TL;DR: Retail media fragmentation is draining time, data accuracy, and revenue potential. With the holidays approaching, retailers need faster, simpler, more profitable monetization strategies like post-purchase ads that can launch without adding complexity.
Fragmentation Is Holding Retailers Back
Retailers don’t just have a tech stack problem. They have a margin problem. The opportunity to grow is there, but it’s buried under too many systems and too much complexity.
Instead of one streamlined path to revenue, most teams are juggling:
- One vendor for ad serving
- Another for billing
- A different one for attribution
- Manual exports, spreadsheets, and Slack threads trying to hold it all together
What’s missing is clear:
- One source of truth
- One clean view of performance
- One seamless path to revenue
And with peak season right around the corner, simplifying isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about protecting profit.
Fragmentation Costs Growth
When your systems don’t talk to each other, you can’t:
- Optimize campaigns in real time
- Capture the full impact of your spend
- Measure ROI with confidence
- Launch new opportunities quickly
Competitors who simplify are already monetizing faster and more efficiently. As a result, they are capturing margin that others leave behind.
And the market is only getting bigger. McKinsey projects US commerce media spend will reach $100B by 2027, fueled by non-endemic and adjacent advertising. The retailers who simplify their monetization stack now are best positioned to capture that opportunity.
Industry-proof: Fresh Clean Threads streamlined its post-purchase monetization and went live in under an hour. Revenue per session increased by more than 40 percent, and five figures of incremental profit were generated in the first month. At scale, that translates to $350K in incremental profit per 1M transactions while enhancing the customer experience at checkout.
Simplify Now Before Peak Season
Holiday deadlines are creeping up, code freezes are around the corner, and every CMO and CFO is under pressure to do more with less.
The retailers who win are the ones who:
- Activate quickly
- Unlock revenue from day one
- Protect customer experience
- Rely on fewer vendors, not more
For a deeper dive into how post-purchase ads drive profit while enhancing customer experience, check out our guide: Monetization Made Simple: How to Increase Revenue Post-Purchase.
Why Post-Purchase Works for Retailers
Your thank-you page isn’t just a receipt—it’s a revenue engine.
- Deliver relevant offers or loyalty perks immediately after checkout
- Keep customers engaged without breaking the buying journey
- Earn $0.20–$0.50 per transaction in pure incremental revenue
- Stay in full control of the experience
Retailers using post-purchase solutions are boosting revenue per transaction by up to 40%. Moreover, they are achieving this without extra spend or added complexity.
AI makes it possible. Fluent’s proprietary identity graph, enriched with 200M+ first-party profiles and Experian data, powers smarter targeting and privacy-first personalization. Our machine learning engine continuously optimizes which offers show up, maximizing engagement, margins, and customer lifetime value.
Industry proof: Barnes & Noble College achieved a 113% lift in conversion rates and a 48% increase in revenue per session by delivering more relevant offers at checkout.
What this means for you: Post-purchase monetization isn’t only about incremental revenue. It is about making existing traffic more profitable without new acquisition spend.
What To Do Right Now
- Audit your stack. How many vendors does it take to launch one campaign?
- Run the numbers. Try our Instant Revenue Calculator to see what your checkout could be earning.
- Align before Q4. Don’t leave margin on the table when volume spikes.
The Bottom Line
Commerce media is scaling fast. Complexity used to be the cost of entry, but now it is optional.
Big retail moments like holiday, back-to-school, and Prime Day always bring pressure. That is why the retailers who win are the ones who simplify, monetize smarter, and move fast.
Every transaction is already happening. Post-purchase monetization simply ensures you capture more value from each one — profit that would otherwise be left on the table.
Don’t wait until peak season is here. See Fluent in action and start turning every transaction into profit.