Donald Williams

As brands and agencies brace for economic volatility, proactive steps are essential for ensuring media investments remain effective. From scenario planning and prioritizing transparency to competitive intelligence, it’s vital to prepare for varying economic conditions. Historical insights show that brands maintaining advertising spending fare better and recover faster. Marketing leaders must keep tone sensitivity in mind as consumers become more deliberate about spending. Adaptation is key. #MarketingStrategy #EconomicUncertainty #Advertising #BrandGrowth #MediaInvestments #Leadership #ScenarioPlanning

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Advanced measurement is moving from a “nice to have” to a requirement for brands that want to prove how marketing drives real business outcomes.✅ Nowhere is this more visible than in Retail Media Networks. RMNs like Instacart give brands access to closed-loop performance data tied to actual purchases. That data is powerful, but it also raises an important question for marketing leaders: How do we validate results beyond platform-reported metrics and understand true incremental impact? This is why third-party measurement is becoming a critical part of the RMN conversation. Circana has emerged as a leading independent measurement partner for retail media performance, including Instacart. By combining retailer point-of-sale data with broader market and category intelligence, Circana helps brands understand not just what sold, but what actually changed because of advertising. https://lnkd.in/gp4CghWf For food and beverage brands, this matters because RMN performance rarely exists in isolation. Retail media influences household penetration, repeat rates, brand switching, and category growth, not just attributed sales within a single platform. Third-party measurement helps separate signal from noise by providing a consistent view across retailers, channels, and time. The broader industry trend is clear. As RMN budgets grow, marketers are being asked to answer harder questions around incrementality, brand impact, and long-term growth. Platform dashboards alone are no longer enough. At Effective, we see advanced media performance reporting as a layered system. Platform data shows what happened. Third-party measurement helps explain why it happened and whether it was truly incremental. Together, they create a clearer connection between media investment and business results. This is how performance reporting evolves from tracking activity to proving impact. Jeff O'Shaughnessy Joelle Kaplan #MarketingMeasurement #RetailMedia #MediaPerformance #Incrementality #F&B #MarketingEffectiveness

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For years, digital advertising has claimed to be “contextual,” but most solutions have relied on keywords, not a true understanding. That approach overlooks nuance, culture, and emotion, particularly in non-English-speaking markets. AI is finally changing that. By reading meaning, tone, and context, AI-powered tools allow brands to engage audiences with relevance and respect, not just data points. This is how we move from talking at people to speaking with them and why OOH and premium media can lead the way in human-centered advertising.

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I got quoted in Skai 2026 State of Retail Media report this week - this one is all about measurement. According to Skai, only 15% of brands say they're highly effective at measuring retail media performance. From all my conversations... that sounds about right. But the tools are out there, and the agencies to support you are out there (hint... we do this extremely well). It's not because the tools or the knowledge don't exist. It's not because the methodology is too complex. It's not even a data access problem. The real barrier? People and ownership. 56% said they lack internal analytics or data science resources. Nearly 1 in 5 said there's no clear cross-functional ownership between sales, media, and analytics. In my opinion lack of analytics access is the excuse. Lack of ownership is the problem. I stand by that. Here's what I see constantly with brands: the retail media budget grows, the channel count grows, the retailer portals multiply and the analytics infrastructure stays exactly the same. We keep pouring spending into the machine and then wonder why we can't explain what it's doing. And the incrementality gap is brutal. 75% of brands say incrementality measurement is their #1 challenge. But only 20% are actually good at both measuring AND applying those insights to decisions. Everyone knows it's the north star. Almost no one has operationalized it. The aspirations vs. reality data were the most telling part of the whole report. Brands hope incrementality will unlock profit margin improvements (68% said so). Only 24% have actually achieved that. That gap isn't a measurement problem. It's an organizational design problem. If you're a Head of #eCommerce staring down a budget conversation right now, here's the honest takeaway: You don't need another dashboard. You need to invest in this and give authority to someone who owns #incrementality end to end, standardize definitions your media, finance, and analytics teams all agree on, and a decision cadence that actually changes what you do next. As always, I'm here to help. DM me with any questions.

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CMOs Are More Focused On Growing Revenue Than Brand Awareness https://lnkd.in/g8jyVmuY Chief marketing officers are increasingly prioritizing direct revenue outcomes over traditional brand awareness efforts, influenced by economic pressures, performance measurement demands, and AI‑enabled tracking. This shift reflects a need for more measurable impact on business performance, with revenue growth becoming a leading strategic metric for modern marketing leaders. #CMOInsights #RevenueGrowth #MarketingStrategy #BrandVsPerformance #BusinessImpact #DataDrivenMarketing

