The Best 2026 RMN Investment You Can Make is Aligned Incentives, with Mike Feldman, SVP of Commerce at Flywheel

Transcript

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Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:00):

Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf where industry leaders share insights, strategies and stories to help brands win in the ever-changing world of commerce.

Peter Crosby (00:22):

Hey everyone. Peter Crosby here from The Digital Shelf Institute. The retail media network platforms continue to be the most powerful measurable source of incremental sales and households in the industry today. And our guest, Mike Feldman, SVP of Commerce at Flywheel predicts that will continue to be the case in 2026. The big question is whether brands investing in it have organized their incentive structures to make sure they will spend their next dollar in the best way possible for maximum ROI. Mike, welcome to the podcast. We are so looking forward to chatting with you. Thank you so much for being on.

Mike Feldman (00:58):

Thank you so much for having me on. I am an absolute nerd for all things commerce and retail media, and so I'm truly honored, longtime listener, first time caller.

Peter Crosby (01:07):

Well, we love a great nerd, so I'm so glad that you're bringing that to this podcast. It needs it. So where you sit at flywheel, you just see commerce from a bunch of different angles. So much going on there to push commerce forward and you've also been in the brand world so you understand the challenges of sitting in that seat and budgets and where does new business come from, where does growth come from? And retail media has become a really important part of that and I think we're just trying to figure out as we record this, it's in early November, where is it going in 2026? We talk about a lot, but it does feel like there's some, I dunno whether shifts are the right term, but there's just a lot happening right now that I think is worthy discussing as people start thinking about next year. So what's happening? What changes might we see? What do you think is going on that our audience should know about?

Mike Feldman (02:11):

Absolutely. I love the question only, the one that I probably get the most often is where is it all going? And so as someone that has been, I've been in retail media really since the dawn of retail media when back in my brand side days we did the first ever Amazon advertising upfront deal. This was back in like 2012 or 2013, and retail media has been an absolute rocket ship ever since. So we've seen year over year 20% on 20% on 20% growth. And so we've sort of reached this now that we're at 2025 this day of reckoning for retail media. I think every RMN out there is looking for their 20% growth. Most brands continue to invest in retail media and a big reason why we got those shifts is I'll call it both the logical and then the maybe less logical reasons. So logical reasons, it's retail media is highly, highly accountable.

(03:12):

You run the ad because the retailer has all this great purchase data, you're able to see the verified purchase and then you can continue to optimize towards this very accountable metric. On the other side, and this is where it gets a little bit less logical, we'll say there are ways to game that system. The easiest one I will pick on is branded search. So if I'm searching for any branded product and I come from a world where I used to work at Georgia Pacific, so we sold paper products, but if I'm searching Angel Soft toilet paper, I am probably going to buy Angel Soft toilet paper, whether I saw or clicked the sponsored one or the organic listing. And so we're at a little bit of reckoning in terms of better metrics. There's been a ton of push for incrementality, and so we're going to continue to see that play a big role.

(04:03):

The other one I'll call out in more of the illogical ways that it's growing is with a lot of media investments, and if you think about brand media, the dollars are more flexible. You can choose the right media partner based on your strategies and your audience and your objectives. In a lot of cases, brands are investing in retail media because you have a sales person in the organization that is highly incented to sell products at that one particular retailer. And if the retailer, if they are worried about their relationship with the retailer, they are the person that is going to bang on the table to be like, I need these dollars for my R-M-N-J-B-P because I need to drive against my sales goal. And so I would say in terms of where it is going, retail media going to continue to rise, RMNs going to continue to push for their 20% increase. Brands are now more constrained than ever, obviously tough economic environment, but we're seeing more accountability and pushing towards metrics. What is incremental versus where am I subsidizing my base? The other one is not every single RMN can get their 20% increase, so where is it okay to have the person banging on the table to go do the 20% increase or where are brands going to push back and look for different deal structures? And so I think that's really where we are heading, sitting here at 2025.

