Job (s)hopping - from adtech to retail media
Come closer, you beautiful adtech beast. No BS necessary between us, now.
We were there when corporate speak went from “Is it on, yet?” to “Can you hear me?” - and we’ve been around for much longer. From when ad servers were new tech, DSPs, SSPs, and “open auction” were still nice and fancy terms. The funny thing is, retail media has been around for just as long - using our tools and toys without ever joining our geek party; how dare they! Well, heads-up:
I’ve been in there, and it’s all the same.
If core Adtech folks are 50% geek-brain and 50% commercial (partnerships, monetisation, sales), Retail Media is the same, but make that 20% geek-brain and 80% sales machine. Retail Media belongs in our party and hell, they’ve got jobs!
Something tells me that your next gig is in retail media, “no cap” - a lot of somethings.
They want geeks, too
Same kid, different playground. RM folks are after the money, but so are we in Adtech. The difference is, we have to build a lot of cool tech to get there. Well, hello to humanity’s oldest business model: commerce. In RM, you’re building cool tech to support an already thriving business (most times). RM companies may be traditional, but they’ve got the basics down, hats off. Now, they welcome geeks.
First-Party Data: The Cookie AND The tea
Not going to preach to the jury here. 1P data is huge here, but the tech/model to monetise it is not - and that’s where you come in, you bald and sexy geek (and cool, blonde, pant-suit aficionado). RM’s got some real customer insights, not that aggregated, probabilistic stuff that makes us feel like we’re flying blind. That shampoo? That extra-large pizza order on a Sunday night? Yeah, about time we started serving up some intent-based targeting to clients, à la carte.
Same faces, same cases
Mate, everyone you know in adtech will still be in touch when you move to the RM side (trust me, bro). Truth is, you’ll still meet your agency, adtech and client-side folks at DMEXCO or Adexchanger’s Programmatic I/O, or some other trade event. You’ll still talk about audience partnerships and campaign opportunities. Yes, lower-funnel cases and nuances mostly, but hasn’t that always been the one thing that Programmatic isn’t that great at? You now have the ying to every programmatic guy’s yang, with new toys while at it (pfft, social would be jealous): closed-loop attribution, attention-guaranteed formats, awareness objectives too (video belongs in RM) and more. Time to sell without a guilty conscience, to the same old folks you know. The best part? You get retailer merch and discounts, too.
The money’s real, too
Well ain’t this why we’re here? Yes, adtech is a passion (for real). But your bills won’t pay themselves. And retail media roles? They’re paying. Depending on your experience, you’re looking at $70K to $180K for audience/data partnerships. Push into that $200K+ range if you’ve got some serious chops, especially when it comes to navigating data integrations and tech stacks. And bonuses? Yep, they’re out there, and they’re real.
I mean, you’re still reading?
Dude. You don’t trust easy, do ya? Retail media’s got everything we’ve been asking for in adtech - better data, sales attribution, and fairly nice salaries that reflect our expertise. It’s that rich uncle we thought we had, so come over, habibi. If you’re tired of dealing with the same old DSP trader grind, it is time
Ademola Adekunbi
Adtech Manager, Retail Media
Douglas Marketing Solutions