Commerce Media Belongs at the Checkout Counter: Fluent’s Rich Conlon
CANNES, France – Retailers have spent years turning websites and apps into advertising businesses. Now Fluent wants to make sure the physical checkout counter gets a piece of the action.
Matt Conlon, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Fluent, discussed the next stage of commerce media in a fireside chat with Beet.TV contributor Tameka Kee at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Fluent has partnered with Bilt to bring targeted advertising to point-of-sale systems in stores. The companies aim to combine Bilt’s payment technology with Fluent’s software, allowing retailers to present personalized offers during checkout.
“The right hardware coupled with the right software is critical,” Conlon said.
The idea grew from Fluent’s work helping retailers generate advertising revenue from the digital checkout experience. Clients repeatedly asked whether the same model could work inside stores and connect with their loyalty programs.
Fluent believes the answer is yes, provided that its ads do not leave a shopper trapped at the register while the person behind them silently reconsiders humanity.
“As long as you don’t slow down the shopping experience, it’s gotta be seamless,” Conlon said.
Commerce media looks beyond its usual customers
Retail media initially grew by persuading brands already sold by a retailer to purchase sponsored listings and search ads. Networks then expanded offsite, using retailer data to reach those brands’ likely customers elsewhere.
That strategy has begun to reach its limits at more mature retail media networks, Conlon said. Retailers looking for additional growth are courting non-endemic advertisers, meaning companies whose products are not sold in their stores. They also are finding more places to show ads, including the checkout counter.
“There’s not a CEO in the world that’s asking for them to grow less,” Conlon said.
Conlon offered Home Depot as an example. Its professional contractors and do-it-yourself customers are likely buyers of pickup trucks. Home Depot does not sell Ford F-150s, inconveniently for anyone hoping to add one to an online cart alongside lumber and drywall. It does, however, have an audience that could be valuable to Ford.
A shopper buying soccer cleats at Dick’s Sporting Goods might similarly receive an offer for Apple’s Major League Soccer streaming package. The retailer does not stock the subscription on a shelf, but the purchase provides a strong clue that the customer has at least a passing interest in soccer.
“It adds value to the shopping experience, does not detract,” Conlon said of relevant non-endemic advertising. “It drives monetization, drives engagement and is a perfect fit for that shopper.”
Data turns a receipt into a signal
Retailers have an advantage over many other advertising platforms because they know what customers actually bought. When transactions are linked to loyalty accounts, retailers can combine purchase histories with other signals to identify appropriate offers.
Conlon said that information can be connected with outside purchase-intent data through privacy-focused clean rooms. A sporting-goods retailer, for example, might know that a shopper bought cleats. Additional data could indicate that the same person is considering a vehicle, insurance policy or streaming service.
“It’s not what defines good data versus bad data, but rather how you utilize that data to create a better experience for the shopper,” Conlon said.
Checkout is especially valuable because the customer has already completed the buying journey and supplied identifying information. That gives the retailer an opportunity to serve an offer within a fraction of a second, then deliver it by email using permissions already attached to the shopper’s loyalty account.
Fluent estimates that a well-executed program can produce revenue per thousand impressions of more than $200. That gives retailers a potentially lucrative new source of ad inventory without requiring them to squeeze another sponsored detergent listing onto a crowded search-results page.
QR codes had their chance
The Bilt partnership has been several years in the making, Conlon said. Fluent experimented with different methods of extending its checkout technology into stores before settling on an integrated hardware and software approach.
That experimentation included QR codes, the little squares that spent the pandemic replacing menus and have been waiting patiently ever since for their next major assignment.
“QR codes, which by the way, are tricky to make them work,” Conlon said with a laugh.
Fluent is now ready to bring its point-of-sale product to market. The challenge will be creating offers that feel useful rather than intrusive. If retailers get it right, checkout could become a meaningful commerce-media channel. If they get it wrong, shoppers may discover that the only offer they truly want is the opportunity to leave the store.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Fluent. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
CANNES, France – Retailers have spent years turning websites and apps into advertising businesses. Now Fluent wants to make sure the physical checkout counter gets a piece of the action.
