I've been in audio production for over two decades, in radio first, then retail. I joined Rockbot as Audio Services Manager in 2021, and since then my team has worked with brands across retail, food service, and franchises, building thousands of custom audio messages for some of the country's biggest retail brands.
Retailers are building impressive in-store retail media programs, including better screens, smarter data, and stronger CPG partnerships. Audio is a meaningful part of that picture, and it can be harder to get right than it might seem. The strategy, production quality, timing, and how messages fit with the store environment – all of it matters.
Here are five lessons from that work, focused on what makes retail media perform.
Lesson 1: You Can't Walk Past Audio
Digital signage works when shoppers are looking at it. Audio works just about everywhere.
A leader at a major office supply brand’s Canadian division ran a test that clearly made this point. The retailer who worked with me had been promoting a well-known computer brand exclusively through wall signs and in-store displays. When they added audio messaging to the mix, sales increased by 80%.
Research confirms what that test revealed. Dentsu, in partnership with Lumen and other groups, studied consumer attention and measured the effectiveness of audio advertising (including podcasts, radio, and streaming audio):
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Audio ads averaged 10,126 attentive seconds per thousand impressions – significantly higher than other ad formats, which averaged 6,501.
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41% of audio ads generated correct brand recall, compared to 38% across other formats.
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Audio delivered a 10% brand choice uplift versus 6% for other formats – meaning listeners were more likely to choose a brand after hearing an ad.
Another study found that adding sound to digital displays drove an 86% sales lift compared to visual-only formats. Shoppers moving through a store are visually overloaded – packaging, promotional displays, wayfinding, and screens all compete for their attention at once. Audio cuts through the noise.
Lesson 2: Retailers Can Turn Audio Into Ad Revenue
Retail media margins run over 70%– significantly higher than the products on shelves. The Journal of Retailing puts the gap even more bluntly: retail media ad margins are roughly 10 times larger than traditional retail margins.
Many retailers already pay for music licensing and audio infrastructure. Adding a messaging layer and selling spots within that programming to brand partners turns existing overhead into a revenue line. About 25% of the brands Rockbot works with monetize their audio airtime through third-party partner advertisements. The remaining 75% use audio only for their own promotions – and there's meaningful revenue sitting in that gap.
A district manager at a major travel and convenience retailer chain tested Rockbot audio messaging across their district and saw measurable sales lift – significant enough that corporate leadership began exploring audio across 600-plus locations.
Rockbot also works with one of the biggest retailers on their in-store retail media program. This brand reaches millions of shoppers daily and thus their RMN (retail media network) is more attractive to brand advertisers seeking scale. When leadership requested messages to run at the top of every hour, my team built and tested the solution quickly – that kind of turnaround is only possible when production is handled in-house.
Lesson 3: Production Is Where Placements Win or Lose
An audio placement can be perfectly positioned and still underperform.
We work with a major retailer that was running retail media ads for an air freshener brand. The partnership made sense, reaching customers right at the point of purchase. But the message wasn't converting the way the retailer had hoped, so we dug in together to find out why.
The ad covered the basics but when we listened to it in the context of an actual store environment, the problem became clear. The message was consistent with the background music's energy – meant that it didn't pop out from the audio background in a way that grabbed attention.
This was a production problem, not a strategy problem - and we could fix it quickly. Here’s what we did within 24 hours:
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Applied the 7-second rule (a rule commonly used in the radio industry) – it’s important to capture interest right away
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Added sound effects and jingles since we needed to cut through in-store noise
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Played creatively with humor and surprise in the message itself, which included the sound of people sniffing the air
Sales increased immediately. The strategy was never the problem.
We see this pattern regularly. A national outdoor retailer wasn't sure audio messaging would move the needle, until they tested it during Black Friday. The results were immediate and measurable: every time an audio message played, their point-of-sale data showed corresponding conversions.
Good production means understanding how sound behaves inside a retail environment – how shoppers process audio while focused on something else, and how to engineer a message that performs in that context.
Lesson 4: Strategy Matters as Much as the Message
Dwell time, frequency, and campaign goals all shape how audio performs in-store – and they're worth thinking through carefully.
Know Your Dwell Time
When a major electronics retailer was preparing to launch a retail media test with Rockbot, the first thing my team wanted to understand was how long shoppers actually spent in the store. For example, if average dwell time is 20 minutes and there are three types of messages to deliver, that determines how often each one plays.
Get this measurement wrong and shoppers leave before hearing the right messages, or they hear the same thing too many times. A smart dwell-time calculation separates strategic audio from simply filling airtime – and it connects directly to how customer experience works in practice, where in-store is one moment in a longer journey.
Set the Right Frequency
One large retailer’s in-store retail media program is a useful benchmark. Their audio runs on a deliberate schedule – messages timed and sequenced within the broader audio environment (including custom radio) so the experience doesn't feel like an interruption.
More messages is rarely the answer. The right cadence depends on your store format, your shopper's typical path, and what you're trying to accomplish at each point in that journey.
Rockbot research from a client in the financial services sector makes this tangible: increasing customer dwell time by just one minute through strategic audio programming was able to increase Net Promoter Scores by one full point – representing $15 million in value for a major bank. Time spent in the right audio environment changes behavior.
Lesson 5: Scale Requires Consistency – and the Right Partner
Retail media is projected to reach $203.9 billion in 2026, with physical stores still accounting for 76% of retail sales and in-store formats among the fastest-growing segments (a key retail media trend for this year).
The market is there and proving value in one store is the easy part. The challenge is delivering the same quality and consistency across hundreds or thousands of locations – and doing it in a way that brand partners can rely on.
That consistency matters commercially. Brand partners investing in audio placements need to know their message will sound the same in every store and perform reliably at scale. This security requires a partner who can move fast, build custom solutions, and test everything before it goes live.
According to a Bain survey of 250 top retailers, 75% of retail executives are planning a large-scale store transformation in the next two years, and 44% expect their in-store technology investments to improve their bottom line by at least 1.5 percentage points.
Retailers who build this out now will be in a stronger position as that competition grows – with better offerings for brand partners and more data to show for it.
When We Recommend Professional Audio Production
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Retail media partnerships: Brand partners investing in placements expect polish and measurable results
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Brand-critical campaigns: Big moments deserve more than a basic voiceover
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Multi-location scale: Consistency across hundreds of stores requires centralized production and reliable infrastructure
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Messages that aren’t performing: Professional expertise can diagnose issues quickly and help fix them
Music, Messaging, and Screens: Better Together
Screens and audio work better together than either does alone. Screens create awareness. Audio reaches shoppers while they're moving through the store, reinforcing key messages and helping close more sales.
The retailers and brand partners I work with who get the most out of their in-store media treat audio as part of the strategy from the start. That's where the results tend to show up. Getting there takes attention to detail at every level, from the strategy to the sound design.
Once, a major spice and seasonings brand flagged that a salt shaker sound effect in their spot didn't sound enough like a salt shaker. My team recorded a real shaker, cleaned the audio, and recut the spot. That level of care is just part of how we work – and it scales with your business, from 10 locations to 10,000.
If you're building out or improving an in-store retail media program, we'd love to talk. Learn more about Rockbot's in-store retail media solutions or schedule a consultation.
