‍Kalpana Jayaram is Client Partner for Retail Media & Commerce at AUDIENCES, where she works with retailers and brands to unlock the commercial value of first-party data through real-time, in-cloud activation.

Kalpana specialises in retail media strategy, commerce-driven activation and bridging the gap between data, media and commercial decision-making.

In AUDIENCES's new blog series 'Perspectives Across Verticals' written by AUDIENCES' client partners, Kalpana kicks off the series with her perspective on the retail media landscape and the competitive advantage. brands and retailers can harness.

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Real-Time Commerce Is the Next Competitive Edge

Retail media has matured at speed. Budgets have shifted decisively, networks have scaled, and the language of closed-loop measurement is now table stakes rather than a differentiator. According to IAB Europe, retail media is now one of the fastest-growing advertising channels in the region, with a clear shift from test budgets into always-on investment. As networks mature, expectations are rising just as quickly particularly around efficiency, relevance and measurable commercial impact.

On the surface, the model looks robust. Yet beneath that progress sits an increasingly uncomfortable truth: commerce now moves in real time, while much of retail media activation still does not. For all the talk of agility and precision, a significant proportion of retail media continues to rely on operating models designed for a slower era.

Built for Stability, Not Speed

Most retail media today is activated through periodic data handovers. Customer behaviour is captured, processed, segmented and then passed into media platforms on delayed cycles, often weekly. Audiences are defined in advance, campaigns are planned around those segments, and performance is assessed after delivery. It is a model built for stability rather than speed and one that assumes shopper behaviour remains consistent long enough to be captured in scheduled updates. That assumption no longer holds. Commerce today is dynamic and immediate. Shoppers browse, compare and purchase within a single session, often across devices. Promotions appear and disappear within hours. Stock availability fluctuates throughout the day. Yet media activation frequently continues as if behaviour were linear, predictable and slow-moving.

The Lag No One Talks About

The gap between how commerce works and how media is activated is rarely discussed openly, but its effects are everywhere. When activation relies on weekly audience refreshes, media is almost always reacting after intent has peaked. Spend follows behaviour that has already moved on. This lag doesn’t always show up clearly in dashboards, but it quietly erodes performance.

Advertising to Customers Who Have Already Bought

One of the most visible symptoms of this lag is post-purchase wastage. Retailers routinely continue advertising products to customers who have already converted not because the insight is missing, but because the activation cycle hasn’t caught up yet. A customer who purchases on Monday can still be targeted aggressively on Friday. Acquisition messaging persists long after the moment has passed.  

For shoppers, the experience feels clumsy and impersonal. For retailers, the cost is more serious: inflated spend, distorted reporting and missed opportunities to redirect budgets towards retention, cross-sell or suppression. At scale, this is not an edge case. It is a structural inefficiency baked into how much of retail media still operates.

When Intent Moves Faster Than Segments

Static audience segments assume intent is relatively stable. In practice, intent is anything but. It fluctuates with pricing changes, promotions, stock levels and even time of day. A shopper may appear “high intent” one moment and be entirely inactive the next simply because their need has already been met.

When activation is tied to historic snapshots of behaviour, it inevitably optimises for the past. By the time spend is adjusted, the opportunity has often gone. This is how retail media ends up chasing yesterday’s shopper in today’s market.

Media That Loses Touch With Commercial Reality

For retailers, this lag translates into margin leakage, inefficient monetisation and media revenue that underperforms its potential. For brands, it shows up as wasted spend and a growing frustration that retail media promises precision but delivers it too late. Both sides are working from the same data signals. The difference lies in whether those signals are activated while they still reflect live commercial reality or after the moment has passed.

From Segments to Signals

What is emerging now is not simply a new optimisation tactic, but a different way of thinking about activation altogether. Rather than relying on pre-built segments derived from historic behaviour, leading retailers are beginning to focus on live behavioural signals. Activated immediately, these signals can drive relevance and efficiency. Activated days later, they offer little value at all. This shift from segments to signals is where execution becomes critical. Activating live behavioural and commercial signals requires models that allow data to remain in-cloud, move securely, and be acted on instantly without the delays introduced by traditional handovers and batch processing. This is the approach we take at AUDIENCES: enabling retailers and brands to activate first-party data directly, in real time, while maintaining control, privacy and interoperability across the ecosystem.

The Real Competitive Advantage in 2026

As retail media enters its next phase, scale alone will no longer be enough to differentiate. The networks that succeed will be those that can respond fastest, suppress wastage instantly and align media activity with live commercial conditions. Real-time activation turns retail media from a reporting layer into a live commercial lever. It allows spend to move with intent, promotions and availability, rather than chasing them after the fact. n a market defined by speed, delayed activation is not neutral. It is a disadvantage.

Final Thought

Retailers and brands do not need more data. They already have it. What they need is the ability to act on that data while it still reflects real intent, real availability and real commercial priorities. As commerce continues to accelerate, retail media will have to follow.

If this is a challenge you’re actively navigating, I’m always open to exchanging perspectives. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or explore how AUDIENCES works with retailers and brands to enable real-time activation. by dropping me an email.

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