Rather than rushing into unproven adtech trends, Academy Sports and Outdoors grounded its retail media launch in clean first-party POS data to capture a loyal sporting audience where 67% never shop at direct competitors.
From unlocking an almost 8x conversion jump through on-site display to integrating early with Google’s agentic checkout protocols, this discussion maps the operational playbook for connecting digital ad spend directly to physical store sales.
🛒 Most retail media conversions still happen at the physical register, with 72% of shoppers buying in stores after seeing an ad.
⏱️ Being late to the game lets you skip years of legacy tech debt and launch in three months using turnkey partners.
🎯 An ad network's real leverage is unique reach, built around loyal buyers who never step foot in a competitor's store.
📈 Pairing display banners with sponsored search drives 2.4 times more sales than running search placements on their own.
💳 Owning the register data lets you tie ads directly to real purchases instead of relying on modeled guesswork.
👥 Off-site ads on Meta and YouTube are serious customer finders, driving over half of campaign sales from buyers new to the brand.
🔗 Chad Fox on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
00:00 Introduction
00:18 Academy’s footprint and the decision to enter retail media
3:20 Strategic partnerships and Academy’s distinctive customer base
7:04 Loyalty, identity resolution, and predictive audience insights
10:19 Epsilon’s view on AI-ready, customer-centered marketing
11:30 Omni-channel measurement and the early response from brands
14:21 Full-funnel advertising and campaign results
16:58 Academy’s media capabilities and plans to expand
18:23 Preparing for AI-enabled shopping
21:10 What Fox sees as the essentials of a strong retail media network