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Unlocking Retail Media is the essential podcast for leaders and marketers navigating the rapidly evolving world of retail advertising. We move beyond day-to-day operations to explore the strategic future of the industry, covering major investment trends, the shift to hybrid marketplace models, and the existential disruption posed by Agentic Commerce. Host James Avery brings in top industry veterans and visionary founders to analyze how ground-breaking technology is transforming customer journeys, influencing product catalogs, and forcing retailers to rethink on-site, in-store, and digital media strategies to remain competitive in the modern age.
Frank Mulcahy: Like
ROAS is, is ROAS, fine.
We can d-debate that all day long.
I think it's kind of beyond that now.
But we, we launched LTV ROAS, you
know, long-term value ROAS day one,
and that's controversial because to my
earlier point, I'm not apples to apples
to everybody else, and that's fair.
But if you're not accurately
looking at the true value of a
converted Chewy customer, you
are leaving money on the table.
And if your competitive set are
evaluating their returns and bidding
appropriately on their spend on Chewy
against an LTV lens, and you're not,
you're kind of just hurting yourself.
James Avery: Welcome to Unlocking
Retail Media, the podcast where
we explore the evolving world of
retail media from data strategy to
monetization and everything in between.
This is where we break down how retailers
can build smarter data-driven media
networks by aligning with what brands
truly need from scalable ad solutions
and meaningful metrics to cross-channel
attribution and programmatic strategy
Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media.
Today, I'm excited for a conversation
about what it actually means to run a
retail media network like a media company.
My guest is Frank Mulcahy,
head of Chewy Ads.
Frank has spent more than 20
years in digital advertising,
and he came to retail media from
the ad side, not the retail side.
And I know many of you probably
know Frank, 'cause like me, we've
hung out at conferences and, and
many other places over the years.
Uh, if you've been to Ascendant, uh,
you probably, probably had a good
conversation with Frank along the way.
Uh, but Frank sold for Lycos, Yahoo,
Microsoft, helped launch the Apple's
iAd business in, uh, New England.
Uh, and then in 2016, kinda went
out of that media side and, and
went to Wayfair to build their
retail media network from scratch.
Then he, he sold against us at
PromoteIQ a little bit, and then
he, uh, he joined Chewy in 2022.
And since then, Chewy Ads has moved
onto its own platform, has doubled
its advertisers and campaigns in the
last year, uh, and it's really just
been, it's been fun working with them
and watching them execute, um, as
they've… You know, just this year
they've launched Chewy Max, which we
can get into, the Chewy Marketing Cloud,
uh, native incrementality measurement.
Uh, and as I said, they're a, they're,
you have been a great Kavel partner,
uh, and we, uh, we actually shared
the stage with Frank at, uh, at the
showcase event, uh, Ascendant showcase
event in New York, uh, last month.
Um, but today we're gonna talk about,
uh, why Frank thinks retail media
should act more like a media company.
Uh, we're gonna talk about how Chewy
thinks about data sharing, lifetime value,
uh, where the pet category is headed.
Uh, so Frank, thanks for joining.
It's, uh, great to have you on.
Frank Mulcahy: Hey.
That was, that was a lot.
Thanks.
But thanks for having me.
James Avery: Yeah.
You got a good, it's a good bio.
There's a lot to, a lot to cover.
Frank Mulcahy: Yeah.
There's a lot there.
James Avery: So let's, let's go back to
the, you know, 'cause I think it is, you
know, we've, we've had this conversation,
I think before, but kind of the, you know,
the putting the media in retail media.
Like, you know- Yeah … your, your
background, like what was, you know,
what was that transition like, like going
from, you know, the more the media side
of it to, you know, walking into Wayfair?
Frank Mulcahy: It was
pretty eye-opening, right?
And, and I've had this conversation
with a number of folks, you know, when
we first started doing this retail
media thing for, you know, f- I mean,
I, I left Apple to go sell coaches.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Right?
And that was like, "Whoa, wait,
what are we doing here?" Like,
like, "How does this work?
What is the right thing?" I remember
calling people at the time being
like, "Is this crazy?" They're
like, "Yeah." But I'm like, "No, I
kinda see what's happening," right?
You-- It was early days.
Target Media Network had launched.
They were showing up at the Bima events.
I was like, "That's a play."
Triad was doing their thing.
You kinda saw what was going on,
and I, I came into Wayfair, and
it was, you know, I sat on a, a
board with some of the folks there.
It was like, "Hey, what are you
doing here? Come on and talk to
us." And I learned pretty quickly
the difference between, A, what
are wants and needs, right, inside
a retailer as you're standing up.
'Cause my lens was large publishers.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Right?
It was Lycos, it was Yahoo, it
was MSN for almost a decade.
And you, you realize quickly, like
what are the things that you would
normally just reach off the shelf
from if you're in a publisher that
just do not exist, right, in- inside,
you know, a retail environment.
It was like, I need an ad server.
I want an OMS, right, but
I need an ad server, right?
Or, you know, one of the early learnings
that I had that I still share with
people today Is the biggest failures
that I had when I first kind of
launched inside, uh, Wayfair was hiring
salespeople and account executives.
