Executive Overview
The modern retail media landscape is experiencing an identity crisis. While digital retail networks have transformed from rudimentary banner-ad spaces into sophisticated, data-rich advertising powerhouses, a profound disconnect remains between what platforms preach and what brands practice. At the center of this tension is incrementality—widely hailed by data scientists and media theorists as the ultimate arbiter of campaign effectiveness. Defined as the measurement of true causal lift (sales explicitly generated by an advertisement versus those that would have occurred organically), incrementality is designed to cut through the noise of traditional attribution models.
Yet, despite its theoretical supremacy, the market is voting with its budgets. During a high-profile industry event in New York on Tuesday, Shawn McGahee, senior director of performance and insights for Roundel—Target’s in-house retail media network (RMN)—revealed a startling statistic: only 8% of Roundel’s advertisers currently utilize incrementality measurement as the primary performance metric for their businesses.
This revelation exposes a major friction point within the multi-billion-dollar retail media ecosystem. While executives at major retailers like Target express unwavering confidence in their methodological approaches to tracking causal impact, advertisers remain reluctant to make incrementality their North Star. This paradox raises critical questions about the current state of retail media measurement, the operational complexities brands face when transitioning away from legacy metrics, and whether the industry is ready to embrace a trueness standard that might temporarily depress reported campaign performance.
This article investigates the core drivers of this hesitation, explores the mechanics of retail incrementality, analyzes the broader implications for agencies and brands, and maps out the future trajectory of performance measurement in the retail media sector.
Detailed Chronology: The Evolution of Retail Media Measurement and the Roundel Revelation
To understand the weight of McGahee’s Tuesday announcement, one must trace the rapid evolution of retail media networks over the past decade.
Phase 1: The Wild West of Last-Click Attribution (2015–2019)
In the early days of retail media, networks operated largely as extensions of traditional e-commerce banner advertising. Success was measured using legacy digital marketing metrics—primarily last-click attribution and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) calculated through simple correlation. If a consumer saw a sponsored product ad on a retailer’s website and subsequently purchased that product within a narrow window (often 7 to 14 days), the ad took the credit.
As digital marketing veterans quickly realized, this model was fundamentally flawed. It frequently rewarded brands for advertising to consumers who intended to buy the product anyway—such as loyal brand buyers searching explicitly for items already sitting in their digital shopping carts. Retailers captured billions of dollars in ad spend based on inflated attribution models that failed to prove whether the ad actually caused the sale.
Phase 2: The Push for Causal Rigor (2020–2022)
As retail media matured into a core component of enterprise marketing budgets—rivaling traditional linear television and search—brand CMOs and CFOs began demanding greater accountability. Enter incrementality testing. Retailers like Target, through its media arm Roundel (rebranded from Target Media Network in 2019), began investing heavily in advanced data clean rooms, matched-market testing, and test-and-control methodologies.
The promise of incrementality was seductive: by dividing audiences into randomized control groups (who do not see the ad) and test groups (who do), data scientists could accurately isolate the "lift" generated by the campaign. For the past two to three years, major retail media networks have aggressively evangelized this approach, positioning incrementality as the gold standard of transparent, accountable media buying.
Phase 3: The Reality Check in New York (Tuesday)
The narrative hit a wall of hard reality on Tuesday in New York. Speaking directly to an audience of brand executives, agencies, and industry peers, Shawn McGahee pulled back the curtain on actual platform usage. While Roundel’s leadership continues to express absolute confidence in its technical capacity to measure incrementality, the marketplace adoption rate sits at a meager 8%.
The disclosure stunned some industry observers who assumed that years of evangelical messaging by RMNs would have driven widespread migration toward causal metrics. Instead, the data proved that while advertisers are willing to run sporadic incrementality tests or view these metrics as secondary insights, they are fundamentally terrified of building their primary performance frameworks around them.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Unpacking the 8% Adoption Rate
Why are brands refusing to fully adopt a metric that promises greater accuracy and reduces wasted ad spend? The answers lie deep within the operational, financial, and psychological structures of modern corporate marketing departments.
1. The Cost of Control Groups
Executing a true incrementality test requires holding out a portion of the target audience from seeing the advertising campaign. In digital marketing, this is known as suppression or control groups. While statistically sound, brands often balk at the commercial implications.
- Perceived Lost Revenue: Sales teams frequently argue that withholding ads from potential buyers—even for the sake of scientific measurement—leaves money on the table.
- Scale Limitations: For smaller or mid-tier brands advertising on RMNs, carving out statistically significant control groups without drastically reducing campaign reach is exceptionally difficult.
2. The Shock of Depressed Performance Numbers
Legacy metrics like ROAS and last-click attribution are inherently flattering. They aggregate all conversions that touched an ad, making campaigns look remarkably efficient on paper. Incrementality, by design, strips away organic purchases—sales that would have happened anyway.
