Retail Insider has released Q3 2026 Marketing & Customer Experience: Marketing Moves Closer to Commerce, authored by Retail Insider founder and publisher Craig Patterson. The report examines how campaigns, loyalty, retail media and physical experiences are creating more direct connections between attention and shopping.
The report covers Canadian retail marketing, advertising, branding, customer acquisition, loyalty, digital media, social commerce, public relations and consumer engagement. It draws on Retail Insider coverage, company disclosures and industry research, keeping campaign objectives separate from demonstrated results and identifying the limits of Canadian and cross-border surveys.
Retail Insider Reports provide executive-level analysis of the sectors and business issues shaping Canadian retail. The Retail Insider Report Hub brings the quarterly collection together, connecting developments at individual companies with the broader evidence behind changes in retail strategy.
General Themes
- Commerce connections are strengthening: Campaigns increasingly give customers a defined next step toward products, stores or purchases.
- Retailer audiences have commercial value: Loyalty and transaction relationships support new advertising capabilities.
- Physical experiences serve multiple purposes: Visits, sampling, social content and sales require different measures of success.
- AI adoption is ahead of confidence: More content does not necessarily mean greater trust, differentiation or return.
- Measurement must match intent: Reach, participation, linked accounts, purchases and retention answer different business questions.
Retail Insider Coverage
Reitmans connected its fall collection, national ambassadors Lilly Singh and Katherine Levac, and Toronto Tempo partnership across content, e-commerce and stores. A Shop the Look experience created a route from campaign styling to products customers could buy. Its measurement plan covered reach, consideration, acquisition, conversion and sales, but those remained objectives rather than demonstrated campaign outcomes at the time of the interview.
Loblaw Advance expanded advertiser access by naming Criteo a preferred demand partner for email display placements across Shoppers Drug Mart, PC Optimum and PC Express newsletters. Loblaw described an ecosystem with more than 18 million active PC Optimum members and roughly 25 million opted-in emails deployed weekly. The opportunity rests on established customer relationships, not simply on adding another advertising surface.
Walmart Connect introduced a Canadian self-serve onsite display platform combining bidding, targeting, forecasting and reporting. Depending on campaign and format, reporting can include conversion, return on ad spend and new-to-brand customers alongside impressions and clicks. Walmart did not disclose platform adoption or advertiser-return figures at launch. The capability to measure a result is not itself evidence that the result has improved.
Triangle Rewards and Tims Rewards linked their programs in September, allowing members to earn Canadian Tire Money on eligible Tim Hortons purchases while still collecting Tims Rewards points. The separate currencies and payment-dependent earning rates matter to the offer. The partnership gives Triangle access to a more frequent purchase routine, although neither company disclosed incremental spending attributable to it. Membership totals cannot be added together to establish a unique combined audience.
Cadillac Fairview’s It’s Better in Real Life platform used events, tenant activations and local programming to create additional reasons to visit shopping centres. Its research found that 31 per cent of property visits were socially motivated, while a CF Carrefour Laval activation attracted approximately 5,300 participants. Those findings describe motivations and participation, not equivalent increases in incremental traffic or tenant sales. The appropriate measure depends on whether the activity aims to generate discovery, visits or purchases.
Oatly’s Toronto Matcha-tality Suite and an Amazon creator-event example illustrated how temporary installations can reach a second audience through photography, video and social content. Product settings, sampling and creator links can connect experience with shopping. These events also require design, logistics, staffing and installation, and neither example supplied a measured sales return. Their wider media reach should therefore be distinguished from demonstrated commercial payback.
eBay used its Toronto International Film Festival partnership to extend Canadian livestream shopping into vintage fashion and luxury resale. Live demonstrations and seller questions can help buyers assess condition, rarity and provenance while bidding or purchasing. eBay did not disclose Canadian transaction volumes or conversion results from the partnership. The initiative establishes category development rather than mass-market adoption of livestream commerce.
Measurement is becoming more detailed in some channels and less visible in others. Retail media, linked rewards and livestream platforms can observe defined shopping actions, while research inside AI conversations may occur before a retailer sees any website visit. Conventional referrals can therefore reveal only the later stage of a purchase journey. More observable transactions do not mean the entire discovery process is easier to understand.
Broader Industry Coverage
A Stone-Olafson and ZGM Modern Marketing Partners study of more than 300 Canadian marketing professionals found that 81 per cent used AI, but only 3 per cent fully trusted its outputs. Another 43 per cent did not know whether it improved marketing ROI. Separately, Cashew found differentiation concerns among 65 per cent of 206 senior North American marketers. The findings point to different questions about adoption, reliability and distinctive ideas, not a single measure of AI effectiveness.
Cashew’s separate survey of 2,149 consumers in Canada and the United States found that 87 per cent believed brand content was at least partly AI-generated. Only 13 per cent were very confident they could distinguish it, but these are stated attitudes from a combined-market sample, not Canadian purchasing results. Vistar Media also reported stronger stated trust in out-of-home advertising than digital alternatives. Its role in that industry is relevant context for interpreting the research.
Faster content production makes accurate commercial information more important. Neato’s discussion of AI-assisted creative highlighted the risk of polished assets showing incorrect package sizes, unavailable merchandise or outdated offers. Product, pricing and inventory information need to remain current as output increases. Employee and creator content adds questions about permission, compensation and repeatability that a successful individual post cannot settle.
The 2026 Canadian Sponsorship Landscape Study estimated sponsorship spending at $4.7 billion, while its share of marketing communications budgets declined from 25 per cent to 21 per cent over five years. The study included 188 participating brands, properties and agencies. Its estimate covers the broader Canadian sponsorship industry, not retail-only or Q3 spending. Greater attention to effectiveness reflects competition for budgets across a growing range of channels.
Editor’s Take
The report’s outlook starts with defining the job before choosing the metric. A brand campaign can legitimately seek consideration, a shopping-centre event can target visits, and a loyalty partnership can aim to strengthen purchase frequency. None should be judged by a convenient measure that implies a different result. An impression is not a sale, and an account link is not proof of incremental spending.
Marketing moved closer to commerce during the quarter, but measurement still requires judgment. Distinctive ideas, relevant experiences, accurate product information and established customer relationships give content substance as AI makes production easier. The useful test is whether an investment changed the behaviour it was intended to influence, with evidence proportionate to the claim.
Conclusion
Read the full Q3 2026 Marketing & Customer Experience report for the analysis of campaigns, retail media, loyalty, experiences and AI. It separates the availability of new marketing capabilities from evidence that they are producing commercial results.
The report and the wider quarterly collection are available through the Retail Insider Report Hub. The collection connects Canadian retail strategy with company reporting, industry research and the practical questions facing decision-makers.