Because folks that came from digital
ad sales didn't, didn't make it,
didn't work really in a retail
environment because you don't own the
account- Right … inside a retail.
Right?
The merchant or the category manager,
like, they own the account, and
you're, you're a specialist to them.
And it took me back to my Microsoft days
where, yeah, we were a multi-billion
dollar ad business in MSN, but we were a
specialist to the enterprise team, right?
And when you think about the, the
meetings that we would have that
had the full breadth of the business
relationship, you had to think where
you plugged in and matrixed into that.
And that was really one of the most
eye-opening things that w- that I
had internally in coming from media
into retail is how do you manage
your internal constituents as well
as your external constituents?
Right?
How are we solving the business
needs and problems of the merchant,
as well as the business needs
and problems of the advertiser?
And that's a different, totally different
mind shift than when you own this account
on the straight digital publishing side.
Right?
You had to really think about that.
That was the biggest eye-opening thing.
And then it was how do we stand up?
What are the, you know, blocking
and tackling mechanisms that
we need to efficiently and
effectively drive an ad business?
What does the sales team look like?
What does the account
management team look like?
What does ad operations look like?
What do analytics look like?
All of these things that are--
I mean, hell, I'll go as far
as, is accounts receivable-
James Avery: Right
… Frank Mulcahy: is
oftentimes a new function.
James Avery: How do we
actually get paid for this?
Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Yeah.
How do we get paid for this, right?
Because in most times at the retailer
level, they've never actually
billed out for services rendered.
It was discount off invoice
or it was this or that.
So all of a sudden you're having
conversations with finance.
They're like, "Hey, we have a lot of money
to collect." Like, "Well, we, we don't
do that, but we probably should," right?
And there, there may or may not have
been a time that it took a long time
to discover that at Wayfair, right?
So-
James Avery: Yeah.
Yeah
… Frank Mulcahy: um, that, those are the
big things that we kind of learned.
James Avery: Go- going back to
the sales ones, I think it's a
really good, it's a good point.
Like, break it down a little bit more of
like you're, you know, if you're, you're
at like a Wayfair or Chewy or wherever,
you know, you have, you have the merchant
who owns that relationship with the,
the big, you know, the big brand, right?
Yeah.
They're probably selling
millions and millions of
dollars worth of, of inventory.
Then where does, where does, where
does the, the salesperson fit into it?
Like, how do, how do you like, just
almost like in a blocking, tackling
aspect, like, you know, I think for
a lot of these people coming from
media, like it's just an alien concept.
So where-- Like, what does it
actually look like in practice?
Frank Mulcahy: It's
internal account planning.
It, it's 100% getting aligned
internally on what are the business
objectives that we need to solve.
Is it new to brand?
Is it cold start?
Is it trying to impact margin?
Like, what are the things that,
that we need to unlock for you?
And let's have a thoughtful
conversation with the advertiser, and
in many cases, introduce the concept
of an ad agency- Right … right,
to, to the relationship, right?
Especially, I mean, certainly over
the last three to four years, that's
become far more prevalent than it
was, you know, six to eight years ago.
When the holding companies are
involved, and there might be
multiple JDPs to manage, right?
How do you think about that?
And then it's an education.
It's being thoughtful and leading in
with over-communicating as best as
you can internally to talk through
these are the counterparties here.
This is-- These are all the folks
that we're trying to acknowledge the
needs for and just be communicative
internally on what those elements are.
But you absolutely have to be aligned
at the leadership level internally
with the merchant organization
so that you're not seen as, you
know, frenemies or competitive too.
Right.
Because I've seen at other, other,
you know, RMNs or mostly RMNs Yeah,
as opposed to CMNs, like, conflict
between, well, you're trying to capture
my money or you're negotiating against
me, and it's like, "No, no, we're not."
We're, we're trying to unlock across the
broad spectrum of all the things that
we're offering the best way to drive
the, the best next dollar invested.
Is that in promotions?
Is that in pricing?
Is that in logistics?
Is that in advertising?
Is that in merchandising and creative?
Like, what is it?
You can't do all of it at once.
So you have to make sure that you're
aligned going in at an account-by-account
level, and usually by vertical or
horizontal level, depending on, you
know, what are the complications
of that specific vertical or brand.
James Avery: And so you said, and you said
earlier, you know, kinda hiring, you know,
a traditional media salesperson, a lot
of times they'll struggle in that role.
So who do, who do you hire?
Like, who do you, who do you
go after for these roles?
Frank Mulcahy: Yeah, I mean, part of
that was earlier in the cycle, right?
I would say, you know, certainly five
to eight years ago that was a challenge.
Um, it's gotten better now because
there's a lot more people that
have come from media that made it
into retail and are, are available.
Certainly different in
2026 than it was in 2017.
Like, worlds different.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: I've had a lot of
success hiring merchants, right?
Who are the folks, because there's
oftentimes, you know, dozens
or, you know, multi-dozens of
merchants in an organization, and
they're all great at their job.
They're all Swiss Army knives.
They're negotiating so many things at the
same time, and they have the ability to,
to balance a lot of different aspects.