Matt Conlon, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Fluent, discussed the next stage of commerce media in a fireside chat with Beet.TV contributor Tameka Kee at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Fluent has partnered with Bilt to bring targeted advertising to point-of-sale systems in stores. The companies aim to combine Bilt’s payment technology with Fluent’s software, allowing retailers to present personalized offers during checkout.
“The right hardware coupled with the right software is critical,” Conlon said.
The idea grew from Fluent’s work helping retailers generate advertising revenue from the digital checkout experience. Clients repeatedly asked whether the same model could work inside stores and connect with their loyalty programs.
Fluent believes the answer is yes, provided that its ads do not leave a shopper trapped at the register while the person behind them silently reconsiders humanity.
“As long as you don’t slow down the shopping experience, it’s gotta be seamless,” Conlon said.
Commerce media looks beyond its usual customers
Retail media initially grew by persuading brands already sold by a retailer to purchase sponsored listings and search ads. Networks then expanded offsite, using retailer data to reach those brands’ likely customers elsewhere.
That strategy has begun to reach its limits at more mature retail media networks, Conlon said. Retailers looking for additional growth are courting non-endemic advertisers, meaning companies whose products are not sold in their stores. They also are finding more places to show ads, including the checkout counter.
“There’s not a CEO in the world that’s asking for them to grow less,” Conlon said.
Conlon offered Home Depot as an example. Its professional contractors and do-it-yourself customers are likely buyers of pickup trucks. Home Depot does not sell Ford F-150s, inconveniently for anyone hoping to add one to an online cart alongside lumber and drywall. It does, however, have an audience that could be valuable to Ford.
A shopper buying soccer cleats at Dick’s Sporting Goods might similarly receive an offer for Apple’s Major League Soccer streaming package. The retailer does not stock the subscription on a shelf, but the purchase provides a strong clue that the customer has at least a passing interest in soccer.
“It adds value to the shopping experience, does not detract,” Conlon said of relevant non-endemic advertising. “It drives monetization, drives engagement and is a perfect fit for that shopper.”
Data turns a receipt into a signal
Retailers have an advantage over many other advertising platforms because they know what customers actually bought. When transactions are linked to loyalty accounts, retailers can combine purchase histories with other signals to identify appropriate offers.
Conlon said that information can be connected with outside purchase-intent data through privacy-focused clean rooms. A sporting-goods retailer, for example, might know that a shopper bought cleats. Additional data could indicate that the same person is considering a vehicle, insurance policy or streaming service.
“It’s not what defines good data versus bad data, but rather how you utilize that data to create a better experience for the shopper,” Conlon said.
Checkout is especially valuable because the customer has already completed the buying journey and supplied identifying information. That gives the retailer an opportunity to serve an offer within a fraction of a second, then deliver it by email using permissions already attached to the shopper’s loyalty account.
Fluent estimates that a well-executed program can produce revenue per thousand impressions of more than $200. That gives retailers a potentially lucrative new source of ad inventory without requiring them to squeeze another sponsored detergent listing onto a crowded search-results page.
QR codes had their chance
The Bilt partnership has been several years in the making, Conlon said. Fluent experimented with different methods of extending its checkout technology into stores before settling on an integrated hardware and software approach.
That experimentation included QR codes, the little squares that spent the pandemic replacing menus and have been waiting patiently ever since for their next major assignment.
“QR codes, which by the way, are tricky to make them work,” Conlon said with a laugh.
Fluent is now ready to bring its point-of-sale product to market. The challenge will be creating offers that feel useful rather than intrusive. If retailers get it right, checkout could become a meaningful commerce-media channel. If they get it wrong, shoppers may discover that the only offer they truly want is the opportunity to leave the store.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Fluent. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
