[00:00:00] Phillip: Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Phillip.

[00:00:04] Alicia: And I'm Alicia.

[00:00:04] Phillip: And we are live at Shoptalk 2026— and it's Shoptalk Spring, this is my favorite one of the Shoptalks. And this is our first day here on the show floor, and we are releasing our new book. It's called Strata. It comes out on April 14. If you haven't already, go pick it up— futurecommerce.com/strata. And, as you see, we have a live mural behind us, and we're right here by the Marketing and Media stage. And we have two very special guests. We're gonna talk a little bit about, sort of, the contention and a little bit of the headbutting— because I think culture has a lot of headbutts these days as well. And so, joining us is Leah Logan. Welcome.

[00:00:40] Leah Logan: Thank you. Thank you for having us. Happy to be here. I'll bring some spice today.

[00:00:45] Phillip: All right. We need the spice. We got some spice in our book too. Andrew Lipsman, welcome.

[00:00:49] Andrew Lipsman: Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah— we definitely got a little bit spicy on the stage today, which has been the primary focus of the trip so far— which is the debate on agentic commerce.

[00:01:01] Phillip: Yeah. And I think that's the underlying theme of this whole show, as I'm sure everybody could have guessed. How is retail commerce media being framed in the theme of agentic, and what's the context of the larger conversation? I know we're midway into day one. So tell me a little bit about the session that you were in.

[00:01:21] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. Well, the broader debate about agentic commerce is— if you are pro-agentic or anti-agentic commerce... If you're pro-agentic, you think that all shopping activity is gonna move upstream into the LLMs, and that's gonna siphon all traffic off of retail sites. Some predictions say that their ecommerce traffic will be near zero by 2030. And so that will obviously kill retail media networks— because you don't have traffic, you don't have ad revenue. So we talked a bit about that during the course of the debate today. I pushed back against it pretty hard. I'll just offer one point that I mentioned, which was— if it were true that all this traffic was moving upstream as people started shopping on LLMs, then you would actually see traffic declining.

[00:02:12] Phillip: Mhmm. Mhmm.

[00:02:13] Andrew Lipsman: And you're not seeing traffic decline. And, in fact, the retailers that have the highest share of Gen AI referral— which, by the way, is very small, it's about 0.1 to 2% depending on the retailer— there's a positive correlation between Gen AI referral and traffic growth. So, again, there's nothing that suggests Gen AI is doing anything to take traffic away from retailers.

[00:02:35] Phillip: And I'm sure you have a counter-argument. You guys were on, like, Retail Media Confessions today—

[00:02:40] Leah Logan: So, I do not. I think you had a battle with Sarah today for being a marketer. I don't have a counterpoint. I actually strongly agree with what Andrew says.

[00:02:52] Phillip: Does that mean I have to have a counterpoint?

[00:02:54] Leah Logan: I mean, you can. I think what I would say is that the discovery process will change. Mhmm. I don't know, with the rapid evolution, how likely it is for all purchasing to happen within an agentic workflow— or for me to just give someone my credit card to, you know, book my next vacation. But I would agree— I don't think traffic is gonna take a major hit, and I also feel like it really depends on the category. You know? It's like, could it impact the travel industry? Sure. Is it gonna impact toothpaste buying? I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure that's gonna be on some sort of list of "just replenish, send it to my house, make it easy for me." But our podcast that we're here filming is called Retail Media Confessions. And so we are asking some of our closest friends to actually stop by our booth and drop a retail media confession— say a little bit of what they feel like they need to say in a nice, closed, safe space that we may put on our podcast later.

[00:04:01] Alicia: So you guys have done that before? Retail Media Confessions?

[00:04:?] Leah Logan: We started it.

[00:04:?] Alicia: Okay.

[00:04:04] Leah Logan: Yeah. We just put out our first episode. Our second episode comes out this week.