But a lot of them may have had
marketing degrees in college, right?
Right.
Or they're really interested in
advertising, or they're trying to think
about how they can… You know, I've
talked a lot about, you know, the career
jungle gym versus the career ladder, and
it allows that horizontal mobility to
expose yourselves to, you know, different
work environments and different things.
So I've had a tremendous amount
of s- success hiring sellers out
of the merchant organization.
The same way, you know, back even
to the publishing days, we had
a lot of success hiring account
managers out of agencies, right?
Because the agency, the, the account
managers that came out of agencies
knew how to win the RFP, right?
Right.
In the old publishing world when I'm,
you know, running MSN Boston against
AOL and Yahoo, dating myself, right?
But only one of us is gonna win that buy.
So you're getting stacked at
the, at, you know, um, Digitas
or who's gonna win the buy.
So the, the account
managers had that expertise.
Let's bring them over.
In retail, it's the same thing.
What is a category manager most
challenged with, and what are the
actual challenges that- the vendor
or the brand are trying to solve.
And category managers and merchants
really know their sh*t there.
Like, they can really help get that done,
and they've done very well in this space.
And you- 'Cause we can train
them on selling, right?
Like, it's- Yeah, yeah … a retail
media space, you're not doing old
school ISO dialing for dollars, right?
Or you're not trying to
go capture net new brands.
I mean, you are in certain areas,
and you need to do that, and there's
certainly a spectrum between the
level of salesperson that I would have
managing a 50 or $100 million account
than I would managing a 3 to 500 to
a million dollar book of business.
Right.
Right?
So there's still a spectrum, 'cause I
c- I couldn't go send a new merchant
into a, a CMO or, you know, Madison
Avenue agency level conversation.
Right.
So there's a spectrum there, but as
you think about what is your, you know,
hierarchy and, and breakdown of what
your segments are, and then matching
the right skill set to those segments.
And then training up on
Salesforce management, right?
Or, you know, things like, of just like
sta- standard pipeline and sales motions.
You can land that.
But understanding the intricacies of- The
merchant retail organization and the ad
side, that's hard to capture from your-
James Avery: Right.
And they're, and they probably,
and they're used to negotiating
with the people- Oh, all day
that they're across the table from, right?
All day.
It's like what they, what they do.
So you're just kinda adding,
you're adding a new, a new piece
of that negotiation, right?
A new, a new kinda angle.
Frank Mulcahy: I- But then you show them
the LUMAscape and their head explodes.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: You know?
It's like we, we get that part.
James Avery: I do think that, like
you, you brought it up a little bit
but I think I was gonna… This is
one of the questions I had for you
was, you know, we do see agencies like
coming into retail media more and more.
Like are retailers, are most retailers
like ready for the, the difference
between, you know, oh, this is a,
you know, this is a vendor we've
had this relationship with for 20
years and, and we're gonna negotiate
some retail media spend versus now
you're dealing with, you know, big
hold co kinda different world, right?
Like, you know, the whole
agency sales world, right?
It was like very, very different than
I think how most RMNs operate today.
Frank Mulcahy: The, the scaled ones
are prepared because they've been doing
it for a little while, and they've
already been having the, you know,
nationals brand discussions and, and
really leaning in there because they've
got, you know, the breadth there.
When you think about the, the
specialty RMNs, I think it depends
on who they have there, who their
audience is, what they're doing.
Is it a highly branded category
or is it a highly, you know, white
labeled, private labeled category?
That, that might be a little different.
For the folks that are only
coming into it with retail
backgrounds, they're not prepared.
James Avery: Right.
Frank Mulcahy: They, they, they wouldn't
know how to have that discussion
around the LUMAscape, or they wouldn't
understand, I mentioned earlier, the
complexity of an agency JBP, a publisher
JBP, a brand JBP, and how you're gonna
deprecate all those at the same time.
Like they just, they don't have
that institutional knowledge.
They need to get it if they're gonna,
you know, be able to capture that money,
'cause you need to be able to have
those conversations with those folks.
And it's certainly-- Or how are you
gonna win national scorecards or, or
global scorecards on capabilities?
Like, and some of those scorecards are
110, 120 questions long, and they're
gonna have to GPT what the questions are,
let alone how they're gonna answer them.
James Avery: Yeah.
Yeah, and I think it's even the, even
just the, you know, I always joke
about, like, the, you know, process
sometimes of wooing an agency, right?
Are you, like, taking them to a
Red Sox game- The jeans parties
are over … or, like- Yeah … the
sort of, like, steak dinners.
I'm like, "That's, that's not in
the, like, retailer DNA," right?
Like-
Frank Mulcahy: No, man.
That broke with programmatic, you know?
Yeah.
Like, that back in the day, that's
what it was, and the, the old art
and science, you know, how do you win
either si- Relationships still matter.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Like, unquestionably,
relationships still matter.
Are you going above and beyond?
And this is the old thing that
used to come up in our world.
When unspent budget is available at the
end of Q4, has to get spent, they're
gonna call the people that they like-
James Avery: Yeah
… Frank Mulcahy: that have good
working relationships, that haven't
been, you know, at loggerheads
on every little thing over time.
