Flywheel addresses retail media network fragmentation with Total Commerce framework

The proliferation of retail media networks forces brands to account for significant 'under the hood' expenses related to data piping and cross-platform intelligence. As the streaming ecosystem increasingly integrates shoppable formats, this retail media network fragmentation suggests that media placement alone is insufficient without deep supply chain and operational synchronization. For the broader industry, this shift indicates that the value of an ad impression is becoming inextricably linked to real-time inventory and retail readiness data. Watch for whether major streaming platforms begin acquiring or partnering with specialized commerce operations firms to bridge the gap between high-funnel awareness and final purchase fulfillment.

Flywheel operates within an increasingly consolidated retail media landscape where major holding companies are racing to build integrated commerce capabilities. In early 2025, Omnicom completed its $13 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group, creating the world's largest advertising holding company, a deal that brought Flywheel's commerce and retail media practice under a significantly larger umbrella alongside IPG's own retail media assets. The combined entity now manages retail media relationships across dozens of major retailers, giving Flywheel access to a broader data infrastructure than standalone agencies can offer. This scale advantage is central to the Total Commerce framework Amie Owen describes, since integrating supply chain and operational data across hundreds of retail media networks requires the kind of cross-retailer access that only the largest holding companies can negotiate.

The retail media market itself continues to attract significant investment and regulatory attention. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimated that US retail media ad spend reached $153 billion in 2024, up from roughly $122 billion the prior year, with the category now representing more than 20 percent of total digital ad spending. That growth has drawn scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which opened a study into how major retailers use shopper data across their advertising businesses in September 2024, examining data-sharing practices at companies including Amazon, Walmart, and Target. For agencies like Flywheel navigating this space, the regulatory environment adds another layer of complexity to the data integration challenges Owen highlights, since brands must now account not only for technical fragmentation but also for evolving compliance requirements around first-party data usage.

On the measurement and technology side, the fragmentation problem Flywheel identifies is driving demand for unified commerce analytics platforms. In March 2025, The Trade Desk announced a partnership with Instacart to enable closed-loop measurement across retail media campaigns, allowing advertisers to connect ad exposure to actual purchase data without relying on individual retailer dashboards. Similarly, Amazon expanded its Marketing Cloud offering in late 2024 to give brands access to cross-channel attribution tools that extend beyond its own retail properties, signaling that even the largest retail media network recognizes the need for interoperability. These moves suggest that the Total Commerce approach Flywheel advocates, which treats commerce operations and media as a single optimization problem rather than separate disciplines, aligns with where the broader ad tech ecosystem is heading, though execution across 300-plus networks remains a significant operational hurdle.