[00:04:07] Alicia: Okay. And this intrigues me because, you know, I've been in the media space for about fifteen years, and I always feel like we get in the trap of building these narratives, and everyone's very quick to just follow the narratives and go along with the discourse, versus challenging it or poking at it a little bit. So why do you think having this confessions format is essential— especially for something like retail media, or commerce media, where there's always so much new development and so many new press releases talking about the next big thing?

[00:04:41] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. I mean, as an analyst who's covered retail media since almost the inception of it— you know, I think it's important to look at both sides of any issue. So there's been a lot of hype. There's a lot of announcements. There are a lot of retail media networks. Not all of them are gonna succeed. There's actually room in the market for quite a few. So, overall, I'm pretty optimistic about it. But there's also a lot of challenge for these retailers, because they're learning how to be media businesses. This is not a core competency at all. It's hard. They have a strong value proposition, but they have to realize their potential. And so part of the confessions, I think, is that a lot of the folks who are leading retail media networks now— they've been in it since the beginning. These are early-day Triad, Roundel, you know, Amazon people. And, like, it hasn't been easy to get to this place. And so sometimes it's great to tell those stories. Everybody's got a litany of failures or contentious things that have happened along the way. And I think it's useful and instructive to understand what that is, to better understand where we're going next.

[00:05:46] Phillip: There's something I feel like we've been lacking for a long time, and I'm intrigued by the format because I think it's so needed. I was at— I was at Florida Atlantic University about six months ago, and I was invited to the symposium of, let's say, like— they were genetic scientists. I forget what the name of the actual conference was, but it was a 100 genetic scientists that all came together for the symposium. And it's, like, a wild crowd to be around. Their version of a conference is very different to our version of a conference. Their version of a conference is— where our version of a panel is, we're very polite, we let each other finish talking— this is a 100 people in their symposium all yelling at each other all at the same time. And there is very much a platform for disagreement and Socratic debate, and people challenging each other's ideas, and open dialogue and discussion, and saying, "Actually, I don't agree with what you're saying." And I think that's what academia brings to bear— they challenge each other's ideas, and they hold each other to a higher standard, and they question by default.

[00:07:01] Phillip: And I don't know that we, in the commerce media space— I mean, not just the retail media space, but in the media space— we haven't done that. I think a lot of it has really been driven because the business model has really been around talking about the excitement of the space. And so this is so needed. So thank you for doing it, number one. Can't wait to tune in. But I think a lot of it also has to do with the predictive nature of that business, because we don't really know where it's going yet. And so we're talking a lot about things that could be. And I think that's the other challenge here— I don't think we also look back enough, because the time frames, or time horizons, are so long before we actually start to see it pan out. And I don't think we go back and check in and say what analysts said in the past about these predictions over seven, eight, ten years in the future, and then we hold them to account. And so, hopefully, you guys stick around for seven or eight, ten years, and we'll be back.

[00:07:55] Andrew Lipsman: But— I mean, there's always a hype cycle, right? You have to fill a vacuum. And, let's be honest, conferences require something that's future-looking. For sure. What I've seen is a lot of runaway freight trains on these trends, where it's just like— we get so infatuated with the technology behind it. My lens is always consumer behavior first. How is the consumer gonna actually interact with the technology? And go from there. Look at the data, right? Like, we often cast forward to the furthest logical extreme, and it's like— one, even if that could happen, it's probably gonna take so long to get there. So, meanwhile, most of you who are in the audience— what are you trying to do in the next twelve to eighteen months? You probably have goals to hit. Three to five years— okay, you care about the longer-term strategy of your company. Ten years from now— you're probably not gonna be at your company. So I would stop worrying about the ten-year time horizon on an individual basis, unless I'm in the C-suite of a company. So I do think we need to provide a check on some of these things. And if we don't, then you see an entire industry just careen in one direction— for what purpose? I mean, it was only two years ago, I think, that we were at all the retail conferences talking about the metaverse.