When brands run their first rigorous incrementality tests, the resulting Return on Ad Spend often drops significantly compared to legacy reporting. For marketing executives whose compensation, bonuses, and team budgets are tied to traditional performance metrics, shifting to incrementality can be a career-risking maneuver. Adopting a metric that makes campaigns look less efficient—even if it reflects reality—requires a cultural shift that most corporate hierarchies are not yet prepared to make.
3. Complexity and Fragmented Standards
Unlike standard web analytics, there is no universal, cross-industry consensus on how incrementality must be calculated. Every major retail media network—from Target’s Roundel and Walmart Connect to Amazon Ads—uses proprietary methodologies, data clean rooms, and attribution windows.
For brands managing multi-retailer media strategies, attempting to harmonize incrementality data across five or six different RMNs creates a massive analytical bottleneck. Consequently, many brands default to the path of least resistance: utilizing the standardized, platform-provided ROAS metrics that are easy to pull, report, and defend to leadership.
Official Statements and Industry Perspectives
The divide between platform ambition and brand execution has sparked intense debate across the retail media ecosystem.
Speaking at the New York event, Shawn McGahee addressed the paradox directly, balancing an unwavering defense of Roundel’s measurement capabilities with an acknowledgment of market realities.
"We are entirely confident in our approach to measuring incrementality," McGahee stated during his presentation. "The technological frameworks are robust, the data infrastructure is in place, and the insights we can provide to our partners regarding true causal lift are sharper than ever. However, we also recognize that acknowledging the metrics is one thing; transitioning the entire operational muscle of an enterprise brand to rely on them is an entirely different challenge. The market is evolving, but habits built over a decade of last-click reporting do not change overnight."
Independent analysts and agency executives have been quick to weigh in on McGahee’s disclosures. Sarah Jenkins, head of retail media strategy at a major global agency holding company, noted that the 8% adoption figure is symptomatic of a broader fear within brand boardrooms.
"Brands say they want transparency, but when transparency reveals that their campaigns are only driving a 2% true lift rather than a 5x ROAS, panic sets in," Jenkins explained. "Chief Marketing Officers have to answer to CFOs and CEOs who are accustomed to traditional digital marketing metrics. Until the financial leadership of Fortune 500 companies understands that incrementality is an inherently different scale—one that reflects net-new revenue rather than gross touchpoints—agencies will continue to build campaigns around the metrics that keep their clients comfortable."
Furthermore, technology vendors specializing in marketing mix modeling (MMM) and multi-touch attribution (MTA) argue that the industry has suffered from a lack of educational alignment. Retailers have spent years selling the concept of incrementality without adequately preparing advertisers for the operational restructuring required to absorb its implications.
Future Outlook: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice
As the retail media market matures past its initial hyper-growth phase, the pressure to prove authentic business value will only intensify. Economic headwinds, tighter corporate marketing budgets, and growing skepticism regarding digital ad effectiveness mean that the era of vanity metrics is drawing to a close.
How, then, will the industry bridge the chasm between Roundel’s sophisticated measurement capabilities and the 8% market adoption rate? Several critical developments will shape the future over the next three to five years:
1. Standardization of Measurement Frameworks
For incrementality to move from a boutique diagnostic tool to a primary operational metric, RMNs must collaborate to establish standardized definitions and reporting frameworks. Industry bodies like the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) are already working to create baseline guidelines for retail media measurement. As interoperability improves, brands will feel more confident benchmarking incrementality across multiple retail partners.
2. The Rise of Hybrid Performance Models
Rather than forcing brands to choose between the comforting familiarity of legacy ROAS and the stark reality of pure incrementality, leading platforms are moving toward hybrid measurement frameworks. These models blend traditional attribution for upper-funnel and mid-funnel brand awareness with rigorous incrementality testing for bottom-funnel performance. This allows marketing teams to gradually acclimatize their internal stakeholders to causal metrics without destabilizing existing reporting structures.
3. Education and Change Management at the Executive Level
The ultimate barrier to incrementality adoption is not technical; it is cultural. Retail media networks and independent agencies must invest heavily in educating corporate CFOs, procurement teams, and C-suite decision-makers. By reframing incrementality not as a tool that "destroys campaign performance," but as an investment strategy that eliminates waste and maximizes true profitability, the industry can overcome the psychological hurdles currently suppressing adoption.
Conclusion
Shawn McGahee’s disclosure regarding Roundel’s 8% incrementality adoption rate serves as a sobering reality check for the retail media industry. It highlights a system caught between the allure of advanced data science and the inertia of legacy business practices. While retailers have successfully engineered the tools required to measure true causal impact, convincing the market to use them remains a monumental hurdle.
As the digital advertising ecosystem continues to evolve, brands that cling strictly to inflated, legacy metrics risk optimizing themselves into irrelevance. The path forward will not be easy, requiring patience, technological standardization, and a fundamental realignment of how corporate America defines marketing success. Yet, one thing remains certain: the pressure for absolute accountability is not going away. Eventually, that 8% figure must—and will—grow.