Like, are you showing up?
Are you delivering what you said
you're gonna deli- This is old sales
101 stuff, and certainly in the media
space was, are you sitting on the same
side of the table with the agency?
Are you co-creating with them and
allowing them to take the credit, in some
cases, to bring back to brands, right?
We, we all wanna win awards.
We all wanna work together.
It's If, if we can help them succeed,
we're gonna win on the publisher
side or the media side, right?
It's how do we kinda land that?
And as long as you can back it up with
your data and provide the transparency
and provide all of the proof points
of, yes, this is already working, then
you can help grow and move and sell
horizontally through an organization
across different ad products, spinning
up innovation budgets, allowing,
you know, for early access to betas.
You know, we just launched our official
customer advisory board, right?
And invited, you know, a, a, a couple
dozen of our top clients and agencies
into really bespoke one-on-one
sessions with our product teams, right?
Landing that.
It, it, it's some of these elements
that used to be the core to what
we've, have done in the past, and
introducing them into this new medium.
It certainly helps to earn the trust of
those folks on the agency side who aren't
necessarily beholden to a merchant JBP.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, I, I think I, I heard it in, I
think it was you talking to Matt, um, at,
at TTD, where you talked about y- you're
getting the money that I have to spend.
This is how you get the
money that I want to spend.
James Avery: Right.
Yeah.
Right?
And I think that is, like, that's,
that's the big, you know, that's
the big task for retailers for a lot
of, a lot of them right now, right?
Yes.
Is like, they can get the, they
get the kinda guaranteed money.
How do they get the extra?
How do they get the actual
performance dollars or brand dollars
or whatever you wanna call them?
Frank Mulcahy: Right.
And, and can you, can you treat both
equally and make it that the money
that you have to spend, I'm gonna prove
that we earned the right for more spend
by leaning in and by being efficient,
and by offering, you know, MBRs that
are action-oriented, not just, you
know- Sure … throw up and shut up.
Like, here's, here's the report.
Here's a campaign wrap report.
Like, no, this is 2026.
Like, here are the insights that
we've developed that I can share with
you on how to become more efficient.
In these cases, you should bid lower.
In these cases, you should think about
these additional keywords to bid on,
or add this audience targeting or land
there, and just provide and provide and
provide, 'cause that's how you unlock.
'Cause especially for these folks
that are managing two, four,
six, eight, 12 of us, they can't.
So help make their jobs easier.
That's the same thing
we did in publishing.
Help make the, the buyer's job easier
any way that you can because on
the other side, I don't envy them.
It's very difficult.
It's, it, uh, the measurement divide
is real when you've got this person's
on 28 days attribution, this person's
on 14, this person's on view through,
this person's on click-through.
They, they have to- Yeah … report
back to their client who's working,
and that's, that's, that's not easy.
James Avery: Yeah.
It's not easy.
That's right.
It's like if somebody wants to give
you money, get out of the way, right?
Make it as easy as possible.
Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: That's it.
Like, re- reduce friction everywhere.
James Avery: So we, we
kinda jumped right into it.
Uh- Yeah … but let's, like if
we, you know, going back, you know,
obviously after Wayfair, little stint
at our friends PromoteIQ, but then
you, you come to, you come to Chewy.
So let's talk, let's talk about Chewy.
Like, I think it's, it's really
been amazing what you guys have done
there, but, you know, coming in, I
think it was pretty, pretty nascent.
Uh, kinda, you know, not a lot
from a retail media perspective.
Like, what's, like,
what's the approach been?
Like, how, how have you tackled
this over the last couple years?
Frank Mulcahy: N- not a lot equaling zero.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Right?
Like, when we came in, there was
the, the legacy kinda merchandising
business that was there.
Um, Chewy was, you know, I'll,
I'll admit, probably a year or
two late trying to jump on board.
M- the ca- the team came in and
appropriately hired the right level
people to frame it up from the beginning.
Like, really strong product
ownership, very strong engineering
ownership I mean, I, I am what I
am, but, like, brought in, you know-
James Avery: Pretty good sales,
pretty good sales ownership, we'll say
… Frank Mulcahy: I, I've done it before.
I'll leave it there, right?
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: And then said, "Okay, what
do we need to do?" And our first year,
year and a half, you know, one of the,
you know, Chewy operating principles
is earn trust, and that was my job
the entirety of the first 18 months,
was earning trust with my internal
constituents and with our vendors, right?
Our, our, our vendors had heard, "Yeah,
we're doing this thing. We're gonna start
it," and, you know, when your vendors are
m- multinational CPG companies, they've
already been around a little bit, like,
they, they know smoke, and I had to
come in and, and establish bona fides.
Like, I, I know what you want.
I mean, I have a story very early on.
One of my merchants asked me to speak
to a CMO of one of the, the really
large vendors about our capabilities,
and I'm like, "No." Like, I, I,
I can't possibly go speak to that
person with what I have right now.
Yeah.