[00:09:04] Leah Logan: Yeah. Oh my god.

[00:09:05] Andrew Lipsman: We were gonna take shopping carts—

[00:09:06] Phillip: Oh, those were the days.

[00:09:07] Alicia: We're all gonna be floating heads.

[00:09:08] Andrew Lipsman: I know that's an easy one, but, like— if you stop to think about it for a moment, it's like, do you wanna shop that way? Do you think you will shop that way? Sometimes it is worth asking the sample of one. If you're gonna do that— if it's not something, or you can't see yourself doing it— maybe it's a signal that the consumer adoption really isn't there.

[00:09:25] Phillip: I was at a gathering of leaders at Interact, and there was a room of hundreds of folks. And, you know, there was, like, a show-of-hands moment: "How many people here have bought something that was recommended to them by AI?" And these are people who, ostensibly, that's their job— is to be ahead of trends. And, like, one hand went up. And I'm like, "What are we doing, people?" So, you know, that's a really good point. We should be dogfooding some of this stuff. If we don't want it, why would our consumer want it?

[00:09:59] Leah Logan: You know, I think some of it is— so, blessing and curse to retail media is that, for some things, I think if you evangelize enough, and you create the right synergies— things that are tangible and believable— I've obviously been a huge proponent of creators and their role in retail media for years now. Now everybody else is like, "Yeah, that could work. Like, I see where this goes." So I think what's great is that we do have the ability to have the right conversations to set the right trends. But you do have to keep an eye on the hype cycle. And, to Andrew's point, you have to make sure that you are thinking about, you know, what does this look like over time? What is adoption going to look like? Where should we invest? I think it's really easy in retail media to test a lot of things that go nowhere, instead of really investing in opportunities that literally could grow the business— they just might be a heavier lift. I think that's why in-store still lags behind, and also why we're just now seeing creator and social start to take center stage with retail media. Like, creators have been influencing purchases forever. It was just hard to integrate it.

[00:11:08] Andrew Lipsman: Creators are such a good example, because it's getting big now, but it's existed for years. The next big trend already exists. Yep. Okay? People just haven't really wrapped their heads around it yet. Retail media— you know, I started picking it up as an analyst because— this is 2018, I was working at eMarketer, and there was a headline that one of my colleagues wrote that said, "Amazon becomes the number-three US ad seller."

[00:11:32] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:11:32] Andrew Lipsman: And I was like, "Wait, what?" I looked— they were already about a $10 billion business. Okay. The proof is already there. I asked myself, "What's going on here? There's already something." You wanna see the proof point? We're often too quick to future-cast around trends that are at zero today. Let's at least see an adoption curve. Let's see some real economics behind it before we start saying what the next big trend is. I guarantee you— we know what the next big trend is. It's sitting right in front of us.

[00:11:58] Alicia: Yeah. And I wanna dig into that creator piece, because we actually had a conversation with Zia of Shoptalk, and she mentioned that— although AI is obviously the overarching umbrella theme— she even called out the creator economy as an area that has always existed for quite a few years, but has kind of been under-tapped, or it's kind of flown under the radar. So can we unpack those opportunities that exist with creators existing in a more integrated fashion in retail media, and what those opportunities currently look like?

[00:12:33] Leah Logan: Yeah. I mean, on the lightest side of things, retail media is about buying media that drives commerce, right? Like, a simple explanation. The way that I think about creators and their role is that, yes, they produce wonderful content and creative, but they're a media channel— and you can integrate data into the selection process the same way that you choose how to build a targeting audience, or the same way that you choose how to put together a publisher list. And then, in terms of measurement— the fact that there's been this misconception that you can't measure the impact— we've been measuring sales lift on creator campaigns for, like, eight years.

[00:13:12] Phillip: Wow.

