Luke Bugler is Retail Media Partnerships Manager at Screwfix and the first participant in our brand new series, Unsung Heroes, which profiles the people doing some of the crucial hands-on work on retail media campaigns who may not always be in the spotlight.
In a conversation with Retail Media Age, Luke gave an insight into the skillsets he uses in his role and why it’s so crucial for teams to be joined up when working on retail media, as well as what good looks like when it comes to measurement.
What is your role, and can you tell us a bit about what you do day-to-day?
I’m a Retail Media Partnerships Manager at Screwfix, where my focus is on building and growing our retail media proposition with our vendor base. Day-to-day, that means working with brands to help them connect with our customers at key moments in the purchase journey in a strategic, data-driven way. Whether that’s through onsite search, in-store digital screens, app placements, or targeted email.
A big part of the role is translating commercial objectives into effective media strategies. I spend a lot of time collaborating with internal teams, analysing performance, shaping proposals, and ultimately driving incremental revenue through media investment. It’s a mix of sales, strategy, and execution that keeps it interesting.
How do you work with different parts of the business to achieve your goals? Are there any silos that tend to throw up obstacles to campaign success?
Retail media necessitates a full cross-functional business to really fire on all cylinders. I work closely with trading, ecommerce and marketing to make sure campaigns are both commercially relevant and seamlessly executed. They need to look good and be performant.
The biggest challenge tends to come when priorities aren’t fully aligned; retail media sits at the intersection of sales and marketing, and it’s important to be aware of that balance. It ultimately comes down to aligning teams on the objectives of a campaign, marrying what the brand wants to talk about with the metrics the retailer wants to drive and what the customer wants to see. When you get that alignment right between teams, campaigns look great and feel efficient.
What are the crucial skillsets for your role? Do you find yourself having to master new skills or technology frequently to stay ahead?
As with all things retail media, there’s a real blend required. Commercial acumen is essential; you need to understand what drives value for both the retailer and the brand. But alongside that, you need to be comfortable with data and, more importantly, storytelling with data to effectively influence decisions.
Stakeholder management is another big one. You’re constantly balancing different priorities and perspectives, so the skill of being able to bring people on the journey with you is also huge.
There is also the ever-evolving inventory and platform landscape. It is an industry that is blooming with creativity, and is inherently innovative so there are always new ways to approach media planning and new ways to measure success.
What’s the one retail media campaign or strategy that you’ve been involved with that you’re most proud of?
One of the most rewarding pieces of work has been helping shape and launch our broader retail media proposition within Screwfix, rather than a single campaign. Building the team, defining the offering, educating vendors, and seeing how it grow has been very rewarding.
From a campaign perspective, I worked with a challenger brand to create a bespoke campaign designed to be disruptive and bold. It involved a really interesting media planning process that combined first-party data with creativity and clear commercial objectives.
This meant that the execution was strategically honed and data-led, with a vibrant omni-channel execution that materially elevated the brand’s share of voice while providing incremental growth for Screwfix as a retailer; all from elevating the visibility of the brand and driving consideration at key points in the customer journey.
How do you measure success – and what are your biggest pet peeves when it comes to measurement?
Success is really about that most coveted of goals: incrementality. Are we driving additional sales above and beyond what we would have achieved anyway? Or are we being busy fools? Alongside that, we look at return on ad spend, engagement metrics, and overall contribution to category growth.
The biggest frustration is when measurement is either too narrow or taken at face value. For example, a campaign criticised for not delivering immediate revenue or conversion, when it has been designed from the ground-up to drive awareness or traffic. Good measurement should tell a clear, balanced story that ties back into the campaign objectives.
