An In-Depth Look at Transforming Retail Media Through AI, Data Cloud, and MuleSoft
And How V2 Is Empowering Brands for 2025 Success
Retail’s largest gathering, the NRF Big Show, kicks off in New York City on Saturday, January 11, 2025, with a special deep-dive into retail media networks (RMNs). While the main conference doesn’t officially start until Sunday, this dedicated program for RMNs signals the seismic shift we’re witnessing in how retailers engage customers and generate new revenue streams. It’s a shift that V2 has been preparing for over two decades, leveraging the Salesforce platform to power advanced ad operations, complex media sales, and emerging AI-driven strategies.
What we find most exciting about this year’s pre-show event is the alignment of industry leaders and innovators under one banner: merging in-store audiences with digital intelligence to unlock new ad opportunities, revenue models, and data insights. We see parallels here with the early days of ad-tech—when major media companies realized they were sitting on a goldmine of unmonetized inventory. Retailers, many of whom already run partial or fully connected commerce experiences on Salesforce, are now discovering that they, too, can tap their physical and digital real estate to launch robust media networks.
Yet while the Saturday sessions bring the vision of RMNs into sharp focus—covering everything from CTV amplification to organizational transformation—the technology foundation needed to execute this vision is still an open question for many. That’s where V2 stands apart.
Our Journey to NRF: A Legacy of Media Solutions on Salesforce
Long before “retail media” became a buzzword, V2 was architecting ad-sales solutions on top of Salesforce for large media and entertainment conglomerates. Over the years, we’ve:
- Configured complex, multi-channel ad inventories within Sales Cloud, enabling robust campaign management and advanced pipeline oversight.
- Leveraged Salesforce’s early Media Cloud offering to unify ad billing, revenue recognition, and client outreach into one streamlined ecosystem.
- Pioneered AI-driven workflows using Salesforce’s evolving capabilities to predict campaign performance and optimize advertiser budgets.
Now that the lines between media and retail have blurred, our deep ad-ops expertise is uniquely suited to support retailers looking to monetize foot traffic, loyalty programs, store-endcap promotions, website banners, and more. In essence, what we did for top-tier media companies, we can do for retailers—except the data sets and possibilities are even richer.
Why the Saturday Retail Media Program Matters to V2
If you glance at this year’s schedule for January 11, you’ll notice an all-star lineup of panels and presentations focused on connected in-store experiences, the merger and acquisition landscape in retail media, and the intricacies of bridging physical and digital channels. We’re particularly intrigued by discussions around:
- Evolving Metrics for In-Store Audiences: Retailers know that 84% of retail sales still happen on-premises, but less than 1% of retail media budgets target those in-store touchpoints. When you couple that foot traffic with advanced measurement frameworks—an area we’ve refined over decades of ad-ops work—you begin to see the transformative potential for on-site monetization.
- M&A Outlook: Analysts like Mark Boidman from Solomon Partners will speak to how 2025 might see even more consolidation among retail media providers, martech vendors, and data platforms. For retailers who already have Salesforce in their technology stack, this is an opportunity to avoid “vendor scramble” by building on a solid, extensible foundation.
- Tying CTV to In-Store Data: The notion of shoppers being in “discovery mode” while physically in a store—and how that data can feed cross-channel campaigns—is a masterclass in 1:1 marketing. This is something that becomes far more feasible if your CRM (Salesforce) seamlessly integrates with streaming platforms and DOOH solutions via MuleSoft or API-driven connectors.
In short, this single-day intensive doesn’t just talk about retail media in theory—it showcases the real strategies and partnerships that define the future of advertising. For V2, it’s a chance to share how a Salesforce-based approach weaves these elements together under one coherent system.
How V2 Brings Salesforce-Powered Retail Media to Life (Expanded)
At first glance, it’s easy to wonder why Salesforce—traditionally known for CRM and marketing automation—might be key to unlocking retail media success. But having spent more than two decades building ad-tech solutions on this platform, we’ve seen firsthand how it provides the unified data architecture, process automations, and AI capabilities that retail media absolutely needs. Here’s our perspective:
A Holistic Commerce and Advertising Backend
When retailers think of monetizing physical store aisles or digital real estate, the immediate challenge often lies in coordinating these ad placements with existing e-commerce, inventory systems, and customer data. Salesforce, through Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or Commerce Cloud, already collects a wealth of customer and product data. By extending these clouds with specialized media-focused configurations—what we once did for major publishers—we can:
- Automate the flow of campaign bookings, ad creative approvals, and revenue tracking.
- Trigger tailored upsell or cross-sell workflows whenever an advertiser’s goals shift, or new promotional inventory becomes available.
The difference is that retailers (unlike pure media companies) also need robust e-commerce order handling, supply chain integration, and real-time in-store awareness. That’s where MuleSoft can help unify data from POS systems, third-party ad servers, loyalty platforms, and even external data lakes like Snowflake—ensuring a single source of truth for all advertising transactions and performance metrics.
AI-Infused Decision-Making with Data Cloud and Agentforce
As we move into 2025, the integration of Salesforce Data Cloud and Agentforce fundamentally changes how retailers can operationalize AI. Rather than merely analyzing campaign data after the fact, retailers can:
- Use Data Cloud to combine real-time POS data, loyalty signals, and e-commerce browsing patterns into a centralized, live repository. That means a more granular understanding of shopper behaviors, letting retailers tailor ad placements for maximum relevance—whether that’s on a digital endcap in Aisle 12 or within a CTV campaign targeting high-propensity buyers.
