Recruiting marketing, advertising and media-buying leaders for retail media research: a complex B2B recruitment project in Moscow, Russia, in 2026.
The project explored advertising technology and advertising opportunities within retailer ecosystems. CustDev required people with practical experience of selecting platforms, planning and buying media, and allocating advertising budgets.
Recruit 32 hard-to-reach B2B respondents for a study under NDA. Location: Moscow, Russia. Year: 2026. The commissioning client and participants are anonymised in this public case.
32 participants were recruited from a specialised professional audience. The complete register marks all 32 as completed. This public case focuses on recruitment and qualification; the CustDev analytical materials are protected by NDA.
The brief required the right business scale, recent retail media experience and personal involvement in advertising decisions. Each condition narrowed an already specialised professional audience.
Senior decision-makers have limited availability and a high threshold of trust for external invitations. An invitation needs to explain the topic, relevance and confidentiality without disclosing protected project information.
CMOs, advertising heads and media directors have different authority in different organisations. A title alone does not establish involvement in platform selection, buying or budget approval. Qualification therefore focuses on actual experience.
Project materials cover CMOs and marketing directors, heads of advertising, media and communications, digital marketing directors and specialists with relevant responsibilities. Actual involvement in decisions matters more than the formal title.
The audience spans FMCG and product businesses, food and beverages, pet products, household products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Service sectors include finance, property, logistics, delivery, digital ecosystems, media, telecoms, travel, fitness and automotive.
The screener targets medium and large organisations. Employee numbers and market reach distinguish national, major regional and international businesses from small local companies outside the target profile.
An employer, a rare role and a research topic can identify someone even without a name. The public case therefore uses broad industries and professional roles, with no employer list or link to the working respondent register.
Manufacturers and FMCG businesses bring experience of product advertising and consumer demand. Their perspective connects retail media with product choice and sales within retail ecosystems.
Participants from non-product sectors include finance, property, digital services, travel and telecoms. They broaden the discussion beyond advertising products available on a retailer’s shelves.
Agency leaders complement the advertiser perspective with media planning and client campaign experience. Their role differs from that of an in-house marketing team.
A traffic monetisation representative adds a technology and commercial perspective on advertising platforms and partnerships.
The register includes 21 CMOs / marketing directors and one former CMO. Other profiles include advertising, media, communications and digital planning leaders, a commercial leader and a relevant marketing specialist. The sample combines strategic and practical responsibility.
For 22 of the 32 participants, the register records company or client-portfolio budgets above RUB 500 million for 2025. These describe organisational advertising activity, not personal respondent budgets, and help explain the specialised nature of the recruitment challenge.
The brief distinguishes manufacturers, service businesses, agencies and advertising technology platforms. Categories and initial quotas in the screener do not represent the final distribution of the 32 recruits.
Qualification covers platform and channel selection, media buying and planning, and budget allocation or approval. Evaluating performance alone is insufficient without the required involvement in advertising decisions.
The brief requires experience within the past 12 months. Relevant formats include advertising in retailer apps, media within retail ecosystems, in-store screens and special projects. Standard shelf placement and trade marketing without a paid media component do not substitute for this experience.
The focus is personal involvement in selection, buying or evaluation, rather than general awareness. A relevant participant needs practical examples and the ability to explain decision criteria.
The screener sets a company advertising and marketing budget threshold of RUB 20 million for 2025. This is a company qualification criterion, not the research price or an individual participant’s personal spending authority.
Moscow was the priority geography. Atypical categories, responsibilities and answers require clarification and agreement rather than automatic acceptance based on a title.
The brief connects business type, sector, responsibilities, recent experience, budget threshold and location. This makes relevance assessable beyond a generic label such as marketing executive.
A participant’s value depends on their ability to discuss real platform selection and buying processes. For CustDev, practical experience provides a basis for exploring needs, constraints and decision criteria.
The screener includes termination, clarification and approval branches. These matter when a business sits between categories, authority is shared or a formal title does not describe the actual role.
The public case explains the recruitment task, audience and qualification logic. Contact details, the confidential interview guide, participant responses and CustDev findings remain outside the publication.
The project recruited 32 hard-to-reach respondents for research under NDA. It demonstrates recruitment for an audience defined jointly by decision authority, industry and specific market experience.
Relevant participants create a basis for discussing how advertising platforms are chosen, budgets are allocated and retail media opportunities are assessed. Recruitment enables that conversation; research findings remain confidential.
A new brief should define the research topic, decision-maker profile, mandatory responsibilities, experience, industries, geography and required sample. Feasibility, timing and price depend on the intersection of these conditions.
Tell us about your participant profile and research objectives. We will assess recruitment feasibility and suggest an approach.