By Jack Wagner, CEO, Hawk Digital
Retail media, connected TV and commerce are becoming more closely connected, with real implications for how we build partnerships and monetize audiences.
In our recent issue on AI shopping and checkout readiness, we explored what happens when a shopper chooses a product before ever reaching your store. A similar shift is now happening on the television screen.
For years, we’ve talked about retail media and CTV convergence. This year, the infrastructure is making that connection tangible. Walmart Connect is bringing its first-party shopper data to CTV inventory through Yahoo and Magnite, starting with Vizio. EMARKETER reports that Target’s Roundel and Kroger, working with Roku, are pursuing similar approaches that extend beyond their own properties.
Walmart has also introduced Connect Select, a curated CTV marketplace within its DSP, with inventory from Vizio, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery through FreeWheel, Index Exchange, Magnite and PubMatic.
The opportunity is clear: connect what people watch with what they buy, and give advertisers a stronger reason to invest. For publishers and platforms, the next step is understanding how that opportunity turns into revenue, and what the partnership requires in return. Here are three questions to put on the table first.
1. Who controls the economics?
EMARKETER’s January 2026 analysis estimated that Amazon captured 79.7% of US retail media spending in 2025, followed by Walmart at 8.0% and Target at 1.5%. It also projected that Amazon and Walmart would capture 89% of incremental spending in 2026.
That concentration matters when you’re negotiating access to data, media pricing, measurement and revenue share. Retailer demand can be a valuable revenue opportunity for publishers. Go into the conversation knowing what your inventory and audience contribute, and how much value you keep after everyone takes their share.
2. What does it take to make the integration profitable?
The work can include identity matching, clean-room connections, engineering, reporting and ongoing operational support. Those costs start before the revenue arrives.
Demand is there: EMARKETER found that 72% of retail media advertisers identify video as a primary area of off-site spending. But demand alone doesn’t make a business case. What incremental revenue can the partnership generate? How long will implementation take? What can each party learn from the audience match, and what do the agreements allow them to use afterward? A clean room can support controlled collaboration, but the permissions, outputs and commercial terms still need careful review.
3. Who validates the outcomes?
Walmart reports a median of 44% new-to-brand buyers across its FY26 CTV campaigns. That’s a compelling reported result. The next conversation should be about how it was calculated. What defines “new to brand”? What attribution window applies? How are overlapping exposures handled? Can an independent party validate the findings?
Closed-loop measurement can strengthen the link between media investment and sales. Advertisers and publishers need enough transparency to understand what the numbers actually show.
Questions to Ask Before Signing
- What demand and incremental revenue does this partnership bring?
- Who sets pricing, fees and revenue share?
- What will implementation and ongoing support cost?
- What audience insights can each party access, retain or reuse?
- Who calculates attribution, and how can the results be independently validated?
At Hawk Digital, we see significant opportunity where CTV, retail media, interactive creative and commerce come together. Tying an ad view to what a shopper does next opens up new inventory for publishers and shows brands which campaigns are working. The commercial model needs the same attention as the technology. As these partnerships expand, our focus is on who creates the value, who measures it and who gets paid.
Where Hawk’s Enterprise AI Command Center Fits
Trading data for reach can be a reasonable deal. It becomes a worse deal every year you have no direct relationship with the customer on the other end, because then the platform’s graph is the only user graph.
Hawk’s Enterprise AI Command Center is being built around that continuity: branded customer engagement and revenue intelligence across your own channels, with human handoffs built in. MeetRosie.ai is the retail media application of the broader system. The practical starting point is deciding which catalog, inventory and customer information a partner needs, what they may do with it, and where a person takes over.
Final Thought
The convergence story is usually told as two budgets finding each other. The more useful framing: one side brought the shopper graph, the other brought the screen, and the terms of that exchange are being written right now by whoever has more leverage.
None of this argues against participating. It argues for reading the data terms as carefully as you’d read a rate card. The integrations signed this quarter are the ones you’ll be operating under in three years.
Start with one partner agreement. Find the clause that says what happens to your audience data after the campaign ends.
What We’re Watching
- Retail media and CTV: Roku Curate bundles Roku inventory with retail purchase data from partners including Criteo, Best Buy Ads, Kroger Precision Media and Instacart, aiming to reduce reliance on data brokers and clean rooms. Worth watching whether fewer intermediaries also means fewer places to audit. (MediaPost)
- Ad auctions and regulation: The FTC and 22 states allege Amazon added an undisclosed surcharge, internally called a “soft reserve price,” to its ad auctions beginning in 2019. The case, filed August 31, is unresolved. It matters here because the same auction mechanics underpin much of the retail media pitch. (Federal Trade Commission)
Work With Hawk Digital
Hawk Digital helps publishers, platforms, brands and agencies connect revenue strategy with the operational work needed to deliver it, across CTV, retail media, commerce, ad operations and AI workflows.
Book a quick call with our team →
This article first appeared in Hawk Talk: “Voices of Innovation,” our LinkedIn newsletter. Read the original on LinkedIn and subscribe for new issues.
