Cracking the Code on Retail Media Insights: What Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger Are Teaching Us

Retail media has rapidly evolved from simply buying ad placements to unlocking some of the most powerful shopper insights available. Today, retail giants are building sophisticated, privacy-compliant data platforms that empower brands to better measure, optimize, and scale their investments.

Leading the charge are Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger — each offering their own vision for the future of retail media intelligence. Let’s dive into what their platforms — Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Walmart’s Scintilla, and Kroger’s 84.51° — reveal about where retail media is headed.

The New Standard: Privacy-Safe, Event-Level Data

At the heart of these platforms is a similar goal: giving advertisers access to detailed, event-level data without compromising shopper privacy. This data enables brands to go beyond simple metrics like clicks and impressions and instead analyze full customer journeys — from discovery to purchase.

Rather than providing raw user data, these environments are “clean rooms” where brands can query anonymized datasets to uncover patterns, measure campaign impact, and build custom audiences.

How the Major Players Compare

• Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC):
  Amazon pioneered this space, offering a flexible environment where brands can upload their own datasets, blend them with Amazon’s, and run advanced queries. It’s a powerful (but technical) tool, designed for those ready to dive deep into data science.
• Walmart’s Scintilla:
  Walmart’s approach prioritizes on-demand access to aggregated, event-level insights. Instead of needing a data science team, users can access pre-built reports and dashboards — while still enjoying the depth that privacy-safe analysis allows. Scintilla gives brands a powerful lens into how media campaigns drive sales across Walmart’s vast ecosystem.
• Kroger’s 84.51°:
  Long known for its loyalty data, 84.51° provides brands with direct access to rich purchase behavior data. Their insights help brands measure how marketing initiatives are resonating with actual Kroger shoppers.

Why It Matters for Brands

Retail media is no longer just about where you advertise — it’s about how well you understand what’s happening after the ad is shown. These platforms open the door to:

• Deeper performance measurement
• Smarter audience segmentation
• Better informed creative and media strategies

The brands that succeed will be those who don’t just look at surface-level reporting but instead invest in querying, testing, and learning from these powerful new data sets.

The Future Is Clear (and So Are the Expectations)

As retail media grows more complex, so does the expectation that brands will become better data stewards. Clean rooms like AMC, Scintilla, and 84.51° give brands new superpowers — but only if they’re ready to use them strategically.

Those who embrace this shift, ask smarter questions, and continuously refine their campaigns will be best positioned to win in the evolving world of retail media.

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Shaun Brown

Shaun Brown is the Founder and CEO of Birddog, a leading agency at the intersection of commerce media, digital shopper marketing, and retail technology. With over 25 years of experience, he specializes in connecting big data and AI to deliver better ideas, optimized shopper connections, and proven business results.

Shaun's career spans both client and agency sides, working with some of the world’s most recognized brands. His expertise includes shopper marketing, customer marketing activations, and the seamless integration of broadcast, print, retail, digital, social, mobile, and influencer channels to drive strategic, insight-led campaigns that resonate with today’s shoppers.