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🚨 The landscape of CTV Advertising has undergone a significant transformation with the recent Roku-Amazon Alliance announcement at Cannes Lions. This strategic partnership marks a pivotal moment, granting access to approximately 80% of U.S. CTV households, equivalent to around 80 million homes, as highlighted by John Tomase of LinkedIn News. 👉 Initial outcomes are already demonstrating the impact of this collaboration: - 40% increase in unique viewers - 30% reduction in repeated ads - 3x surge in the value of ad spend Having been part of Roku during its early stages, witnessing this development is not merely exhilarating but also the realization of our long-standing vision to establish a dominant presence in the CTV advertising realm through strategic alliances and unparalleled scalability. This partnership signifies more than a mere business deal; it marks a seismic shift in the future landscape of television advertising. 💡 Why This Development Is Significant: 1. The Strategic Move: Scale, Data & Authenticated Reach By amalgamating Roku's CTV reach with Amazon's DSP, a colossal authenticated identity graph is being constructed—a dream come true for advertisers. This translates to reduced wastage of impressions and enhanced precision in targeted, measurable ad delivery. 2. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence Empowered by extensive first-party data and user log-ins, AI can now be leveraged comprehensively to drive hyper-personalized ad experiences. Imagine dynamic ad placements based on real-time behaviors and preferences, transcending traditional demographic targeting. 3. Addressing Key Concerns Will this consolidation potentially stifle market competition? The dynamics of pricing control might shift with increased influence in Amazon's domain. The neutrality of DSP is under scrutiny—what implications will this have for platforms like The Trade Desk? 🔮 Anticipated Developments: ✅ Enhanced focus on authenticated data and AI integration ✅ Emergence of "super-platforms" consolidating inventory and data control ✅ Encouraging brands to adapt: If you're not already optimizing for Amazon’s DSP, now’s the time. ✅ Potential for both innovation and consolidation risks This is a moment of truth for the CTV ecosystem. As we adopt smarter, AI-powered advertising, we must also ask tough questions about data control, interoperability, and competition. Do you think this will reshape the future of media buying for the better or limit it? #CTV #Advertising #Roku #AmazonAds #DigitalAdvertising #MediaBuying #Marketing #AdTech #ConnectedTV Read more: https://lnkd.in/gAzSAAeb

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Jennifer Kattula, could not agree more -> "Generative AI is transforming marketing and how brands engage with their audiences. As much as I love AI, robots will not replace human taste, craft, curation, or nuance" What a wonderful conversation with Kristin Reagan from Annalect. Highly recommend this read.

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LiveRamp Expands Meta Insights Available to Retail Media Networks 👉Learn more : https://lnkd.in/ef7Mvw2f 🤔Retail media networks can now unlock new attribution insights from their Meta campaign investments through the LiveRamp Clean Room. By connecting Meta campaign results with their own first-party sales data, RMNs and their partners can see how off-property sites, including Meta, drive sales, orders, and ROAS across campaigns, brands, and products. Let’s accelerate data collaboration and retail media 🔥

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“Ramsey McGrory, newly appointed President of Prisma at Mediaocean, joins Ari Paparo to discuss how the company is evolving its platform across linear and digital media. They unpack the implications of Mediaocean’s acquisitions, including Innovid and Protected by Mediaocean, and what it means to consolidate media planning, buying, and verification in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.” https://lnkd.in/gb3WgMes

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Audio represents 20%+ of consumer media time but under 5% of ad spend (eMarketer). For pharma brands focused on reach, frequency, and trust, this unlocks smarter investment without sacrificing accountability. "Viant Technology’s direct integration with iHeartMedia... allows both companies to match their data graphs and create shared IDs for targeting audiences in digital audio, as well as broadcast radio, where audience ID signals are scarce." Net-net: we're making hard to measure channels measurable and heping healthcare marketers better understand who they’re reaching, how often, and how audio fits into the full patient and HCP journey. Audio has always driven impact. Now, with Viant, it drives insight too. #HealthcareMarketing #PharmaMarketing #Viant #Programmatic #AddressableAdvertising #MeasurableMedia #AudioAds https://lnkd.in/ek8J-iJE

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Really appreciated being part of this conversation. Big industry shifts raise questions, but they also create space for new ideas and new ways of working. Chicago’s creative community has been through change before, and it always finds its footing.

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For years, we've watched retail media continue to fragment often operating on the promise of "closed-loop data" rather than verifiable, standardized results. In 2025, with IAB's new Commerce Media Standards going live, we're seeing the inevitable fallout: brand satisfaction with RMN transparency has plummeted from 66% to 44%. The market is demanding accountability. Brands are done asking for proprietary dashboards; they're demanding shared, IAB-aligned proof. The old JBP (Joint Business Plan) is evolving into something more like the JVP (Joint Value Partnership), where outcomes replace obligations and standardization is the currency. 👉 Read the full perspective : https://lnkd.in/giDQc9jY #RetailMedia #JBP #JVP #CommerceMedia #Transparency #MediaAMP

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Horizon and Havas have formed a media joint venture in order to chase larger clients. Together, they hope to exploit market disruption. https://lnkd.in/egzx3QK8

