Clean rooms go mainstream: How audience-first measurement is reshaping commerce in 2026

Clean rooms are going mainstream, and changing how brands measure what actually drives sales. Data clean rooms are shifting from niche to necessary. By enabling brands and retailers to connect retail sales with media spending, upper-funnel activity, and in-store purchases, clean rooms are driving the shift from channel-first to audience-first strategies, and becoming the foundation of effective commerce measurement in 2026. Flywheel experts Hannah Donoghue, Bernie Che, and Gabe Fishbein explore how mainstream clean room adoption is unlocking new retail metrics that integrate data across channels, revealing who's buying, what drives first purchases, how new shoppers differ from loyal customers, and what keeps them coming back. We're moving beyond last-click attribution to multi-touch measurement models that show how each touchpoint contributes to sales and brand loyalty. The future also brings privacy-compliant audience sharing at scale. Retailers and brands will collaborate on anonymized segments, and RMNs will form data-sharing alliances that let brands target the same audiences across multiple retailers with unified campaigns. The bottom line? Investing in clean-room literacy, advanced analytics, and agile measurement capabilities is no longer optional, it's essential for better targeting, maximizing ROI, and staying competitive as the measurement landscape evolves. Watch the full video to learn how clean rooms and AI-powered analytics are reshaping commerce measurement, and what your brand needs to do now to stay ahead.