Sponsored Search: The Pain and the Path Forward

Let’s be honest: for most brands, sponsored search in retail media isn’t always smooth sailing. It’s messy. It’s time-consuming. And it often feels like you’re flying blind.

Here’s What We’re Hearing from Brand Teams:

• Every retailer, every platform, every log-in. One team member told me they have 12 different dashboards bookmarked — just to check how their brand is performing. That’s not a strategy. That’s admin.

• Inconsistent reporting. ROAS means one thing on Tesco, another thing on Sainsbury’s, and something else entirely on Morrisons. Good luck stitching that into a single story for your boss.

• Manual chaos. Export, copy, paste, pivot. Repeat. Whole afternoons get lost in spreadsheets instead of optimising campaigns.

• Siloed decision-making. Trade, sales, and brand teams often don’t see the same numbers, let alone agree on what “good” looks like. That means slow decisions and missed opportunities.

• Retailer bias. Every network tells you their media is “driving growth.” But without a cross-retailer lens, how do you know where your spend really works hardest?

And yet — despite all of that — sponsored search is still the one part of retail media you can’t ignore.

Why? Because it’s where shoppers show intent. It’s measurable. And it’s universal — every retailer offers it. That makes it the natural starting point for fixing the chaos.

Budgets for retail media are growing, expectations from retailers are rising, and brand teams are being pushed to justify every pound they spend.

UK Retail Media Ad Spend projected to surpass £7bn in 2028

What Does This Mean for Any Brand or Retail Media Manager?

• Expect fast-growing media budgets that need strategic control.
  As retail media grows, more budget shifts from other areas—trade marketing, programmatic, or display—to these targeted platforms.

• More complexity—but also more opportunity.
  Stretching budgets across multiple retailer platforms introduces measurement headaches—but also opens doors to higher returns if managed well.

• You can’t afford to wait.
  Budget is flowing into retail media now, whether your team is ready or not. The brands that get ahead of the curve—especially in sponsored search—will own the competitive edge.

The recent article really captures the tension we’re seeing in retail media today — rapid growth arriving with overwhelming complexity. With over 250 retail media networks in play, brands and agencies are scrambling to make sense of it all.

As Dentsus Brian Monahan put it, “the proliferation of networks is overwhelming for the buy side,” a sentiment The Trade Desk’s Jeff Daniel also echoes.

What’s particularly encouraging is the collaboration between Instacart and The Trade Desk — combining SKU-level data with programmatic reach to reduce friction and deliver real ROI.

At Triffecta, we’re focused on helping brands navigate this complexity — not by adding more noise, but by streamlining data, enabling true incrementality measurement, and bringing teams together around measurable outcomes.

The future of retail media isn’t about more networks, but about greater clarity — and that’s exactly what we’re here to deliver.

While retail media is bigger than just sponsored search, the truth is, waiting for your organisation to fully “align on retail media” is a luxury you don’t have.

Spend is climbing, complexity is growing, and the pain points aren’t going away.

If You Can Unify Sponsored Search Execution and Reporting Across Retailers, You Get:

• A clear, apples-to-apples view of performance
• Time back to focus on strategy, not spreadsheets
• Proof points you can take to leadership and say: “Here’s how retail media is driving growth.”

That’s why sponsored search — as the most measurable and universal retail media format — is the best place to start proving value and regaining control before the complexity spirals.

Sponsored search is where you can create quick wins. Solve the gritty problems. And build the momentum to expand into the rest of retail media.

Execution. Efficiency. Insight. All from one place. That’s the path forward.