Retail Media IQ CEO publishes guide to retail media ad spend

By AI, Created 10:52 AM UTC, May 20, 2026, /AGP/ – Retail Media IQ founder and CEO Mateusz Drela has released a book aimed at helping brands improve retail media performance as the channel grows into a major marketing budget line. The book argues that many brands are still leaving value on the table because retail media optimization is fragmented across teams, networks and metrics.

Why it matters: - Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing budget items in consumer marketing. - The channel now attracts more U.S. ad spend than broadcast television. - New research cited in the release says up to half of retail media searches generate zero revenue. - Nearly 90% of retail media searches are either overpriced or underperforming, according to the release. - The book is meant to help brands reduce wasted spend and capture more of retail media’s upside.

What happened: - Mateusz Drela, founder and CEO of Retail Media IQ, published a new book on retail media strategy. - The book is titled “Retail Media Strategy, Execution and Optimization: A Practical Framework for Brand Managers and CMOs.” - Retail Media IQ says the book is the first of its kind and is designed to fill an information gap in a fast-growing ad medium. - The book is available on Amazon and RMIQ.net. - The listed price is $19.95.

The details: - Internal platform analysis across large retail media networks found that about 30% of searches deliver no revenue. - The remaining spend is diluted by mis-pricing and broad optimization approaches, according to the release. - Drela argues that strong aggregate ROAS can hide weak performance at the SKU and search level. - The book focuses on decision-making structure instead of tactical shortcuts. - It targets CMOs, brand managers and retail media operators managing portfolios across multiple retail networks. - The book includes 20 chapters. - Topics include Instacart’s influence, the limits of ROAS as a standalone metric and how organizational design can block action even when data is available. - Drela says the core issue is structural, not a lack of effort from brand teams. - Retail media has evolved from trade marketing and co-op advertising, but now sits across marketing, sales and commerce with unclear ownership in many organizations.

Between the lines: - The release frames retail media as a channel where average results can look acceptable while hiding major inefficiencies. - That creates what Drela calls a false sense of performance health. - The book’s real pitch is organizational: better outcomes may depend less on buying more ads and more on changing how teams make decisions. - The emphasis on SKU- and search-level performance suggests many brands may be optimizing too broadly to spot where value is lost.

What’s next: - Retail Media IQ says the framework is designed to help brands move from defensive optimization to offensive growth without increasing spend. - The company is positioning the book for leaders who need a practical guide to managing retail media across networks. - Retail Media IQ continues to market the broader platform alongside the book.

The bottom line: - The message is blunt: retail media can work at scale and still underperform underneath the surface. - For brands, the challenge is not proving the channel matters. It’s extracting more value from the spend they already have.