Peter Crosby (05:26):

So Mike, when you describe illogical behavior, is that a substitute for shouldn't be doing that, but you're doing it anyway in all cases or I'm trying to figure out where you were going with that and I'm

Mike Feldman (05:40):

Going to be sure, yes, it's one of the true great, it depends answers, but I would say I call it a logical, and I'm speaking about it in that way because I think the best business case at the end of the day is one backed with really strong data. And so I call it out as a logical like, Hey, your ROAS may be really good. That may correlate with a really strong ROI and incremental return, and you may see the business impact, but it's not always the case. Again, I'll pick on branded search being the example there. So I'd say if you're running it the right way and you feel confident about the metrics, and that is driving against the things that your stakeholders really care about, which at the end of the day is are we driving incremental units? Are we driving incremental households? Are we improving our margin? I'd say if you're delivering against those North Star metrics, then whatever you're doing on the day-to-day optimizations, I'll call it logical hitting against your North Star metrics. But again, I do see some organizations being challenged there, literally giving bonuses on a ROAS goal, which is not necessarily correlated to an incremental purchase or an incremental unit.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:52):

That's exactly what I was going to say then, Mike. I was going to say, can we rephrase it to how do I get to my bonus based on the metric I'm being held accountable for? That's how I would phrase illogical, right?

Mike Feldman (07:03):

That's one. Yeah. I mean there are so many. If you think about how retail media is funded from one of a couple different sources depending on the org, everyone has a different bonus structure. That is where you can get into some really tricky behavior or misalignment of incentives where if like, Hey, I want to hit an e-comm only goal, I want to hit an MMM goal, I want to hit, it becomes very different things you would do with the dollars in optimization levers.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:29):

That's where shared goals comes in. Listen to the omnichannel org podcast that Peter and I did on my newest research. It is so important because you're just marching towards different goals because at the end of the day, we're humans and we all want to make our money and bonuses at the end of the day.

Mike Feldman (07:42):

Yes, that's makes a ton of

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:43):

Sense.

Mike Feldman (07:44):

Alignment of incentives is seemingly the easiest, most logical thing. It does fall but

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:49):

Very hard.

Mike Feldman (07:50):

Yes.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:52):

So Mike, I want to just ask you one question around kind of the reckoning. Do you think that we're going to see a lot more changes come in 2026 because of htic commerce and because of the way retail media might need to shift if consumers aren't seeing the ads?

Mike Feldman (08:12):

So yes, and for a variety of reasons. I would say right now retail media is still vast majority sponsored products in retail search. If you think about what is the potential of agentic commerce, it is less search on the retail sites and more working. And I use chat GBT constantly when I'm doing product research and things like that. And it's typically like you'll get one or two, three, maybe recommendations from your AgTech shopping partner where if you're going to the retail site, you're getting 70 product or a product listings when you're searching 99.9% of retail search queries have sponsored products in them. And so it can be incredibly disruptive. I'd say one, there's obviously the consumer experience, but two, there's so much money being made in sponsored products that it could be highly disruptive. I'd say where's that going to come from? The Walmart announcement in Walmart partnering with chat GBT is one of the most interesting things going on this year to me because I mean it makes sense from a variety of ways. Like Walmart and their AI approach has been relatively open ecosystem like they're looking to partner. It's not like how Amazon is being more walled garden and closed and at the same time like chat GBT, they have all the audience scale, but they don't have the shopping scale and the inventory. And so this partnership makes a ton of sense. I'm really, really curious where it's going to go.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:54):

Yeah, we'll have to come back on and look at how the world shapes up in 2026. We are all waiting to see.

Mike Feldman (10:01):

Yeah, I would say I do think maybe ag agentic shopping, taking a significant chunk into sponsored products is probably not a 26 thing. I'm going to guess it's more of a 27 thing. Even if we look at, I'd say Amazon and Walmart likely to roll out sponsored prompts, so for Sparky and Rufuss, but I would say scale is still very, very limited as we sit here in November of 25.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:28):

Yeah. So Mike, let's talk about some of the undertapped areas of retail media and commerce that you're paying attention to. So what about creator affiliates? We know that creators are a really big opportunity for a lot of brands, especially as we try to lean more human versus ai. So do you see a big opportunity there?

