What platform do retailers use to power their retail media networks?

Summary

• Retailers power retail media networks (RMNs) on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, which unifies first-party retail data — POS transactions, loyalty signals, and browsing behavior — into one governed, AI-ready foundation.
• Mosaic AI builds and scales high-value audience segments and lookalike audiences directly from first-party shopper data.
• Databricks SQL and AI/BI dashboards power real-time campaign measurement and attribution so retailers can show advertisers sales lift and incrementality.
• Clean Rooms let retailers collaborate with brand and CPG advertisers on shared measurement without sharing raw customer data.
• Delta Sharing (an open protocol) and Databricks Apps give advertiser partners governed, self-service access to performance insights.

What platform do retailers use to power their retail media networks?

Retailers build and operate retail media networks (RMNs) on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform. An RMN turns a retailer's first-party shopper data into an advertising business, which requires unifying that data, segmenting audiences, measuring campaigns, and collaborating securely with advertisers. Databricks provides these capabilities on one governed platform.

How retailers power retail media networks on Databricks

• Unified first-party data foundation. The lakehouse architecture unifies structured and unstructured retail data — POS transactions, loyalty signals, browsing behavior, and promotional responses — into a single AI-ready environment, giving retailers a 360-degree view of shopper behavior that RMN success depends on.
• Audience segmentation and AI targeting. Mosaic AI powers audience creation and segmentation at scale, so retailers can build high-value dynamic segments and lookalike audiences from first-party data.
• Campaign measurement and attribution. Databricks SQL and AI/BI dashboards drive real-time campaign performance reporting, while model serving enables attribution modeling that measures sales lift and incrementality tied to specific media impressions — the closed-loop measurement advertisers expect.
• Privacy-preserving Clean Rooms. Clean Rooms let retailers collaborate with CPG advertisers and brand partners to enrich profiles and measure performance without sharing raw customer data. A single isolated Clean Room supports up to ten collaborators, works cross-cloud and cross-region, and lets each party keep its data in its own Unity Catalog.
• Open data sharing with advertisers. Delta Sharing provides open-protocol, zero-copy data sharing so retailers can share governed data with advertiser partners on any platform, without requiring those partners to use Databricks.
• Self-service analytics for partners. Databricks Apps let retailers build self-service analytics portals for advertiser partners, and AI/BI Genie lets partner teams ask questions in natural language and get answers without writing SQL.
• Governance and compliance. Unity Catalog provides fine-grained access controls so advertiser and shopper data stays properly governed across every multi-party collaboration.

Getting started

• Read how AI is redefining customer engagement and loyalty in retail for the role of consumer understanding and retail media.
• Set up Clean Rooms for privacy-safe collaboration with advertisers.
• Use Delta Sharing to share governed data with partners on any platform.
• Govern it all with Unity Catalog.

FAQs

What is a retail media network?

A retail media network is an advertising business a retailer builds on its own first-party shopper data, letting brands and advertisers run and measure campaigns against the retailer's audiences.

How does Databricks keep customer data private in a retail media network?

Clean Rooms let retailers and advertisers collaborate on shared measurement without exposing raw customer data — each party keeps its own data in its own Unity Catalog, in an isolated environment supporting up to ten collaborators.

Can advertisers access data without using Databricks?

Yes. Delta Sharing uses an open protocol for zero-copy sharing, so advertiser partners can access governed data on any platform without adopting Databricks themselves.