While digital in-store retail media remains a small fraction of total retail media spend, the real challenge is integrating digital formats into physical stores thoughtfully to create a cohesive customer experience rather than a fragmented one.

"Great in-store retail media shouldn't feel like media. It should feel like this seamless, enhanced shopping experience," said Gabi Viljoen, vice president and head of ecommerce for Nestlé Health Science, during EMARKETER's Commerce Media Summit.

The conversation brought together perspectives from both sides of the in-store retail media equation, exploring how retailers and brands are working to scale digital in-store formats beyond small pilots into credible, measurable programs.

Integration over fragmentation drives results

Dollar General has built a robust foundation of traditional shopper marketing tools including shelf signage, aisle talkers, and point-of-decision messaging before layering in digital formats like in-store audio.

"We think that audio really complements, not replaces existing signage. It extends and reinforces the messaging throughout the store, helps our brands be able to tell their story a little bit different," said Austin Leonard, vice president and general manager of DG Media Network.

Leonard said the integration strategy is paying off. Brands using Dollar General's full suite of in-store and digital tools together are seeing 80% higher growth versus those using individual tactics in isolation, he said.

Commerce media ad buyers have been explicit about what would unlock additional in-store spend: Improved measurement and attribution. The challenge is that many in-store activations start as small pilots, creating a self-reinforcing constraint cycle that makes it difficult to generate credible signal and scale beyond testing.

Dollar General addresses this by leveraging its existing expertise in measuring traditional shopper marketing tactics and applying those methodologies to newer digital formats.

"We worked… to create matched market methodology across all in-store activation," Leonard said. "We create a holdout group of stores based on factors including annual sales, store type and assortment. We then look at incrementality as we compare the measured brand sales across the group of stores that featured media versus those that were in the holdout stores."

The advantage of Dollar General's 20,000-store footprint is the ability to test across different geographies, activations, and regions while maintaining statistical rigor, he said.

Partnership mindset

From the brand perspective, deciding when to lean into in-store tests requires careful evaluation, especially when budgets must be carved out from proven campaigns.

Viljoen outlined criteria that give her confidence in a retail partner's in-store test: The test design is clear and solves a real shopper problem, not just adding another format.

"If you're running an audio test and your shopper is not at the areas where they can actually hear it, you're just adding something to be disruptive," she said.

Measurement approach is transparent, including details on store selection, zip codes, and demographic indexing, she said. In one example, Viljoen evaluated a test where the selected zip codes indexed high with the Hispanic community, matching perfectly with a Nestlé brand that also over-indexes with that demographic.

The retailer demonstrates a long-term partnership mindset rather than just selling another media buy.

"Share the learnings, even if the learnings weren't perfect. What are you looking to pivot? Because we are also looking to change and pivot if a campaign's not running perfectly," Viljoen said.

The biggest barrier to scale

In-store retail media sits at the intersection of media, merchandising, store operations, shopper marketing, and analytics, raising the stakes for internal coordination far beyond what's required for digital-only retail media.

The friction often stems from misaligned incentives across teams. Ecommerce teams focus on digital KPIs and return on ad spend. Shopper marketing teams concentrate on in-store activations. Sales and trade teams prioritize retailer partnerships and volume.

"All of those things work together, but we're looking at them separately depending on who the team is and what their focus areas might be," Viljoen said.

Her solution was to create a shared brief for overarching campaigns that all teams understand and commit to, regardless of which specific tactics they're deploying. Even better, align bonus structures so that when the collective wins, everyone wins.

From the retail side, Leonard emphasized the importance of engaging the right stakeholders from the start.

"You have to make sure that you're not just talking to one group, a digital group or a shopper marketing group only, especially if you're an omni retailer like Dollar General," he said.

One practical tip from Viljoen: Retailers should simply ask brands who the decision makers are and which budgets fund different initiatives.

"I have no confidentiality reasons to not say, 'I own the execution of this, but I'm having to pull it from a budget, so I have to negotiate internally,'" she said. "Let's make sure that we get them on the phone so they understand why we're asking them to pull some budget out of something else."

Watch the full session.

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