Mike Feldman (10:47):

I do. I see a massive opportunity for creators in retail media mainly because think about where consumers are discovering products today. I mean, we just finished talking about AI-based agents. That's definitely a way I'm doing discovery. Pretty much every consumer I know out there is doing the vast majority of their product discovery through influencers. If you look at there is the social media Doom scroll, I bought it because of TikTok is something I believe in the most, even though I am not actually on TikTok all that often, but I see it in the world and in culture and people are on there hours and hours a day. My favorite example of what is the best retail media ad ever, there is a great Mr. Beast example. And so Mr. Beast is launching a feasts product at Walmart. You can find it on YouTube. It's just him giving away 10,000 bucks to the first person that buys the feasts bar at a Walmart.

(11:42):

But it is Mr. Beast in a Walmart store person buys it, they film the video. It got, I think it's up to 300 million views or something ridiculous like that. That is more than a national TV spot. These influencers, if you look at the modern media landscape, forget retail media, they are getting the reach of the historical broadcast TV network programs. We're getting tens of million, hundreds of millions of views on social posts. And so that is where not only consumers are going and tuning in and getting all this massive reach and audience, but with the interest-based algorithms of the social platforms, you are highly likely to get a relevant product for an influencer that you care about that you're going to engage with the content or linger on the content. And so I think in terms of just where total product discovery is coming from, creator affiliate is the best spot as then I'm looking at RMNs.

(12:45):

If you're a Walmart, you're an Amazon, like a big piece of how you're driving your total business, forget RMNs is through creator affiliates like there's Amazon associate program, Walmart creator. They're really investing in pushing to having people sell on their behalf. It's not just about, Hey, let me do my big splash anymore. We talked about alignment of incentives. How am I incenting creators to go out there and produce a lot of content to have people discover products. And so right now the ability for brands to do that in a customizable way is not great through the RMNs. It's a lot of like, Hey, if you're great at social, you're great at your influencer work. You can then call out, use your Amazon affiliate link, use your Walmart affiliate link, but there's not a great turnkey program through the RMNs directly. And that's where I see one of the biggest opportunities coming is how do you make it more turnkey? How do you make it more into a platform system where you're easily contracting creators, paying the commissions, getting the performance reporting.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (13:45):

If you had a brand come to you right now and say, well, I don't really believe in social and we're just going to put all our money into TV and some of the traditional avenues we've done for the past couple of years because we see the most return, how do you convince a brand that might not see the value that discovery on a social platform brings because I'm sure you've had that conversation.

Mike Feldman (14:07):

Yeah, so I would say for the most part, and because it can be so accountable at the end of the day, you don't need to spend a lot and you can get a pretty quick read on whether it performed or not. And I think that's the beauty of retail media in any situation is it's the quickest feedback loops tied to a sale. You need the least amount of impressions to get a statistically significant read. And so my ultimate recommendation to anyone that is hesitant is test it out. It's not going to be a big barrier to entry and you're going to find out really quickly whether it's driving your results are not what I would say on probably if I knew the person a little bit better. I'm guessing they are looking too heavily at their MMM. So we'd probably do an education session on where MMM has a benefit where maybe that's not necessarily the best read for retail media and how to find that middle ground. But I would say yeah, it's probably more of a systemic issue relating to how you're looking at MMM because I think ultimately the landscape is changing so much. You got to continue to test, learn, optimize. And so if you're like, Hey, my TV has been working for me for a really long time, I'm guessing you're overly relying on your MMM and what has worked for you in the past versus optimizing to where consumers are shifting

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:22):

Small plug. We have a research paper about S and how to think about them for the future. So just I love

Peter Crosby (15:29):

That. Lauren, do you have a research paper map to every single question of this podcast? I mean, I dunno, maybe it's not your fault, you just keep thinking great thoughts. So Mike, digging just a little bit more into the creator affiliate program as it's so important to the generation of incremental and to be where the consumer is, how can brands prepare better or think about how they plan their creator affiliate campaigns? What is it that they can do to make those perform even better than they are? What are some of the either best practices or the worst mistakes that you see people doing that are making them not as successful as they might be?