I can talk about what we're trying
to build, what we're getting to,
what we're thinking, and importantly,
coming into those meetings and
immediately speaking their language,
and acknowledging and sel- you know,
deprecating, like, "I know where we are.
I know where we've been.
This is what we're doing.
This is what we're going to build.
Here's how we're gonna do it." And then
internally, stating a number that we can
achieve that is realistic based on the
TAM that exists and what we know should
be the relative spend rates against
brands in this space, especially in a
very highly branded, you know, cons-
consumable space, where there's a certain
spend threshold that you can expect to
get to, establishing those KPI internally
and marching very aggressively and very
narrowly on the first part of that puzzle.
Like landing… What does our
base level product need to be?
Okay, it's obviously sponsored products.
Yeah.
How do we land that?
How do we get that going, get that better,
and then show results immediately, both
internally and externally, and then
incrementally building, and incrementally
building, and incrementally building
deliberately quarter over quarter
over quarter, and managing both the
short-term view and the long-term view.
Right?
You, you mentioned earlier
that we re-platformed.
We were working on that for, for quite
a long time to where we needed to get
to, but we just said, "Let's execute
against this, you know, maintain what
we're kind of building in the background,
execute up against this, build out the
capabilities from, you know, certainly
the platform perspective, but then
the internal resources as well."
We, we didn't come in hiring ahead
of where we needed to get to.
Make the variable heads earn
the right to hire a new head.
I wasn't gonna go in to my C-suite
and say, "I need to have 20 heads
to stand up this business." Like,
you, you lose credibility like that.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: It's
like, no, I can run lean.
I can run lean.
And importantly, we launched
self-serve first and always.
Like, I have no interest in standing
up yet another managed service
business because I know that my
c-clients don't want yet another
managed service business, right?
So how do we build those capabilities
on, which allows you to run a
little bit leaner, which allows
you to think about what are the…
how can we be more nimble
here and land that?
So that was the first year or two
at Chewy, was 100% about earning the
trust internally and earning the trust
externally to then unlock and have
more fruitful conversations, you know?
It's, it's that whole when I think
about how we would work on co-building
with agencies and clients in the
past, come up with an idea, co-create
it together, probably lose it the
first couple of times, but you've
earned the right to continue that,
then you get more due diligence.
What are your real problems?
How are we trying to solve that?
Okay, bring that back to the product team.
Here's what the actual
ask is on reporting.
Right.
And then get the product folks hearing
that directly from the vendors as well,
because everyone knows when product hears
it from sales, it's just sales complaining
things are too hard to sell, right?
James Avery: Yeah,
Frank Mulcahy: yeah, yeah.
It's a product efficiency.
It's never a sales fault.
But sometimes maybe there's
a product efficiency, right?
So how do we get that verbatim into
the pipeline and kind of continue
to build that up and just build
and build and build incrementally,
deliberately over time, and it'll expand.
James Avery: What do you-- And how
did you-- I know with, with Chewy,
like, you know, it's a little
bit of a unique business, right?
I mean, it's, it's all digital, right?
You don't, you don't really have stores
but also, uh, you know, subscription
is such a big part of it, right?
Eighty-five percent.
Yeah.
When you, you come in and you see it
and it's like, you know, I just have, I
have-- we have like cat food that shows
up, you know, once a month or whatever.
Like, I don't, you know, it's like I'm
not logging in and changing it that much.
Like, how do you, how do you build,
how do you like build a great
media business when, when that's
so much of it's like subscription?
Frank Mulcahy: Yeah.
It, it's funny 85% of our revenue
and sales are, are autoship driven,
which fantastic, great for the
enterprise, you know, stable,
traditional revenue coming in.
Sucks for the ad guy.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Like, 'cause
I sell, I sell, you know,
reach and frequency, right?
I, I, I sell eyeballs on site.
So how do we think about what that is?
And it became an opportunity for us
relatively quickly when we looked at it
on how do we lean into the strength of can
I convert a new-to-brand autoship member?
Many of our vendors would prefer to
see a client convert on Chewy than
at competitors because it might be
worth, you know, and versus one bag
of food might be worth, you know, 3.8
bags of food, whatever it might be.
James Avery: Right.
Frank Mulcahy: How do we
lean into that as a strength?
How do we lean into, you know, the,
the new-to-brand metric on, stacked
on top of incrementality, right?
Like ROAS is, is ROAS fine?
We d- debate that all day long.
I think it's kind of beyond that now,
but we, we launched, you know, LTV ROAS-
James Avery: Right
… Frank Mulcahy: you know, long-term
value ROAS day one, and that's
controversial because to my earlier
point, I'm not apples to apples to
everybody else, and that's fair.
But if you're not accurately
looking at the true value of a
converted Chewy customer, you
are leaving money on the table.
And if your competitive set are
evaluating their returns and bidding
appropriately on their spend on Chewy
against an LTV lens and you're not,
you're kind of just hurting yourself.
But it's on us to provide that
data and let our customers
make their own decisions.
The other challenge is
how do I help inform brand
discovery and basket building?
Because James, if you're on with cat
food and that's auto set, how do I
have you come back and think about the
new form factors for lickable treats?
Right.
I know way too much about pet and
now lickable treats are a thing.
