Ulta Announces Its Own Retail Media Network in Beauty - How NIche is Too Niche?

Ulta, the leading specialty beauty retailer in the US operates over 1,300 stores and claims 37M rewards members.

Retail media networks have been sprouting up all over obviously with the decline in usefulness of third-party data from Amazon to Walmart to Target to Instacart to Home Depot.. but new entrants like GoPuff, Albertsons, Lowes, Dollar Tree, and now Ulta are cropping up.

Which leads me to my question -- how many retail media networks will the market support?

Overall, I have more questions than answers at this stage.

At what point does this give rise to a "network of networks" approach?

How many platforms can a brand or even an agency support in good conscience?

Is the effort worth it?

Will the category splintering of retail media networks lead to agency splintering as well after the last few years of general agency consolidation?

Side note:

By contrast, Sephora operates about 500 stores in the US but there are about 850 Shop in Shops planned in Kohl's stores (which - who knows how long there will be Kohl's stores ;-) )

In contrast, Ulta chose Target as a partner and is looking to rollout in ~800 stores. Are you more worried about Kohl's or Target? lol.

Despite the recent market activity, I know which horse I would bet on.