Myer has launched the Myer Media Network, an in-house advertising business built around its loyalty data, omnichannel customer touchpoints, and a new AI-native sponsored product layer from Mirakl Ads.
The move puts the Australian department store into a fast-growing retail media category where customer data is becoming as strategically important as shelf space. For brand partners, Myer is not simply offering another ad placement. It is packaging its loyalty program, digital storefront, CRM channels, and physical customer relationships into a more measurable media product.
The deeper shift is that retailers are turning customer relationships into advertising infrastructure. That does not make every retailer a media company overnight, but it does change what brands can expect from commerce partners.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- How Myer is positioning retail media
- Why AI matters in the new network
- The bigger signal for retailer-owned advertising
- What marketers should know about retail media AI
How Myer is positioning retail media
Myer is building its network around MYER one, the retailer’s loyalty program, and positioning the product as a way for brand partners to reach shoppers across onsite, offsite, CRM, digital, and physical channels.
That matters because retail media is no longer confined to sponsored search placements on ecommerce pages. The more valuable promise is continuity: a retailer can connect audience insight, campaign exposure, and shopping behavior across different moments in the customer journey.
Myer’s launch also follows its rollout of the Mirakl marketplace, which expanded the retailer’s online assortment. Taken together, the marketplace and media network suggest a broader commerce strategy: more sellers, more products, more shopper data, and more advertising surfaces arranged around the same retail relationship.
A retail media network is strongest when it reflects a retailer’s actual customer behavior, not just its available ad inventory.
Why AI matters in the new network
The AI layer comes through Myer’s partnership with Mirakl Ads, described as an AI-native retail media platform for targeted sponsored product campaigns across myer.com.au.
At a basic level, this gives advertisers a way to promote products against shopper intent inside Myer’s owned commerce environment. Strategically, it points to a more important development: AI is becoming the optimization layer that makes retailer data easier to activate.
The common assumption is that retail media’s advantage comes from audience access. The more useful reality is that access only matters when it can be translated into relevant, measurable, and timely campaign decisions. The strategic implication is clear: the battle is shifting from who owns the shopper data to who can operationalize that data without making campaigns feel blunt or repetitive.
For Myer, AI-supported sponsored products could make the media network more attractive to brands that want performance signals closer to the point of purchase. For Mirakl, the partnership places its ads technology inside a retailer with a loyalty base, a marketplace strategy, and established brand equity in Australia.
The bigger signal for retailer-owned advertising
Myer’s move sits inside a wider pattern: retailers are building media businesses because they control high-intent environments at a time when marketers are under pressure to prove outcomes.
That pressure makes loyalty data more valuable. It can help retailers define audiences through actual shopping behavior rather than inferred interest alone. It can also help brands connect campaigns to commerce moments that are harder for open-web advertising to see clearly.
But this is where the strategy gets more delicate. Retail media can create new revenue for retailers and more accountable buying options for brands, yet it can also clutter customer experiences if every surface becomes monetized too aggressively.
The most durable retail media networks will not behave like ad networks with checkout pages attached. They will behave like customer systems that know when advertising helps the journey and when it interrupts it.
Myer’s positioning around trusted customer relationships is important for that reason. If the network can use loyalty insight to make ads more relevant across onsite, offsite, CRM, and store-linked moments, it has a stronger story than inventory expansion alone.
What marketers should know about retail media AI
For marketers, the Myer launch is less about one new Australian retail media option and more about how the category is maturing.
Loyalty data is becoming media infrastructure. Retailers with strong customer programs can build ad products around known behavior, not just traffic volume. That gives brand partners a more commerce-linked way to plan campaigns.
AI changes the operating model. The value of AI in retail media is not just automated placement. It is the ability to turn shopper signals into faster optimization across sponsored products, CRM, and broader customer touchpoints.
Marketplaces and media networks reinforce each other. A broader product ecosystem can create more advertising opportunities, while advertising can help marketplace sellers compete for visibility. The risk is that relevance has to keep pace with monetization.
Measurement expectations will rise. As retailers sell access to loyalty and commerce signals, brands will expect clearer evidence that campaigns influence shopping behavior rather than merely generating impressions.
The more interesting question is not whether more retailers will launch media networks. They will. The harder question is whether those networks can create value without turning customer relationships into overworked ad surfaces.
That distinction matters because retail media is becoming one of the places where AI marketing will be judged most practically. If AI improves relevance, accountability, and operational speed, brands will lean in. If it simply increases ad volume, shoppers will feel the difference quickly.
Myer’s launch shows how retail media is moving closer to the center of commerce strategy. The future of the category will be shaped not only by who has the most data, but by who uses it with enough restraint to keep trust intact.
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