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CMOs demand guaranteed delivery, lowest CPMs, strategic flexibility, and outcome-based pricing. Physics says you can't have all four simultaneously. Principal media delivers three of them. The question is which three matter most. Forrester's new principal media report from the inimitable Jay Pattisall is very much worth a read, and it's going to trigger the predictable debate. Critics will argue agencies are creating conflicts. Evangelists will tout cost savings. Both will miss the strategic reality: CMOs facing compression don't have the luxury of perfect markets. I've watched boards push CMOs for guaranteed outcomes while slashing budgets. In that environment, academic arguments about strategic flexibility mean nothing. The anti-principal media argument assumes unlimited client patience, perfect information, and rational markets. Reality looks different. Reality is: your board wants cost certainty so they can model P&L without media volatility. Reality is: your CFO wants guaranteed delivery so you're not scrambling for Super Bowl inventory in scatter markets. Reality is: your CEO wants outcome-based pricing that ties media spend to business results. Principal media trades strategic flexibility for the three things boards actually care about: cost certainty, delivery guarantee, and outcome alignment. The Forrester report shows 80% of marketers are interested in principal media advantages. That's not because CMOs are naive about conflicts of interest. It's because they're making rational trade-offs under real constraints. The criticism of principal media comes from people who've never faced the impossible triangle. They can afford to optimize for strategic flexibility because they're not accountable for the P&L impact when media costs spike or inventory disappears. Yes, principal media requires transparency. Yes, it needs contractual controls and performance accountability. Yes, clients should cap how much spend flows through principal arrangements. But the mechanism itself? It's agencies finally building inventory positions that enable the outcome-based pricing we've demanded for years. I'm a big supporter as, for two decades, I've watched CMOs demand that agencies move from billing hours to pricing on outcomes. "Put skin in the game," they said. "Share the risk." Now agencies are doing exactly that with principal media, and the industry is calling it a conflict of interest. We can't have it both ways. Forrester predicts principal media will grow to one-third of billings by 2026. Read their report, then decide which three variables matter most for your business. https://lnkd.in/eKHg5qmk #PrincipalMedia #MediaBuying #CMO #MarketingLeadership #MarketingStrategy

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Another week and another article in the media industry trade press exposing the same old story: opaque incremental deals, principal media, and holding groups monetising volume instead of value. https://lnkd.in/eaSmgxpu And let’s be honest — none of this is new. The ANA has been crystal clear: principal media thrives because legacy agencies act as principals, not agents, restricting transparency and prioritising their own margins and bundles over client outcomes . What is hard to understand is that the industry is still pretending to be surprised. 👉 Why are auditors, and pitch consultants still rewarding volume as if it were a proxy for quality? 👉 Why do they measure mainly new business wins and scale instead of the capability to activate innovation before. Volume is the raw material of arbitrage. It’s the fuel of intermediation. It’s the mechanism that allows dark deals and principal trading to flourish. If you value volume, you implicitly value the business model that produces these behaviours. So maybe the industry’s problem isn’t just the deals — it’s the metrics that keep validating them. When will we shift from measuring “how big” to measuring “how good”? When will we start valuing the capabilities that actually matter to advertisers — strategic talent, data maturity, ethical use of technology, real performance — instead of how much media an agency can push through its pipes? Until that happens, don’t expect change, expect demise, because the incentives are still pointed in the wrong direction.

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Our latest blog provides a comprehensive breakdown of the evolving advertising landscape, emphasizing the advantages of Connected TV (CTV) over other TV strategies. By integrating CTV with intent data, brands and marketers regain control over their desired audiences, allowing for tailored messaging and targeted spending. This approach also enhances the cross-channel and cross-device opportunities for attribution. There is little doubt that CTV will become more and more prevalent in the marketing mix for the vast majority of brands in 2026. Check it out below: https://lnkd.in/eiZbktjz Kevin Frisbie Lillian Morgan Delilah A. Sabrena Collins Chris Gruening

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Really interesting piece. We’ve spent years in ad tech chasing sophistication, whether that's smarter targeting, deeper insights, or more automation. Sophistication without connection, however, isn't really progress. In my experience, it's closer to paralysis. The truth is, most teams don’t need more data. They need usable data. They need systems that connect, not compete. When we get that right, marketing becomes less about simply managing platforms and more about making decisions that actually move the business forward. That's the kind of infrastructure that changes everything. It's not the shiny new tech, but the connective tissue underneath it.

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By using AI to interpret real-time content signals, advertisers can now align messaging with where users are in the buying journey. The result? Fewer wasted impressions, stronger engagement and better ROI 📈 Seedtag’s latest blog unpacks how intent based marketing bridges privacy & performance by predicting readiness through real-time content analysis - no tracking required. https://lnkd.in/e8fzMCiC #AdTech #ContextualAdvertising #AIIntentionModels #AttentionToIntention

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Some key takeaways from Walmart Connect’s kickoff to the ANAs Masters of Marketing last week. Our massive out of home footprint (in-store screens, fuel stations and self check out) coupled with Vizio’s dominance in CTV reach and integrated marketing capabilities allow for a full funnel solution powered by accountable measurement and first party data. Three points jump out for me…  1. Retail media can now power holistic media strategies. 2.Uneven Adoption/application means early movers can seize a stronger share of voice more efficiently and 3. Maturing measurement solutions- including with CTV- are helping brands harness retail media’s full- funnel potential. #ana #walmartconnect #letssparksales

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