[00:13:12] Leah Logan: Like— is it gonna be closed-loop attribution? No, because there are walled gardens. But can you look at lift? Absolutely. So I've been doing creator retail media for quite a while. I'm glad everyone else is here now. Welcome. It's nice.

[00:13:30] Andrew Lipsman: Welcome to the party.

[00:13:31] Leah Logan: Right? But I think that they are underutilized in terms of using actual retail data to inform the strategy— because that can be done, should be done, and isn't completely being utilized when you have so many retail media networks that are still standing up their creator solutions. Some of them are still like, "Here's our ecosystem, choose what you like, have a nice day." They're still not really integrating the data.

[00:13:57] Andrew Lipsman: I mean, creator content is like a lot of forms of media where we just think of it as this squishy form of marketing. Okay, you do it, it sort of works, but you don't really have any framework around it. But it's media. It's creating an impression. And, as Leah said, it's high-quality media that actually does a great job of driving commerce. So what you need to do is import what's happening into a traditional media framework, and bring the closed-loop measurement to it. All of a sudden it becomes a media channel like anything else that you can invest in. So that's the transition that's happening. Companies like Inmar are providing the data that allows you, one, to get really efficient in who you select as your creators, and then to measure it on the back end to see what's actually working.

[00:14:39] Alicia: And what I find to be interesting too is, I'm seeing creator content showing up through a lot more channels. So it seems like some brands are starting to experiment with, "How can we repurpose this content in a way that it ties in organically through our broader campaign strategy?" Like, I've seen it in CTV. I've seen it in, like, retargeting ads. So it's interesting to see that ripple effect start to fan out a little bit more.

[00:15:03] Leah Logan: Well, this is where there's a huge untapped opportunity for retailers with on-site. I mean, you've got so many retailers out there who are like, "How can I make more money from my on-site ads?" And they're tapped on inventory, and I'm like, "You need to add video." And they're like, "Well, we're worried that's gonna create a bad experience, or it's gonna interrupt shopping." And I'm like, "How does it interrupt shopping when you have someone physically using a product, telling you how to use it, how to choose it, why they bought it?" Like, if nothing else, that's the accelerant, if I've ever seen one. So I think, like, as they're looking at ways to expand and find more of that profitability, on-site video is an easy one.

[00:15:41] Andrew Lipsman: Why are creators valuable in the first place? We have an infinite supply of media content today, right? The reason why creators are a thing is because they've actually hacked the system. They know how to break through and actually get seen. So that's their inherent value. But the beauty of that is, then that content can go across every single platform. And that's where it's also been under-leveraged. We think about it really in the context of social. Why shouldn't it be on an ecommerce site? Why shouldn't it be on in-store media, CTV, all these things? And it's connective tissue. That content can really help build a brand through those voices, as long as they're the right voices supporting the brand.

[00:16:20] Phillip: One of our data points in our recent study is— we found that people, about 77% of consumers in the study, when referred through AI-driven curated results from their LLM, they wanna click through to the site to purchase. And so— whatever you wanna say about agentic, I think that confirms some of your proclivities.

[00:16:47] Alicia: Mhmm.

[00:16:50] Phillip: They trust the LLM— they trust it for the recommendations, the curation— but they want control to go finish the purchase. And I think the behavior's shifting too, in that— I think it's more of the spearfishing, that they're very convinced about what they want, and they wanna go just get that. And so, to your point about creators, I think for a brand to get people to pause and to consider the purchase a little more— it is about introducing a little more good friction, good dwell time. We gotta do the thumb-stop thing now, and we have to get people to engage with the media. And that means that the fundamental shift of the product detail page, or any part of the funnel, means that we have to get people to engage with it a little more, rather than becoming the frictionless conversion path that we've been taught that it should be. And so those funnels that we built for the past ten or fifteen years will have fundamentally changed, where they probably never changed before. And creators, I think, have been able to drive that.