Mike Feldman (16:15):

Yeah, I think, and this is probably the biggest mistake I see is also I recognize being one of the hardest ones to get over. I used to work brand side in one of the most corporate environments ever, but I would say the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity is not being so strict to the brand brief. And so the example I would give, and I'll relate it to a slightly different one and then I'll bring it back into your question more mainly, but if you think about just posting an organic social in today's world, it is a interest-based algorithm. And so brands do all this research, they spend millions of dollars in Ipsos to understand what is the right creative and what's going to resonate. So I used to work, before I worked at Flywheel, I spent time at Vayner. And so I'm very familiar with the Gary's social playbook.

(17:07):

And the method is not like, Hey, no one's subjective opinion should win. It's put 10 things out there in social, see what the interest base algorithms of the social platforms really resonates. And then that will scale it to give you reach, which will then determine like, oh, that resonated more than other messages. And so I think brands, because they are the brand and they spend so much time thinking about it, it's like this one specific way to talk about the brand is this. It is not that we speak about our products and quality this way, not that way. And I think when you get to the creator affiliate space, you are enabling them to sell on your behalf. And so the more restrictive you get with the brief, it tends to lead to worse content. I would say some of the best examples I've seen is when brands are working with creator affiliates that they write the brief more to the creator and their audience because that's going to be more authentic, that's going to resonate more.

(18:07):

That's typically is what gets you that quality content versus hitting all your specific points. I would say there's a blend too. Brands can help creators sell more easily. We talk about alignment of incentives. If you're like, Hey, this audience buys it for this reason, definitely tell them that so they can get that out there, make it easier for them to sell. But I think the more restrictive brands are and how to talk about the brand, the quality suffers. Frankly, the creators aren't as enthused and fulfilled by doing the work either. So I'd say that's typically the biggest mistake is how deep and restrictive you want to get for the brand. I'm sort of the mindset, I don't care as long as it's not super offensive and people are buying it. So if you can check those boxes for me, I'm generally going to be aligned to it.

Peter Crosby (18:58):

And do you see that mindset shifting more and more? Do you see that conservatism starting to erode given the opportunities that are here because fascinated by those that continue to hang on to that rigidity in an environment where rigidity does not serve you?

Mike Feldman (19:17):

Yeah, there are, yes. I would say yes at the end of the day because legacy CPG organizations, and believe me, I worked at one, I would say the risk mitigation typically is one of the top priorities versus, Hey, let me go blow up my brand brief to drive some sales. So I'd say you typically, that's where some of the startups can be a little more flexible. That's where we see frankly, smaller, more agile companies are doing a lot better in the creator affiliate space than your legacy CPGs. The other area too, I think there is an element of platform strategy and I think that's where in retail media, we'll probably lag a little bit because one implication could be you run more creator affiliates, you learn that, oh, we should be talking about the brand in this very different way. That's probably not going to make it into your PDP content. That's probably one of the most conservative places you'll have is your PDPs versus if you're a brand, maybe your Instagram grid is sacred, but stories are fine or your Snapchat is fine or your TikTok is fine to be a little more crazy or out there. But I would say your retail PDP is always going to be pretty vanilla.

Peter Crosby (20:33):

Your time at VaynerMedia must have been fascinating to do your, you were at the brand, you had all that. When I saw that on your LinkedIn, I was like, wow, that's was it as big a mindset shift as I think? And how has it informed how you approach now that you're sort of back in the, I don't know, I dunno how you describe it, but back sort of in the mainstream if you will.

