August 13, 2025
We are measuring everything in retail media… except what shoppers actually see. The reason CART Index was born.
Over a year ago, I was with a FMCG brand’s leadership team, presenting six-monthly retail media ROI results using an industry-leading measurement tool. A great long-standing client, a great local team—and we were amplified by the global team on the call from the USA.
The results were confusing: multiple campaigns. Similar products. Similar media plans. Wildly different ROIs. On paper, nothing should explain the gap. Except… the creative.
One campaign had strong, well-executed creative that held attention, conveyed a shopper purchase driver message, and reinforced brand cues. The other? Looked like a rushed job that simply “ticked the box.” The data was telling us the media worked in one case and not the other. But in reality, the media plan hadn’t failed… the creative had.
And in that moment, it hit me: in a booming industry set to exceed $3B in Australia by 2027, we were measuring everything in retail media… except the very thing the shopper actually sees.
It was time to do something about it. I decided to take my learnings from 20 years at the coalface of creative ad design and combine them with the incredible advancements in AI to create a tool that provides objective, data-led scoring of creative assets, particularly in the retail media space. And so, CART Index was born.
CART Index combines AI-generated eye-tracking heatmaps, design hierarchy analysis, and shopper behaviour insights to assess creative performance. Users upload visual assets and receive:
The tool is designed to support—not replace—creative teams by providing clear, evidence-based feedback at speed.
Thanks for following the journey. If you see a piece of retail creative that makes you stop (for better or worse), I’d love to see it. Or if you want to chat creative in retail media, connect with me over on LinkedIn.
Gary Head
CART Index Founder
