Selecting retail media suppliers by recording what was examined, not by scoring what was not

Use a retail media selection checklist to expose unanswered questions about a retailer's assignment. For England procurement, a shortlist should identify the inventory and data operation being considered before comparing product descriptions or agency offers. Completed paperwork alone does not establish that a service performs well.

This proposed checklist was prepared for shopperads.co.uk through desk research on 6 September 2026. No reviewing body or named independent assessor has completed product testing. No account, deployment, commercial proposal or agency engagement was supplied, so it produces no selection verdict.

Identify the subject and the reviewers

Record the exact product, service or engagement, its version and the date of the supporting record. Specify the retailer property, placement format and scope. Do not use a supplier's wider product portfolio as the subject when only one component is under consideration.

Name the commissioning publication or buying organisation and the people performing each assessment. Distinguish editorial checking from qualified advertising, privacy, security and measurement work. Do not invent a credential or reviewer identity to complete an empty field.

Confirm affiliate, sponsorship and other material relationships. Publisher conflicts are unverified in this article, and no supplier sample or paid access was used. Those statements must remain distinguishable from a declaration of independence.

Compare the same retail-media assignment

Give candidates an identical description of the controlled inventory, catalogue inputs and intended reporting. Define whether the work covers ad decisions, shopper-facing rendering, campaign administration or agency operation. Keep wider marketplace functions outside scope unless expressly required.

Ask for a direct, current first-party record for each claimed function. Mark it as documented until appropriate observation exists. Request evidence of missing capabilities without treating absence from an introductory page as proof that a product cannot provide them.

Commercial values, implementation effort and service times remain UNKNOWN until evidenced. If comparing terms later, use the same deliverables, period, units, currency and VAT basis. No numerical price or performance assumptions belong in an unpopulated checklist.

Route claims to the right assessment

CAP's substantiation rules concern objective marketing claims. Have a competent reviewer examine any promotional wording used to justify selection; the code is not a product certification or an approval of this checklist.

The ICO's online advertising guidance explains consent in advertising storage and access. Review actual purposes and data flows rather than inferring compliant operation from the phrase first-party data.

The NCSC's supply-chain principle addresses dependencies and access to information. Ask for evidence within the proposed service boundary. No assurance document or security test was examined here, and no supplier passes that assessment by appearing on a shortlist.

Record what was actually examined

For each criterion, identify the source, reviewer, method, date and limitation. Distinguish a supplier-selected demonstration from an independent observation. Leave accessibility, usability, reliability and support quality untested unless an appropriate assessment was genuinely carried out.

Do not infer a rendered placement from an ad response or attention from visibility. Keep clicks, credited sales, modelled estimates and causal outcomes separate. A reporting capability does not establish the validity of every interpretation made from its output.

Prepare the decision record

List unresolved requirements with an evidence owner and the consequence for the assignment. Avoid a combined score that conceals missing information. Preserve contradictory records and investigate whether their versions or scopes differ before resolving the finding.

The next step is an authorised assessment of the specific candidate and arrangement. This desk checklist recommends no product or agency and awards no launch approval. Publication requires real authorship, qualified review, refreshed sources and verified conflicts; subsequent decisions must stay within the evidence actually obtained.