Pentaleap and Osmos Partner to Run Retail Media Like a Media Company and Rank Products Like a Retailer

Retail media is evolving. Running a media business and deciding what deserves a place on the digital shelf are two very different disciplines.

For years, the industry approached them as one. That made sense when retail media was largely about selling sponsored placements. But as networks expand across onsite, offsite and in-store, the two disciplines are becoming increasingly specialized.

That's where the Pentaleap and Osmos partnership comes in.

Pentaleap makes the onsite decisions that determine how sponsored and organic products compete for space on the digital shelf. Osmos provides the operating system for planning, executing and measuring retail media across channels.

The opportunity is commercial as much as technical: help retailers win more of a brand's media budget, while making more from the onsite inventory they already have, without sacrificing the shopping experience.

Why the digital shelf needs its own decision engine

Serving an ad is easy. Deciding whether it deserves a spot on the shelf is the harder part.

Traditionally, search engines rank organic products while ad servers pick sponsored ones. Two separate systems making decisions about the same page. That's how irrelevant sponsored products end up in prominent positions, even when shoppers have no interest in them.

Pentaleap brings both into one ranking decision. Products compete for their place based on relevance, predicted performance and the value they create for the retailer, including retail and advertising margin. A higher bid can help. But it shouldn't put an irrelevant product in front of a better one.

This isn't theoretical. The Home Depot uses Pentaleap's unified ranking engine while retaining control of its frontend experience. Macy's runs Amazon and Criteo demand through Pentaleap, bringing organic and sponsored products into the same ranking logic.

In A/B tests against legacy setups, we've seen ad revenue increase by 80–140% from the same onsite inventory.

What Pentaleap and Osmos unlock together

Osmos is built for a different job: running the media business. Its operating system gives retail media teams and their brand partners one place to plan, buy, manage and measure campaigns across onsite, social, the open web, in-store screens and connected TV, under the retailer's own brand. Pentaleap handles what those onsite campaigns are competing for: positions on the retailer's digital shelf.

The distinction matters in two ways.

First, retailers can compete for a bigger share of brand budgets. When onsite, offsite and in-store are managed separately, things get complicated for everyone. Retailers have to sell each channel individually, while brands have to juggle multiple campaigns, budgets and reporting systems. 

Osmos brings those channels together into one media plan, making it easier for a brand to invest across the full network.

Second, retailers can bring more demand into the same onsite auction. Direct-sold campaigns managed through Osmos can compete with external demand connected through Pentaleap. That increases competition for existing inventory without lowering the relevance standards that protect the shopping experience.

The two benefits reinforce each other. Osmos makes it easier to build a larger media business. Pentaleap helps ensure the added demand earns its place on the shelf.

One decision engine. Multiple ways to buy.

Pentaleap was built to work independently of the interfaces used to buy and manage campaigns.

Retailers can use Pentaleap's own campaign UI to manage sponsored products, display and video. They can connect supported buying platforms such as Teads and Skai. And, through Osmos, they can give brands a single place to plan and manage campaigns across onsite, offsite and in-store.

These options aren't mutually exclusive. Retailers can support multiple buying interfaces while maintaining consistent onsite auction and ranking logic. The interface a campaign comes from shouldn't decide whether its products deserve to appear.

Why we chose to partner instead of building everything

We could have built an omnichannel operating system ourselves. We chose not to.

Running media operations across channels takes a different set of capabilities from deciding what should appear on a retailer's digital shelf. Osmos has built for the former. We've spent years focusing on the latter.

And that distinction matters. The digital shelf isn't just advertising inventory. It's where media revenue and retail revenue compete for the same space. Getting that balance right is too important to leave to an ad server focused only on monetizing ads.

This means working with two vendors instead of one. But a single-vendor stack comes with its own costs, particularly when you want to change one part without replacing everything. Separating media operations from shelf decisioning gives retailers more freedom to improve either layer independently.

Amazon and Walmart control the ranking decisions on their own digital shelves. Why should other retailers give that control to their ad vendor?

Brands should have the freedom to buy through the tools they prefer. Retailers should have the final say over what appears on their shelves.

That's what Pentaleap and Osmos are building together.

Interested in seeing what this could look like for your retail media network? Talk to Pentaleap.

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