I know lizard substrate,
all these things, right?
James Avery: Yeah,
Frank Mulcahy: yeah.
But, but to have them come on, how
do I then build segments to target
you offsite that are very unique and
specific to that brand to help them
come back and say, "Hey, come back in."
You know what?
It's up against a promo
period at Chewy right now.
If you spend X you can, you know,
get X amount of gift card back.
So let's do a targeted campaign at that
moment in time helping to bring you back,
and then stack that with a CRM campaign
ideally aligned to the, the brand's
national promotional schedule, right?
Th- that's what's incumbent on us to
utilize better targeting, better creative,
and unified messaging to basket build
and bring back and provide value to
the consumer and back to the vendor.
James Avery: Yeah.
I think it goes back to you were
talking about earlier, like the, like
getting trust from the brands- Right
building that trust, right?
'Cause I can imagine the
conversation about LTV ROAS
goes one of two ways, right?
Either they're like, "Okay, this makes
sense. We've built up some trust." Like
this is a metric- Yeah … that, you know,
this is a full value, or it's somebody
who's like, "Yeah, whatever. What are you
selling, what are you selling us, Frank?"
Right?
No, yeah.
But that's all based on- You put it,
you put it on the scale … whether
they see you as a partner, right?
Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Right.
So, so our, our answer is here.
Here's the data.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: Here's direct
ROAS, here's LTV ROAS, here's the
methodology by which we've reached
it, here's the new-to-brand sales,
here's the increment- incrementality.
Here's the, the methodology by
we've, by which we've reached it.
I expect and want you to do your own math
on this and make your own determinations.
S- So that's how we provided it both in,
in our own tool, in standard reporting,
and why we launched our clean room to then
allow some of our brands to show how their
national campaigns are running against
organic sales and ad-attributed sales.
Like, that was the next big unlock
is, is how do we land with the Chewy
Marketing Cloud and standing up our
clean room technology for both advanced
audience targeting, but for measurement.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: And it's very much
transparency, like, "Here." Like,
"Yes, we stand by this, but you do
your math and you'll make the call."
James Avery: Yeah.
And it goes back to what you said earlier
about making this easier for the buyer.
Yeah.
How do you make it easier for them
to prove to their, you know, their
boss or their, their agency or
whoever that this works, and that
this is worth the investment, and
we're gonna call them in December
'cause we got another 100K to spend?
Frank Mulcahy: That's the hope.
Yeah.
James Avery: What… And tell me about,
so I know you've described it as kind of
like a barbell, and we've mentioned some
of the different names now, like the Chewy
Marketing Cloud and things like that.
And like, what about, like, Chewy Max?
Like, how do, how do you-- what's
the, the kind of strategy you
guys are going to market with?
Frank Mulcahy: Yeah.
It's a, it's a great question, and it's
been a deliberate strategy on our side.
If you think about- You know, our vendor
set, and this is not unique to Chewy,
but you've got really large vendors
that are multinationals with dozens
of brands, you know, really large.
Each one of those brands has their own
marketing campaign, their own budgets,
their own thing about this, down to,
you know, smaller, boutiquey mom and pop
new treat makers out of a garage, right?
Or hard goods, you know.
I, I have tremendous amount of traffic
in my hard goods category because you
browse for bowls and doggy outfits
and leashes and collars, and you
might be spearfishing for, you know,
GI-specific veterinary diet food.
James Avery: Right.
Frank Mulcahy: So how do you build
products that, that meet your
vendor where they, where they are?
For the large vendors who have agencies,
they want all the bells and whistles.
They want the levers.
They've got better kung fu.
They wanna land and do their thing.
Same with many of the D2C brands,
right, that already fight and
win on open web very well.
Let's give some of them the control.
But for a large percentage
of our vendors, they're not
sophisticated media buyers, right?
They haven't had to, like, live this
life for a very long time, so how do
we make it simpler and easier for them?
So we launched Chewy Max this year,
which is our programmatic solution
of just objective-based buying.
Yeah.
Make it simple.
What ROAS do you want?
That's how we started.
Like, what is the guaranteed
return on ad spend that we will
do all of the bids for you?
What are the keywords you need?
What is the audience
targeting that you need?
The roadmap is to, you know, expand
that, you know, objective lens from
I just want new-to-brand clients.
I just want, you know,
incremental net new clients.
Or maybe in the future I want to seed
reviews or whatever it might be, where
we can take the heavy lifting off their
teams who, again, may need to be managing
eight or 10 of these retail media
networks, let alone what they're doing
in Facebook and open web and socials.
Where they maybe have two or three
marketing people that, like, are recently
out of school that haven't been there.
So, like, it's the solution
for them along those lines.
And our, to be clear, many of our larger
vendors are still using elements like
TruMax as well, just for evergreen, right?
Right.
Just run that in the background against
these things so you can find that
niche buyer at 3:00 AM on a Thursday
night that's, that's out there, you
know, shopping at that moment in time.
Put it out there.
As long as it hits the, the, the target
that you need, it'll go get it, right?
It's just really automatic versus manual.