[00:17:54] Andrew Lipsman: One of the ways I've been talking about agentic is— this idea of, like, you type something in, and then it just does all the autonomous decision-making for you and buys it— like, that's just never gonna happen, because, as you mentioned, the consumer wants control. They need that control. But the model that I've been using is a collapsible funnel. Like, you still have to go through the funnel. AI is gonna create some efficiencies along that path to purchase, so it can really shorten it in interesting ways. But, again, they have to mentally go through every part of that process before they're gonna convert.

[00:18:27] Alicia: Yeah. Well, I feel like shopping is such a nuanced, contextual thing, that I may have one behavior or one approach for one type of purchase, but not for another. So you mentioned, like, the category nuances, right? But I think it gets even more granular. So it's hard to pass that off and, like, automate it fully, I think. But I'm curious, Andrew— do you have thoughts on the advertising piece of these AI platforms? Is that, like, a big ol' nothingburger? Or is it something that—

[00:18:58] Andrew Lipsman: Advertising on the LLMs? Yeah. It's the next advertising channel. It will be a thing. They're— after they have to go through some iterations to figure out what it looks like. I think the most obvious playbook is, they're gonna get a lot of intent data. So I think their best play is really doing off-site media based on that. So you can see how collecting that data and then building a social site, if it works— obviously, Sora didn't— that could be a real advertising model. I'm also not opposed to just introducing your brand in the context of somebody, sort of, generally in-market, right? You get to a problem when people are like, "I want you to tell me the thing to buy," and then you put an ad for another thing, right? That creates a conflict of interest. And so that true bottom-funnel advertising is problematic. The funny thing is, then— what this argues for is that we need to have advertising that's kind of working the middle of the funnel— which I think is the most valuable part of the funnel. It's also the most undervalued part of the funnel, and I think, in general, our industry is incapable of putting value behind it. So when I look at a company like OpenAI— will they be able to do something that's not based on a CPC model? I'm kinda like, "I don't think they're gonna figure it out, but there actually is a good ad model hiding there, if they're just willing to figure out the middle of the funnel."

[00:20:22] Alicia: I agree with that. Middle of the funnel is very overlooked— I'd say as a content creator too. Like, everyone just goes from, "I want brand awareness," to, "I want a deal closed," or, "I want leads generated." But there's, like, always that middle area where you actually have the opportunity to create and drive a lot of influence.

[00:20:41] Leah Logan: I don't disagree. I mean, I think if we came out with an ads version, people would wanna buy the non-ads version. Only because, you know— you can go to Google and you can self-search and you can make all the decisioning yourself, but you go to ChatGPT because you are trying to narrow it down, and you're really looking for that, like, unicorn recommendation. Like, if I'm planning a vacation, and ChatGPT is like, "You want a unicorn plan?" I'm like, "Yes, I do." And I feel like if the plan that came back had sponsored results in it, there'd be part of me that would say, like, "Did you really find the thing I wanted, or is this just whoever bought my click today?" So I think it really depends on what you're doing with it. And I likely would be the person that would pay for an ads-free version.

[00:21:42] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah. I mean, they call LLMs, right, "answer engines," and so it already imports this idea that I'm looking for a specific answer— and I think that's where the ad model fails. But, realistically, people aren't always looking for the straight answer. They are doing exploratory research. And so in those upper-funnel phases, introduce your brand to people. You know, it's a great chance to conquest, even if somebody's asking about another brand. So often, you just need to create that awareness. And, by the way, there's a good chance it won't convert that time, but now you have an understanding of the brands that are in the market at a given time.

[00:22:17] Leah Logan: I think the only way for it to truly be successful is to have enough relevancy. If it really is gonna be a recommendation that ChatGPT sees as fact— like, "This is when we need to insert this"— I think there's gonna have to be a mix of pay-to-play, but also, like, an investment in content now is an investment in that process later.

[00:22:41] Phillip: We have, like, sort of a Mike Pence situation—

[00:22:44] Leah Logan: I was gonna say— are we having a Mike Pence situation? Don't land on my face.