Mike Feldman (21:01):

Yeah, so I love my time there and think, I think Gary is just so interesting that really helped me in the way that I think about things overall. And even again, I'll talk about the social based algorithms. That was one of my biggest unlocks of my time there. It was, I think even if you look back to, what was it meta, and this was like 2021. They had hundreds of millions of dollars jump in their market cap in one day and it was literally when they flipped the switch from the friend based algorithm to the interest based algorithm. And so Gary talks about is the TikTok of application of social, but that was a concept that we discussed a lot at Vayner and I really took to heart, it was not just like, Hey, you're getting content from the people you follow anymore. Some random people that I'm still connected with from college. It was like, what am I truly interested in? What content do I engage with linger on? And then that starts to serve in that way. So now I don't get a ton of friend pictures. I get a lot of smash burgers and cute puppies and ice cream, and so that's my entire social feed now.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:13):

Cute puppies. Yes, yes,

Mike Feldman (22:15):

Exactly. But then that mindset has really even changed the way that I've approached things. So LinkedIn is a good example. I like posting on LinkedIn and I do it now not because I'm like, Hey, I want to get the word out there, but I really like posting on different topics and concepts and then seeing what gets the most reach. And so it's like the playbook is like do a bunch of things, put it out there, understand what the algorithm is telling you because of reach and engagement and things like that. And then use that to be like, oh, that resonates. Let me go continue to iterate around that topic versus another one. So yeah, I value the time tremendously and I've applied that a lot both in work and in my personal usage of social.

Peter Crosby (23:00):

That's really cool. So let's continue down the social road Meta and Google big shifts happening there, a lot of investments in ai. It feels like a foundational era moment for those companies that they try to figure out how they're going to work in the next decade. How are you seeing dollars shift in the ad world for Meta and Google and those folks during this time and where do you think it's going to go in 2026?

Mike Feldman (23:36):

So I would say if you're in, I mean platform business is definitely the way to go. So if you look, I'm a follow the market cap person, meta, Google, Amazon are all ridiculously strong right now. They're continuing to push in the platform business. So I would say all of those I'm very bullish on to continue to grow, I would say. Where other sort of elements, if you look at Meta right now on a, I'd say more traditional brand social side, yes, continue to see strong performance there along with some competition from TikTok. Where I'm personally the most interested in is how retail media is going to get more into a meta in a Google environment. And so a couple examples I would give is I think if you think about it at its roots, retail media is just retailers monetizing their data and their properties.

(24:31):

And so properties would be anything from the site to the store. We have seen, we have maximized that in retail media. I know we already talked about sponsored products, but we've completely maximized that. So I'd say we will see some in the in-store and things like that. We've definitely maximized the online properties we'll get more into in-store and continue to monetize that. The data piece is really where the biggest growth will come from. And so I think it's about getting that data into other environments. And so integrations with Meta is I would say one of the biggest opportunities we've heard about it in retail media for the last two or three years. It seems a lot of the RMNs have managed service offers, but when we're getting into a world where we're able to access we retail data for targeting and measurement, run that in a self-service way through social platforms like Meta and TikTok, I would say is going to be a massive opportunity both for Meta and the RMNs. Again, that's where discovery, those platforms are great. It's where consumers are spending their time, but getting that rigor of better targeting on the front end from of that purchase based data and more accountable measurement on the backend is going to be a major unlock.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (25:42):

Speaking of accountable measurement, how do you think, what is the trend towards every retailer standardizing how they approach retail media? I know that IAB had a really great council and put out some really great guidelines, but I don't necessarily know if the retailers are incentivized to have standardized metrics. So what is your overall thought? Where do you think that's going to go? Do you think we'll ever get to that kind of utopia or what does Best in class look like to you?

