Commerce Media Business Case Template: 3-Year P&L Model

A commerce media business case has four revenue lines (card-linked or loyalty offers, onsite placements, owned screens, offsite audiences) and three cost lines (platform, people, incentives). This template gives every formula, a sourced default for every input that has a public source, three presets (bank, airline, pharmacy) and a sensitivity table that shows which five inputs decide the result.

The model is vendor-neutral. Platform cost is an input you set, as a share of net revenue or as a fixed license, so the same sheet works for a rented platform, a white-label deployment or a self-hosted stack.

The template is one sheet of inputs, one sheet of monthly steady-state formulas, one sheet of annual P&L with a ramp, and one sheet of sensitivity. Everything flows from audience to inventory to price to cost.

Audience. You start with total customers or members, the share that is monthly active, and the share that is addressable after consent and legal exclusions. For a bank the exclusions follow GLBA and the opt-out model the big networks use; for a pharmacy they follow HIPAA and state health-data laws, which remove prescription and health-adjacent purchases from the addressable base. The compliance hub has the frameworks; how a bank launches a media network without moving customer data walks through the consent architecture.

Offers. Card-linked and loyalty offers are the revenue line that every non-retail network starts with, because the purchase is the billing event. The model multiplies addressable users by offer views per user per month, applies a redemption rate, multiplies by average basket to get merchant spend driven, then applies the advertiser fee. Fees can be a share of the sale or a fixed cost per redemption. Consumer incentives (cash back, miles, coupon value) come off the top, then any partner share if the network runs inside someone else's channel.

Onsite placements. App and web impressions are sessions times ad impressions per session times the monetizable share, times fill. Pricing is CPM or, for sponsored listings, CTR times CPC.

Owned screens. Seatback, in-store, lobby and fuel-pump screens are modelled as screens times plays per day times opportunity-to-see per play, times sell-through, times CPM. The IAB and IAB Europe in-store measurement standard (finalized December 2024) is the reference for what counts as an impression (Pygmalios, updated 28 July 2026, citing the IAB standard).

Offsite audiences. Addressable users times match rate gives the matched audience; times frequency gives impressions; times CPM gives gross media. The network keeps a take rate on that media and the rest is media cost paid to publishers or a DSP. This is the line where match rate, not audience size, sets the ceiling. Clean rooms vs CDP explains the matching options.

Costs. Platform cost is either a percentage of net revenue (typical for rented and white-label platforms) or a fixed annual figure (license plus cloud for a self-hosted stack). People cost is FTEs times a loaded cost. Measurement, clean-room and sales commission lines are separate so they can be challenged separately. One-off build cost lands in year one.

All monthly figures are steady state. Annual figures apply the ramp.

# Audience
MAU        = N × m
ADDR       = MAU × c

# Offers (card-linked or loyalty)
OFFER_VIEWS = ADDR × v
REDEMPTIONS = OFFER_VIEWS × r
SPEND_DRIVEN = REDEMPTIONS × B
BILLINGS_OFFERS = SPEND_DRIVEN × f            # or REDEMPTIONS × F in fixed-CPA mode
INCENTIVES  = BILLINGS_OFFERS × i
PARTNER     = (BILLINGS_OFFERS − INCENTIVES) × p
NET_OFFERS  = BILLINGS_OFFERS − INCENTIVES − PARTNER

# Onsite placements
IMP_ON      = MAU × s × a × q × fill
REV_ON      = IMP_ON / 1000 × CPM_on            # CPM mode
REV_ON      = IMP_ON × CTR × CPC                # sponsored-listings mode

# Owned screens
OTS_SCR     = S × pl × ots × 30 × st
REV_SCR     = OTS_SCR / 1000 × CPM_scr

# Offsite audiences
MATCHED     = ADDR × mr
IMP_OFF     = MATCHED × fo
GROSS_OFF   = IMP_OFF / 1000 × CPM_off
REV_OFF     = GROSS_OFF × t_off                 # the rest is media cost passed through