[00:22:51] Phillip: I think that— you know, we're called Future Commerce, so we always like to think about the future. I think you had some predictions that— yeah, I sort of took this backwards, but I loved it. You published your retail media predictions for 2026. Andrew, you have yours in The Drum. You have yours in Inmar's research Leah. I just wanna touch on a few of those. How are those tracking for you? What surprised you already? Leah, let's start with you.

[00:23:15] Leah Logan: Well— so, I build my predictions with Andrew, off of Andrew's. Mine is more just an additional step on top, I would say. He did all of the heavy lifting, but we're both very passionate about the role of creators in retail media. And, as you can see— like you mentioned earlier— the creator economy is becoming more and more popular. I'm seeing so much more investment in content strategy in general within retail media. It's not just that lower-funnel, pay-to-play, eCPM game. It really is about creating actual experiences. And I think, with so many more retailers kind of creating more of an omnichannel experience and looking at content, I think we're also seeing an uptick in in-store retail media as well— and more and more networks introducing more screens. So I think those two are very on track. I don't think any are off track yet.

[00:24:10] Phillip: Hopefully not. But— where were you wrong?

[00:24:17] Leah Logan: Well— there— I'll never admit it.

[00:24:17] Andrew Lipsman: There is a common thread through several of these, which is that we're in a really exciting moment with a lot of media channels that are kind of at that inflection point— creators being a big one. And it's because creators already existed, but also because we're bringing that performance data into the equation. Two of the other ones that I listed at the top of the list were in-store retail media— which we're finally starting to see digital screens in a big way with, happening with major retailers. So this will become pervasive very quickly here. And I've always talked about it— people can only think about this as performance in a sales channel. No, no, no. This is a branding channel. This is where you wanna build your brand. So think about it in terms of reach, quality, and then performance. And then, performance TV, right? Last year, Amazon partnered with all of the basic ad-supported CTV channels. So now you have closed-loop measurement underpinning all of this TV-quality content for the first time. Again, a great branding channel— you're bringing the performance element to it. And so it's really exciting that you have these things. And then I would say my big caution to the industry— because we find a way to mess up every single ad channel as it manifests— is figure out how to speak both languages at the same time. If you get performance myopia, you're gonna lose all the branding impact. Like, we should not ignore the branding impact of TV just because we have measurability, and vice versa. So we'll see how the industry reacts to it, but—

[00:25:41] Phillip: I do think—

[00:25:41] Andrew Lipsman: —we're at a really exciting moment in media.

[00:25:44] Phillip: That's great. We have, like, one minute left with you. Thank you so much for joining us. We'd love to have you all back— maybe to check in at the beginning of next year on predictions.

[00:25:53] Alicia: Yeah.

[00:25:54] Andrew Lipsman: Call us.

[00:25:55] Phillip: A little recap. You're heading into your confessions— let's close out with our own set of confessions. What's one thing the retail media industry needs to collectively admit, stop pretending, or finally get honest about? Fifteen, thirty seconds.

[00:26:07] Leah Logan: Um— we have to stop looking at CPMs and start looking at investments.

[00:26:13] Phillip: Nice.

[00:26:15] Andrew Lipsman: Last word— ROAS. Retail media has benefited from ROAS, but they know it's wrong. And, actually, the sooner they get to valuing incremental ROAS— incrementality— they will start winning bigger budgets from all the bigger media channels, but it's a very hard transition for them.

[00:26:34] Phillip: Amazing. Awesome. Well, Leah Logan is the general manager of retail media at Inmar Intelligence, and Andrew Lipsman is an independent retail media analyst and consultant. And, also, they're both now guests of Future Commerce. So thank you so much for joining us.

[00:26:45] Leah Logan: Thanks for having us.

[00:26:47] Andrew Lipsman: Yeah, you too. Thanks for having us.