- Leverage Agentforce to automate repetitive ad-sales tasks, such as verifying creative specs or scheduling promotional windows. Moreover, Agentforce can proactively recommend new inventory bundles to advertisers—based on current foot traffic or recent purchase spikes—and even adjust pricing dynamically as demand ebbs or flows. This is AI stepping beyond “copilot” status and acting as a true “agentic” partner in your ad ops.
When combined with an external data warehouse like Snowflake, these systems can store massive, granular event data for deep analytics and machine learning. The synergy allows retailers not only to track near-real-time performance but also to run advanced models—predicting which store segments or digital touchpoints hold untapped revenue potential.
Tableau Pulse for Actionable Insights and Stakeholder Transparency
The final piece we see emerging is Tableau Pulse, giving teams a dynamic lens into their campaigns and revenue outcomes. Retailers can shift away from static monthly reports toward living dashboards that reflect:
- Current In-Store Ad Performance: Are in-store screens at 75% occupancy or 90%? What’s the real-time conversion rate on an endcap promotion?
- Cross-Channel Attribution: How many in-store impressions led to e-commerce sales or mobile app engagement?
- Predictive Alerts: Flag if a particular campaign is underperforming relative to similar campaigns, prompting Agentforce to propose an ad creative tweak or budget reallocation.
For retailers who partner with external brands and advertisers, these dashboards can be selectively shared—enhancing transparency and building trust in the brand-retailer relationship. This level of clarity was once the sole domain of pure-play media companies, but with the right Salesforce integration, it’s now accessible to any retailer committed to scaling retail media networks.
Looking Forward: Five Predictions for Retail Media in 2025
As we head into NRF, V2 is keeping an eye on several trends and predictions that will undoubtedly shape conversations during the Saturday session:
- AI as the Unifier Across Channels: We anticipate a surge in agentic AI leveraging unified data from both offline and online interactions to deliver consistent messaging and offers. Shoppers crave frictionless experiences, and advanced technology can fulfill that by automating triggers based on location, browsing behavior, or loyalty status.
- Rise of Personal Shopper Agents: Consumer-facing AI, akin to “assistant” apps, will help build shopping baskets proactively. By the time the shopper arrives at the store, items may already be pre-selected, bridging inspiration with conversion.
- In-Store Retail Media Explosion: With 84% of sales still offline, we foresee a massive uptick in dynamic displays, endcap sponsorships, and interactive kiosk ads within physical stores. The ability to measure and attribute these impressions—something typically handled in digital environments—will make or break many 2025 retail media strategies.
- Gamified Loyalty as a Retention Strategy: Gamification, from points-based micro-challenges to “spin-to-win” events, is moving from novelty to table stakes. For younger demographics like Gen Z, it’s quickly becoming an expectation that folds neatly into retail media campaigns.
- Deeper Focus on M&A and Consolidations: As retailers expand their media arms, we anticipate more acquisitions of smaller ad-tech solutions or strategic alliances with data providers. Those who invest wisely in Salesforce-based architecture can often sidestep tech fragmentation by knitting each new acquisition into their existing CRM ecosystem.
With the Saturday RMN-focused sessions unfolding all day at Pier 60, we at V2 are arriving early to engage in precisely these conversations—both with retailers who are just getting started and with seasoned brands wanting to take their ad operations to the next level. We won’t have a booth on-site, but we’ll have a team on the ground who can be reached before or during the show.
If you’d like to schedule a more in-depth meeting or see a Salesforce-based demo, reach out to Brett Carneiro or visit our website. We’re offering a glimpse into how a cohesive environment of Salesforce (Sales Cloud + Media Cloud), MuleSoft, Data Cloud, Agentforce, Snowflake, and Tableau Pulse can truly elevate retail media to a scalable, data-rich revenue channel.
Transforming Retail Media from Idea to Engine of Growth
As the retail industry continues to embrace the idea of “monetized real estate”—be it digital endcaps, in-store displays, or multi-channel crossovers—Salesforce stands out as a powerful platform that can unify these endeavors. Coupled with V2’s history in ad sales and ad ops innovation, the opportunities for boosting revenue, streamlining workflows, and delivering unparalleled consumer experiences have never been greater.
NRF 2025 is set to be a nexus of innovation, especially on Saturday, where retailers worldwide will reveal how they’ve cracked the code for bridging physical and digital properties. V2 is eager to share our insights, help tackle your technology hurdles, and demonstrate how you can harness Salesforce—plus the latest AI and data solutions—to reshape your retail media strategy. We believe the momentum we’ve seen in the media world can be replicated, and even expanded, in the retail arena—offering a rare chance to capture incremental revenue and customer loyalty in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Building Trust Starts With A Conversation.
Let’s Make NRF 2025 Your Gateway to the Future of Retail
If your leadership team or innovation group wants to move beyond the buzzwords and start building a truly intelligent, connected, and profitable retail media network, we’d love to connect. Reach out, join us at the pre-show event, and let’s chart a new path for 2025—one that turns every retail space, both online and offline, into a dynamic, AI-driven media ecosystem.
For meeting requests, Contact Brett Carneiro or use the scheduling link on our website. We look forward to helping you craft a retail media approach that’s not just hype—but a true engine of growth.