# Totals (monthly)
GROSS_BILLINGS = BILLINGS_OFFERS + REV_ON + REV_SCR + GROSS_OFF
NET_REVENUE    = NET_OFFERS + REV_ON + REV_SCR + REV_OFF

# Annual P&L, year y
GROSS_y     = GROSS_BILLINGS × 12 × ramp_y
NET_y       = NET_REVENUE × 12 × ramp_y
PLATFORM_y  = NET_y × plat% + plat$
PEOPLE_y    = FTE × L
OTHER_y     = meas + NET_y × comm
ONEOFF_y    = oneoff if y = 1 else 0
CONTRIB_y   = NET_y − PLATFORM_y − PEOPLE_y − OTHER_y − ONEOFF_y
CUM_y       = Σ CONTRIB_1..y
NPV         = Σ CONTRIB_y / (1 + d)^y
PAYBACK     = first y where CUM_y ≥ 0

# Unit economics
BILLINGS_PER_MAU_YEAR = BILLINGS_OFFERS × 12 / MAU
NET_PER_MEMBER_YEAR   = NET_REVENUE × 12 / N
SPEND_PER_MEMBER_YEAR = SPEND_DRIVEN × 12 / N

Every default below is either tied to a dated public figure or marked editable assumption. The presets are illustrative sizes, not forecasts for any named company.

Running the formulas on the defaults gives the following. These are illustrations of the arithmetic, not forecasts.

Monthly steady state

Annual P&L

Unit economics and sanity checks

The bank preset lands at about double Cardlytics' billings per user and a third of Chase's spend driven per customer, which is the range an owner-run network with a modest redemption assumption should expect. If your inputs put you above Chase on spend per customer, the redemption rate or offer frequency is too high.

Open Explore sensitivity to input assumptions in the interactive model. It recalculates contribution with one input changed at a time. Invalid percentage ranges remain unavailable instead of being silently capped.

Use these cases to identify which inputs need measurement or a commercial quote. Offer views, redemption, advertiser fees and consumer incentives affect different parts of the same revenue path. Do not treat a preset as a forecast. The workbook supports direct changes to the same inputs; it does not include a native two-variable Excel Data Table in this release.

For how the retailers that these ratios come from built their networks, see how retailers turn shopper data into media revenue and the financial media networks explainer.

• XLSX. The editable workbook has a Model sheet with live formulas and an Inputs sheet with values, units, source links and assumption labels. The default scenario is the bank example; change the inputs to model another network.
• Google Sheets. Import the XLSX into Google Sheets. A hosted master copy is not provided in this release.
• CSV and JSON. Download the current inputs and calculated results from the tool, or export individual reference tables below.

The models and original reference tables are available under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.

How much revenue does a retail media network make per customer? Public figures are scarce. Cardlytics billed $385.0 million against 224.2 million monthly qualified users in 2025, which is $1.72 per user per year before incentives and partner share (Cardlytics 10-K, FY2025). Chase states $11.2 billion of merchant spend driven across 84 million customers in 2025, $133 per customer, but does not disclose its fee (chase.com, accessed 17 October 2026). The template reports both ratios so you can compare.

What take rate should a commerce media network expect? It depends on the line. Offers are billed on the sale, and the network's margin is what is left after incentives, which were 39% of Cardlytics' billings in 2025. Onsite placements are close to pure margin before platform cost. Offsite media is mostly pass-through; the template's 25% retained share is an editable assumption because no network discloses it. The retail media economics calculator shows the same split for a retailer.

How do you build a business case for a retail media network? Start from audience, not from a revenue target: members, active share, addressable share. Add inventory per line (offer views, sessions, screens, matched users). Price each line with a dated benchmark or a pilot result. Subtract incentives and pass-through to get net revenue, then platform, people and measurement. Run the sensitivity before anyone sees the headline number.

What is a good redemption rate for card-linked offers? No network publishes redemptions per offer view. Cardlytics reports consumer incentives, not redemptions, and Chase reports offer views and spend driven. The template's 0.5% for a bank is an editable assumption; the pilot's job is to replace it with a measured figure within the first quarter.