Mike Feldman (26:14):

Yeah, I love the IAB retail media committee. I was on the committee for a hot minute and I would say everyone is generally aligned to the principles of how we want. It's like standardized measurement makes sense. Retail media is great for measurement. We get sales-based attribution. And so I think everyone's like, yes, it makes sense. I don't believe there's a ton of incentives to go get it done. If you think about product and engineering and data science resources are probably the most limited at a lot of these companies. They are the most needed to then help with better measurement solutions and things like that. And so there is that I can RMNs make up for it by standardizing, probably not. And so that's where there isn't a ton of the alignment of incentives. I have loved Amazon's approach for the last decade, which has been like, we're going to be hands off the wheel.

(27:14):

So it's like we're going to let you API into anything. But at the end of the day they talk about automating more and API more, but not necessarily being hands on the wheel leading the measurement charge with their products, yes, with their data, but with the actual pulling it together. No. So that's where I do think agencies can play a larger role there. It's frankly why I was really excited to join Flywheel and the larger Omnicom team is I think about what are the recipes for the future agency model, and I think it's tech and data oriented, more of a platform business like an Amazon and Walmart, others like that. But our platform is going to be more for targeting on the front end, running the media campaigns and better measurement optimizations on the backend. And so that's where I think as agencies plug into Amazon Marketing Cloud, which is Amazon's, Hey, hands off the wheel, but you can go do all this crazy measurement, Walmart pushing more with senti. I do think that's where agencies can help and platforms. So I'd say flywheel, we're not only on the agency side and the service solutions, we're also on the tech side. So we have FCC, flywheel Commerce Cloud, which is our tech similar to View Sky and others are in the space. But that's one where as the agency partner and especially because we have our unique tech, providing that guidance to brands is something that I think we can take on as agency partners.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (28:42):

Speaking of partners, Mike, I feel like there's so many new retail partnerships. There's so many new retail media networks, there's over 200 in the us, 600 globally. I mean, it's hard for brands to identify which one should I focus on. Most of them are only focusing on four or five. But what are the ones in your mind that are like, Hey, watch these. They're doing some really cool stuff. It could be really exciting opportunities for you.

Mike Feldman (29:06):

Yeah, so I'd say I'm going to give you probably one of the least earth shattering answers here that would most people have their top few. The mental model I would use is obviously you could look at the size and scale of your business, which retailers you're selling the most at. I would say what makes the RMN most likely to succeed or have the greatest sort of runway is going to be the fidelity of their first party data. So how much first party data do you have and what ways can you use that? And so to answer your question, like Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Kroger, target, great players, if I had to say one that is maybe not in people's typical top five, but I am incredibly bullish on it would be Costco. And so the reason I feel that way is because they have what, 75 million people on the loyalty card.

(30:02):

You cannot enter a store or make a purchase without scanning your membership card. And so that data is incredibly strong. And so that's where I'd say the more that I know they were later to sort of get into the RMN space. But if I had to think about someone that's going to rise quickly, I would place a lot of bets on Costco because of the quality of that data that they have. And we talk about Amazon clickstream data since the day they were a bookstore. Think about, I've been a Costco member for 20 years now. They have so many purchases in that information on me. So there's a lot they can do.

Peter Crosby (30:40):

So Mike, I thought one of the interesting partnerships that got announced this year was the partnership between Walmart and Vizio. And I was wondering if you find that of potential real value in 2026 and as we're seeing that partnership start to maybe take shape. Yeah. What do you think about that?

Mike Feldman (31:04):

I am very bullish on the Walmart VIO partnership especially. So if you take my definition of retail media monetizing the data and the properties, Vizio gives Walmart an incredible amount of owned and operated properties. So then they buy Visio. Anything on a Vizio TV could be considered a Walmart property to be monetized through the RMN on top of all of that. And actually, I feel remiss your original question of where is everything going? I do think with Walmart and what they're doing with Vizio as well as illa from the data backend is they are creating the next great retail media death star. And so retail media networks, they have the ability to be sort of full funnel. You plug in your stuff and you can run anything. And so with Walmart, with Vizio, they have CTV, they're working on the partnerships to get into other channels.

