When Google head of retail media Shawn McGahee started in his role in February 2022, there were about 40 retail media networks. That number has since ballooned to over 200.

McGahee sat down with WPP-owned Wavemaker’s U.S. head of commerce, Briana Finelli, and ADWEEK deputy editor of retail media and commerce, Lauren Johnson, for a panel at ADWEEK’s Mediaweek event in New York last week. The panel was sponsored by Google.

The panel was largely about the nuances of retail media, but McGahee also made his pitch on why Google should be in stronger consideration for that spend. Google’s competitors in retail media include giants The Trade Desk and Criteo.

Retail media challenges

Best Buy launched the first retail media network in 2010, Finelli said. But about 60% of retail media networks launched in 2022 alone, McGahee said.

Retail media is popular because it uses retailers’ first-party data to power ads for companies like those in consumer packaged goods that might not have direct access to consumers.

Today, retail media is at a crossroads, McGahee said. While retail ads drive performance, retailers also need to diversify their offering and provide more upper-funnel solutions. Retailers need to do that while driving profit for themselves and efficiency for advertisers, he said.

Google’s retail media killer, its so-called Shopping ads, are also advantageous to advertisers because those ads appear at the top of the search results page, said McGahee.

“For many brands, if they did not have a direct-to-consumer offering, this was like high-placement Google inventory that they just did not have an avenue to participate in,” he said.

But unlike ads on retailer’s ecommerce sites, Google’s off-platform Shopping ads give brands more control, McGahee claimed. Retail media networks have to prioritize the agenda of the retailers that own them, and they often prioritize which brands to product to promote on their own ecommerce websites.

“A retailer might not want to offer all the customizations and things that you might be used to or that you might want to apply as a best practice to some of your campaigns,” Finelli said. “We help our clients navigate nuance and minutia like that to get the most out of their buys.”

McGahee added that retail media can’t easily go upper funnel—or target people at the earlier stages of the buying process that influences brand awareness and recall. He claimed this is because retail media networks need to make money from selling audience data, which makes it expensive for advertisers to reach top-of-funnel audiences.