How long does a media network take to pay back? On the defaults, the bank and pharmacy presets pay back in year one and the airline preset in year two, because the airline case has lower offer volume and a higher year-one build cost. Payback is most sensitive to the ramp assumption and the one-off cost, both of which are editable.

Use the commerce media guide to compare the related operating models, definitions and evidence before making this decision.

1. Chase Media Solutions site (accessed 17 October 2026). https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/home
2. Marketing Brew, "Chase launches a retail media network" (16 April 2024). https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2024/04/16/chase-retail-media-network-chase-media-solutions
3. Cardlytics, Form 10-K FY2025 (filed March 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1666071/000166607126000010/cdlx-20251231.htm
4. Axios, "American Express launches Amex Ads" (6 October 2025). https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/amex-ads-american-express-media
5. Marketing Dive, "Mastercard makes bigger grab for commerce media dollars" (1 October 2025). https://www.marketingdive.com/news/mastercard-bigger-grab-commerce-media-dollars-new-network/761568/
6. eMarketer, "The State of Financial Media Networks 2026" (January 2026). https://www.emarketer.com/content/state-of-financial-media-networks-2026
7. United Airlines, "United Launches Airline Industry's First Media Network" (7 June 2024). https://united.mediaroom.com/2024-06-07-United-Launches-Airline-Industrys-First-Media-Network
8. Skift, "United and Marriott Pitch Ad Strategies to Target Travelers" (16 March 2026). https://skift.com/2026/03/16/united-and-marriott-pitch-ad-strategies-to-target-travelers-on-plane-and-hotel-screens/
9. Marketing Dive, "Walgreens debuts retail media network" (3 December 2020). https://www.marketingdive.com/news/walgreens-debuts-retail-media-network-with-revamped-loyalty-program-front/591550/
10. Beet.TV, "CVS Media Exchange celebrates five years" (16 July 2025). https://www.beet.tv/2025/07/from-retail-media-to-reddit-cvs-media-exchange-celebrates-five-years.html
11. Solomon Partners, 2026 NRF presentation (January 2026). https://solomonpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/260113-Solomon-Partners-2026-NRF-Presentation.pdf
12. Skai, "AI adoption rises as retail media delivers record efficiency gains in Q1" (28 April 2026). https://skai.io/press-releases/ai-adoption-rises-as-retail-media-delivers-record-efficiency-gains-in-q1-skai-data-shows/
13. Skai, "Ad spend rises across every channel in Q2 2026" (28 July 2026). https://skai.io/press-releases/ad-spend-rises-across-every-channel-in-q2-2026-as-ai-reshapes-commerce-media-skai-data-shows/
14. Pygmalios, "How to price in-store retail media inventory" (updated 28 July 2026). https://www.pygmalios.com/insights/how-to-price-in-store-retail-media-inventory
15. LiveRamp, "Identity graph match rate" explainer (30 June 2026). https://liveramp.com/explainer/identity-graph-match-rate
16. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Software Developers (May 2025 wages; page modified 27 August 2026). https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm
17. Instacart, "Instacart Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results" (6 May 2026). https://seekingalpha.com/pr/20502657
18. Walmart, Q4 and full-year fiscal 2026 earnings release (19 February 2026). https://stock.walmart.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0000104169-26-000032/earningsreleasefy26q4.htm
19. Criteo S.A., Form 10-K FY2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1576427/000157642726000014/crto-20251231.htm
20. IAB, "Defining Commerce Media and Its Ecosystem" (July 2025). https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IAB_Commerce_Media_and_its_Ecosystem_Explainer_July_2025.pdf

• 18 October 2026: aligned the title and heading and applied recorded source-URL corrections where needed. Factual research cutoff remains 17 October 2026.

• 17 October 2026. First edition: 31 inputs, 22 formulas, three presets, sensitivity table. Next review 15 January 2027.