloted by PepsiCo.
• My article for The Drum: Why retail media networks are resurrecting multi-touch attribution
• Skye Frontier, executive vice-president at Incremental, gave a valuable lesson about marketing mix models and MTA on the Measure Up podcast last year.
• Follow Skye Frontier on LinkedIn
• Read my related articles:
  • This Agency Abandoned MTA, Here's Why
  • Retail Media's Measurement Problem: It's Not Just the Retailers
  • 'Not 100% altruistic': ad measurement veteran on what retail media is really optimizing for
  • The Other Side of the Story: Why Retailers Struggle with Media Measurement & Standardization
• Check out Basket Case, a project I’m part of with The Drum and QSIC, an irreverent and lively podcast series talking shop:

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