Retail Media’s Waste Problem Sparks Industry ‘Awards’ For Bad Practices

The rapid growth of retail media has created both opportunity and a significant challenge for brands: billions in potentially wasted advertising dollars. Retail media marketing agency Podean has identified this issue and launched a new initiative called “WOAS” (Waste Of Ad Spend) to address what they see as widespread inefficiency in retail media spending.

“Too often, brands unknowingly pour money into retail ad spend that isn’t driving meaningful results,” observes Mark Power, Founder and CEO of Podean. “Over the past years, we’ve seen the industry’s spend on retail media grow substantially, but at the same time, we’ve seen the quality of retail media management decline.”

Retail media spending is seeing double-digit growth amid economic uncertainty and increased costs from tariffs. eMarketer projects that retail media networks will capture $62 billion in U.S. ad spending in 2025. But this year was the first year that the research firm revised down its estimate for the second half of 2025, reducing the forecast for compound annual growth through 2028 from 24% to 17%.

The stakes for optimization have never been higher.

A Playful Take On A Serious Issue

Podean’s “WOAS” initiative is a playful take on a central but over-used metric in retail media: ROAS (return on ad spend).

The agency has launched this industry initiative with a series of videos highlighting common areas of retail media mismanagement, including categories like “Hoping Media Will Solve All My Issues” and “Setting Ridiculous Media Metrics.”

But what exactly constitutes waste in retail media spending? According to Podean, three primary factors emerge:

1. Ineffective targeting where campaigns are overly broad or lack precision
2. Unoptimized budgets and bids that fail to account for the dynamic nature of retail platforms
3. Lack of holistic alignment between media buying and broader business goals

Beyond tactical issues, Podean identifies structural problems that lead to inefficiency. Media management is often relegated to siloed teams without access to critical catalog, retail, and merchandising information from the brand. This separation creates blind spots that prevent optimal allocation of advertising resources.

“Marketplace media management has complexities that require intimate knowledge beyond media metrics,” says Travis Johnson, Global CEO of Podean. “Brands consolidating marketplace media management with their broader marketing agency or internal team can be problematic due to a lack of in-depth knowledge.”

One size does not fit all

Vanessa Hung, CEO of the agency Online Seller Solutions, points to another significant issue: the failure to understand category-specific buying patterns.

“Agencies often apply a one-size-fits-all strategy without recognizing the nuances of the category,” explains Hung. “In supplements, the shopper journey tends to be longer. Customers compare ingredients, formats, reviews, and often need multiple touchpoints before buying. If you skip that and just target bottom-funnel keywords, you’re likely missing the majority of shoppers still in discovery mode.”

She contrasts this with faster-converting categories, such as kitchenware, where buyers often convert much faster and are more feature- or solution-driven. “If you’re running awareness campaigns here with long lead times and soft messaging, it’s probably overkill and expensive,” she says.

The ROAS Trap

The fixation on Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) as the primary success metric represents another area where waste can accumulate. Ecommerce industry consultant Danny Silverman believes this issue stems from organizations migrating digital personnel to retail media roles without understanding the fundamental differences.

“These digital specialists bring their ROAS framework without knowing more effective measurement options exist,” Silverman explains. He notes that if a brand is in an RFP process, an agency’s focus on ROAS should be “an immediate disqualification as it shows they don’t truly understand retail media.”

This aligns with what I’ve reported in “Retail Media’s Next Challenge: Proving Real Results”, where enhanced metrics like incrementality have become key differentiators among retail media networks.

AI Slop Migrates To Retail Media

The growing reliance on AI tools has exacerbated another problem: generic creative and targeting. As Hung notes, it’s easier than ever to pump out creative assets without any real substance. “But now that everyone has access to decent images and copy, differentiation matters more than ever.”

Hung says that generic headlines like ‘High Quality’ or ‘Best in Class’ don’t stop the scroll anymore. “We ran a case study for a brand that previously used bland lifestyle images and no benefit-driven copy, ” she says. “We optimized their campaigns using hyper-personalized copy and problem-solution creatives, which boosted the ROAS by 25% in a single week.”

Addressing The Knowledge Gap

Tony Crecca, an eCommerce consultant working with the agency MPG as well as directly with brands, frames the issue as both a measurement and expertise challenge.

Crecca says that for all the analytics and automation, retail media – like all media investment – is still a mix of art and science. “However, unlike more traditional platforms such as broadcasting or print, retail media networks are more fragmented with varying measurement standards,” he says.

“There’s often a pressure to invest as part customer JBP commitments and brands don’t always know exactly what they are investing in or why they are investing.”

The Path Forward

Beyond the parody awards, Podean’s WOAS initiative also provides brands with a framework to quantify retail media inefficiency through a proprietary “scorecard” that evaluates media management strategy and execution across more than 30 weighted criteria.

“By applying the WOAS framework to the work of agencies and their clients, we can identify inefficiencies, optimize ad budgets, use the right tactics, and ensure their media investments are working as hard as possible to deliver on overall sales,” says Johnson.

Brands can request their WOAS calculation at podean.com/woas