But how do you think about what
each part of your customer set
needs to go to market with?
And that's how we thought about it.
James Avery: Yeah.
That makes sense.
And it's like I always, uh, I'm always
bragging about you guys to people,
uh, with just really, I think you
guys have really built, I think, one
of the best RMNs out there with this
level of sophistication that, you know,
this is what you expect from the, you
know, a Google or somebody, right?
And like, and we're kind of
building this as a, as a specialty
retailer is, is incredible.
Frank Mulcahy: That's, you know, it's
funny you say that because when, when
we think about who our competitive set
is- And, and I had my, you know, year or
two of grace from some of the, the, the
largest advertisers on, "Yeah, we get it."
And I would say, I'm like, "Hey,
man, I'm a pet store building this.
Like, give me, give me a little bit."
James Avery: Yeah.
Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: But that's gone.
You know?
It, it's 2026.
We are- we're, we're not just
competing against Amazon and Walmart.
Like, we're competing, and this
is- these are the conversations
that I have with my merchants.
We're fighting against Google.
Right.
We're fighting against Meta.
We're fighting against the open web.
We're fighting against linear TV.
Yeah.
If we are going to mature as
the retail media CMN, you know,
ecosystem, th- everyone's gonna fight.
Like, the, the Madison guys can
fight and they're gonna give
us national budgets or not.
Is it right?
Like, th- those are CMO
battles, I get that.
That doesn't matter, though.
If I'm still even mid-lower funnel,
that's whom we are competing with.
James Avery: Yep.
Frank Mulcahy: And you have to build
the capabilities there to land that
because they'll just decide to buy
there, because they've got a f-
20-year head start in some cases.
You know, it's, it's a 10-year
head start with Amazon, Walmart.
But for the other folks, no one gets
fired, no one gets fired for buying Meta.
Same as the old-
Right … IBM thing, right?
Yeah.
So if I'm gonna capture money there,
how do I show better efficiency,
better efficacy, ease of use?
Uh, are we allowing, you know,
uh, API partnership buying?
Are we making it easier to… I
mean, look what you, you guys in
Austin did with the TTD guys, right?
Like, these are the things that need
to be done in the space if we're
going to get from where we are in 2026
to where we can be in '28 and '30.
James Avery: Yeah.
So that leads right into like
what, you know, I think we've
named a lot of these things.
What else… Is there anything else
you think that's in, in store for
us in the future of retail media?
Like, like things that we really need to
just, even as an industry, like where we
need to be, you know, pushing forward.
Frank Mulcahy: Uh, I, I really do
think, uh, there's a lot to the
consolidation, federation kinda space
that's coming over the long term.
There- there's too many of us.
It, it's not, it's not palatable.
It, it, it's not scalable.
It becomes really hard for the
buyers to buy all of those people.
And, and I've said it, uh, a
few times in the past, right?
If you look, I feel like everything
we're doing today we've already done.
Like, we went from websites, we went from
portals to ad networks to programmatic,
right, to, uh, all API buying.
I think we'll, we're gonna see
the same thing in this space.
We'll skip over the
network stage somewhat.
You've already seen it here, but i-
it's beginning to move programmatic.
Yeah.
James Avery: We kind of have
some networks today, right?
Like, you
Frank Mulcahy: know, like-
No, there are some there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it, it- Yeah … it's there,
but I, I think, like the speed by
which it's happening now versus the
speed that it happened then is, is
accelerating, especially with the
implementation of, I'll say it, AI,
fine, drink, um, to kinda land that.
But that's where it's gonna go
because- Audiences at scale are still
out there, and, and that's how media
has been bought now outside of the
retail space for a very long time.
And that's why ad.com exploded, right,
in 247, everybody else, and then that
became Right Media, and that became 247
and the, the programmatic kind of avenues.
And the buy side is
going to push for that.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: And, and the sell side
will say, "Here's my thing. I'm a
special snowflake. Do it this way." But
the buy side eventually wins, right?
I mean, if you go back to the old, you
know, viewability argument that happened
in, in portals and, and websites,
you know, 15 years ago, and all of a
sudden I think it was like PG, right?
It was like P&G was like,
"Nope, we demand this." Yeah.
And everybody in New York was like,
"Oh no, what are we gonna do?" Right?
But eventually that became the norm.
And there's too much money flowing
through RMS and CMs, CMS now not
to have this evolve and get there,
and it's going to require easier
ways to buy more people at once-
James Avery: Right
Frank Mulcahy: in a way that is
transparently and uniformly measured.
James Avery: Yeah.
Frank Mulcahy: And it's on us as an
industry to get our own ducks in a row to
enable that, because those that do will
win the outsize share against the two
poles of Walmart and Amazon in the space.
James Avery: Yeah.
And I think it, and I think, you know,
'cause I was, I w- went through the
same like ad tech ecosystem, and I think
that the good thing this time around,
like when you look at programmatic,
right, it really ended up not being
good for most publishers, right?
Oh, commoditized.
At the end of the day they got, they
just got like totally, you know,
kinda disintermediated, commoditized.
Yes.