(32:02):

They are growing their e-com business like crazy. They have Sila to connect that data experience. And so they are, it's hard to catch Amazon, but Walmart definitely has a lot of the ingredients in place compared to any other RMN to get close on top of, I love the moves they're making with Walmart creator and other things like that. So Walmart's really well positioned. If I was sitting in Walmart choose today though, I got to say I would give away Visio TVs for free to anyone willing to sign up for a Walmart plus membership. The reason being you probably make, I don't know, 10 or 20 bucks in margin when you sell a tv, you can make 10 or 20 bucks a month by having a Walmart plus member with a Visio TV in their house. So if I'm Walmart, I am giving away Visio TVs to anyone signing up for a Walmart plus membership.

(32:56):

I realize that giving away the TV to maybe the electronics merchant would seem like a bad decision because we're talking like a 10 to $20 margin. But the way RMNs are monetizing data, they would be able to get that back on a monthly basis for any Walmart shopper with a Walmart plus ID with a Visio TV in their house. So it's a massive opportunity and if obviously they're trying to catch a Amazon and others in the space, so the more data they can get into more properties is ultimately a winning combination. So to answer your question, I'm super bullish on Walmart and Visio. I think it's going to give them that sort of complete ecosystem to do full funnel retail media and hold it really accountable with the dollars.

Peter Crosby (33:40):

I love that every single one of these conversations we've had today have come back to aligned incentives. If you're going to drive the best results, you have to figure out how you organize your incentives to lead to the proper behavior across the entire organization, not just silo by silo. So just pointing that out,

Mike Feldman (34:00):

It is, I mean, of all the various experiences I have had in my career, I will say, so working at Georgia Pacific was so helpful because it is a privately held company. And so you talk about one alignment of incentives is literally one of the leadership principles, but on top of all that privately held company. So the better you can make a business case, the more that you can use data to support it, you generally got the dollars. And so that's where I can see really clearly now having had that experience of like, oh, there clearly is not aligned incentives or someone else needs a very different business case than this other person, even though they truly want the same thing, which is driving sales of the brand. And so it becomes painfully obvious when there is not aligned incentives now.

Peter Crosby (34:47):

And do you end up having that conversation frankly and openly with your customer, or is it, you kind of get at it through, let me show you some data that might possibly suggest how?

Mike Feldman (34:59):

Yeah, I would say so retail media can be an organizational breaking thing because again, it's funded from a couple of different sources. There are different incentive structures. Literally people on teams are being paid for different results. We actually, at Flywheel, we have a consulting offer where we talk about how does retail media sit within your org brand media versus retail media. And so we have a whole, here's how it should sit in your org. Here's how you should be thinking about that and what data points go into it as just like a core offer. And then I would say generally that is also one that I'm just personally passionate about. So if any brand is like, Hey, I'm really struggling with this. I'm like, let's grab time. I would love to nerd out with you on what the incentive structures are, how it hits the p and l, and where we can really move this forward. Because I think for retail media to be as successful as possible, it needs the full support of the org. You can't have the brand media team being like, no, I don't want to do that. It needs to work for the total dollars because I see retail media continuing to play a larger role in full funnel, continuing to grow in overall investments. And so that takes an org wide force, not just your shopper or RMN or e-comm lead pushing it.

Peter Crosby (36:18):

So if you're looking for a great nerd to follow on LinkedIn, it is in fact Mike Feldman. So I would certainly make that recommendation to anyone in our audience who's being lit on fire by some of the things that we're talking about here. His channel is great, so I highly recommend it. Mike, thank you so much for joining us, for bringing this insights into an incentive chat into what's going to be happening in 2026 with retail media. We really appreciate it.

Mike Feldman (36:48):

Thank you again for having me. Any opportunity to nerd out about retail media, especially with you two is a great day. So happy to come back anytime.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (36:56):

Thanks so much, Mike.

Peter Crosby (36:58):

Thanks again to Mike for being our RMN nerd today. There are lots of great nerds in the DSI. Why don't you join them. Come on over to digitalshelfinstitute.org and become a member. Thanks for being part of our community.