The Next Generation of Media Networks Starts with Infrastructure

By Janine Flaccavento, SVP of Retail Media for the Americas at Criteo

Topgolf recently joined a growing wave of companies teeing up a new era of media networks, reflecting a broader shift as companies with direct consumer relationships look to build new media and advertising businesses around those audiences. Building a durable media ecosystem means turning customer data into useful intelligence, activating it responsibly, and connecting it to measurable business outcomes. Retailers have already provided the blueprint, and now we see how the industry is latching on to this monetization opportunity.

What Retail Media Got Right

Retail media began with a relatively straightforward value proposition: retailers had rich first-party shopper data and could give brands access to audiences close to the point of purchase. Over time, retailers built sophisticated ecosystems around those relationships, connecting customer data, merchandising, loyalty, advertising, and measurement. That evolution offers a useful playbook for companies beyond traditional retail.

The bigger lesson is that the worth of a media business doesn’t come from audience scale alone. It comes from what a company knows about its audience, how effectively it can turn those signals into action, and whether it can connect media activity to business outcomes.

Companies well beyond retail have many of the same raw ingredients. Entertainment companies know what audiences watch and engage with. Travel companies understand where customers go and what they need. Financial platforms may understand the products, services, and life moments that matter to their users. Each has the potential to turn that understanding into the foundation for a media business. The challenge is turning that understanding into something a media business can act on at scale.

AI can help companies draw intelligence from proprietary audience signals, identifying patterns, anticipating intent, and making customer data more actionable by giving them new ways to translate what they know about their audiences into more relevant offers, engagements, and in the case of a TopGolf, unique experiences.

The value of these signals comes from the distinct perspective each company can offer. Purchase behavior, viewing habits, travel patterns, and other first-party activities can reveal different dimensions of consumer interests, needs, and intent. For advertisers, that differentiated understanding can create a more informed view of the shoppers they want to reach.

AI also makes it more feasible to work with the scale and complexity that comes with building a media network. As companies expand their advertiser bases and media offerings, AI can help teams interpret more signals and manage increasingly complex media activity at scale.

But more signals and increased automation will not automatically produce better media. The real test is whether the intelligence a company generates can be translated into measurable outcomes for consumers, advertisers, and the business itself.

Measurement Is an Infrastructure Essential

Turning signals into action only creates a durable media business if companies can demonstrate the value of that activity.  A key lesson from the retail media playbook is that advertisers need a clear view of who they reached and the business impact that followed.

Return on ad spend will remain an important metric, but advertisers increasingly need visibility into broader impact, including halo effects across channels, retailers, and related purchases. For emerging media networks, the ability to provide that visibility can be a meaningful differentiator. In the case of Commerce media networks, this can be even trickier because they are acting more like a publisher than a retailer – there’s many times no shopping cart, and therefore closed loop reporting can be more difficult when transactions are happening off of their owned and operated properties.

That requires infrastructure capable of connecting audience signals, media activity, and business performance while maintaining privacy, governance, and brand safety. As media spreads across retailer sites, apps, physical locations, entertainment environments, and other platforms, the ability to connect media activity, signals, and measurement across those environments becomes increasingly important. Without that connective tissue, companies risk ending up with a fragmented view of media performance and business impact.

First-party data remains one of the most valuable assets in this ecosystem because it is rooted in direct consumer activity and can be managed with privacy-forward controls. Contextual intelligence can make that data more useful, while AI can help interpret and activate it at scale. But AI alone isn’t enough; the underlying infrastructure still needs to ensure those insights are used responsibly and that their impact can be effectively measured.

There is also a new layer of responsibility. As AI increasingly influences how consumers discover products, services, and brands, recommendations and media touchpoints need to balance relevance with appropriate controls. Getting that balance right will be critical to building trust with audiences and credibility with advertisers.

Building the Foundation for What Comes Next

Topgolf’s move is a further sign of where the market is heading, as more companies are recognizing that a well-established audience can create a strong foundation for a media business. The next question is what powers it.

Those best positioned to lead the next evolution of media networks will be the companies that can make their unique audiences more useful for advertisers and connect media activity to measurable business outcomes. Having a strong audience is a great starting point, but what companies build around that audience will ultimately determine the strength and value of the media business.