And it was like, oh my, you know, my 300
by 250 on this well-written, you know,
doc- you know, like, uh, investigative
journalism is selling for the same
price as this like listicle, right?
Um, and I think, but I think retail,
we actually have a, we have a chance
to get it right because retailers do
have a little bit more, they have a
little more of a right to it, right?
They do.
Like if they're, you know, if I'm,
if I'm stocking your product, you
can't just treat me like I'm a
random website out there, right?
It's like there's, there's a
different… Like I think, I think
we can do it in a way that's not
gonna, you know, harm the retailers.
It actually becomes a, you know,
a, a tailwind for 'em, right?
Like it's a accelerant.
Frank Mulcahy: I, I, I concur, and I, I…
That is the like the, the hard caution
to the model that I laid out because
product discovery happens in retail.
Right?
The, the, you know, discovery's there,
but as they're considering, "I want
more information," where are they going?
They're going to a rich PDP.
They're going to discover the features,
the, the, whatever it might be for this
specific food or this specific treatment
or whatever it might be, and that's
incredibly valuable, and that, that
can't and shouldn't be commoditized.
Right.
Like, how do you land that?
But when I think a little bit more of the
off-site element than the on-site element
is where I think you'll see more of that
going when you think about how to activate
true, you know, full funnel M&M modeling
against all these different touchpoints.
I see more of it in the off-site space
than I do of it in the on-site space-
James Avery: Yeah,
Frank Mulcahy: yeah
because of that point that you,
that you made there, because that's
a good point on the 300 by 250 on,
like, high quality value But you
can't sell all that inventory on
managed service one-to-one IOs.
It's just not scalable.
Right.
Yeah.
You have to make that easier to buy
while still maintaining the business
rules to get value for your inventory.
James Avery: Yeah.
No, no, and I think on-site will, even
on-site will get there as well because
I just think it's, nobody wants to buy
on 300 retail media networks, and even
when you, you can automate it, but
it's still a lotta, a lotta dollars
moving around and sitting in wallets
over here and wallets over there- Yeah
and, you know, kinda all this stuff.
So 100% agree.
So where, uh, so before, before I let
you go, um, if you were gonna go back to
starting a, a retail media network, if,
if you're one of these guys who's, you
just got hired, you're, you're a year
in, you're, you know, at a new retailer.
I know there's some, some companies
we work with that you've been
helping out, um, you know, like,
uh, just friendly advice, right?
It's like, what, what
would you tell these guys?
Like, you know, they've
just started something.
What, uh, you know, what should
they, what do they need to get
right in the first couple years?
Frank Mulcahy: Well, who
is the executive sponsor?
Who, who is, who owns this, right?
Is it, is it in the merch org?
Is it in the ads org?
Is it in the finance org?
There's not a right or, or wrong answer
there, but that's going to determine
a lot of how you'll move forward.
Because are you just trying
to subsidize marketing costs?
Are you impacting the merchant's,
you know, margin profile?
Are you trying to build out, you
know, whatever it might be for,
you know, elements on this side?
I think that's the most important
thing is get clear on who is your
internal client for the l- most part,
and then it's aligning internally on
what are the reasonable expectations
that you can unlock over time.
What is the reasonable, you know,
TAM that you have in year one?
A lot of times people get
told, "Hey, light this up.
Here's what model X, Y, Z or consultant
X, Y, Z had said is our go get." And
it's like, okay, what is real though?
Like, what is a proper actual expected
spend against GMV that you can capture
in year one, two, three, year four?
Because the numbers that they may have
heard are projected year five numbers
and best case build-out, and you're
not gonna capture that in year one.
You're certainly not gonna capture
that year one in 2026 when you're
already fighting against everybody
else that's, that's already there.
Then it's think about narrowly focusing
on what is the first piece of tech
or product that you can get right.
Do not try to boil the ocean year one,
because y- you can't be half good at
five things or y- people just move on.
Like, you're not gonna be important
enough and you're too hard.
Land the one thing, show the efficacy
on it, and then build from there.
And then be very thoughtful about
what it actually takes from a product
perspective, an engineering perspective,
and a business perspective to stand
up these businesses because they
are resource and labor-intensive
if you're taking it on internally.
And you have to be able to hire the
people that can speak programmatic
ad tech, that can code programmatic
ad tech or, or be able to speak to it
and be able to cross the street from
Madison Avenue to, right, the, the
buyers and sellers and the merchants.
How do you land that?
Because if you try to put a merchant in
the beginning, that's not a bad model, but
don't think you're gonna go capture New
York money 'cause you can't even speak it.
Right.
And if you just put somebody in
it from that space, they don't
know how to speak merchant.
They're gonna piss off their merch
org, it's gonna go sideways, and it's
gonna be nasty negotiations internally.
So you have to be very deliberate
and appropriate in your thought
model in approaching that.
James Avery: Awesome.
Well, Frank, as always,
it's great to chat.
Thanks for coming on and I'm sure
we'll- James, thank you … I'm
sure we'll do this again.
Frank Mulcahy: I appreciate the time, man.
It was fantastic.
Great conversation.
James Avery: Thanks for tuning
in to Unlocking Retail Media.
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