In this article
1. What is Retail Media?
Retail media is advertising sold and served by retail platforms on their owned digital properties — websites, mobile apps, email newsletters, and increasingly, off-site inventory purchased with retail data. Unlike traditional digital advertising where the publisher and the point of purchase are disconnected, retail media operates at the intersection of advertising and commerce. The ad impression occurs in an environment where the consumer is actively shopping, and the retailer has deterministic data about what the consumer has previously purchased, browsed, and added to their cart.
The retail media concept extends beyond simple sponsored product placements. Modern retail media networks offer a full spectrum of ad formats: sponsored search results, display banners, video placements, native product recommendations, email sponsorships, and even off-site programmatic campaigns that leverage the retailer's first-party audience data to target shoppers on the open web, social media, and connected TV.
2. Major Retail Media Networks
| Network | Parent Company | Est. 2025 Revenue | Key Inventory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Ads | Amazon | $52.1B | Sponsored products, display, DSP, CTV (Fire TV), audio |
| Walmart Connect | Walmart | $4.2B | On-site search, display, in-store screens, off-site programmatic |
| Instacart Ads (Carrot) | Instacart | $1.7B | Sponsored products, display, video, shoppable recipes |
| Roundel | Target | $1.8B | On-site display, search, off-site programmatic, email |
| Kroger Precision Marketing | Kroger | $0.9B | On-site, in-store digital screens, off-site targeting |
| eBay Advertising | eBay | $1.6B | Sponsored listings, display, off-site programmatic |
Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads is by far the largest retail media network globally, generating over $52 billion in advertising revenue in 2025. Amazon's advertising business has grown to become the third-largest digital advertising platform behind Google and Meta. Its product suite includes sponsored product listings (similar to Google Shopping), sponsored brand and display ads, Amazon DSP for programmatic buying both on and off Amazon, and Amazon's streaming TV advertising through Fire TV and Freevee. Amazon's competitive moat is its unrivaled purchase intent data: over 60% of product searches in the US begin on Amazon, and the platform has complete visibility into browsing behavior, purchase history, and post-purchase product usage patterns.
Walmart Connect
Walmart Connect is the second-largest US retail media network, leveraging Walmart's position as the world's largest retailer by revenue. Walmart's unique advantage is its omnichannel footprint: the ability to connect digital advertising to both online and in-store purchases across 4,700+ US stores. Walmart Connect has invested heavily in its programmatic capabilities, partnering with The Trade Desk for off-site inventory and developing in-store digital screen networks that serve programmatically-targeted ads to shoppers in physical locations.
Instacart & Grocery Networks
Instacart's advertising platform (branded Carrot Ads) has grown rapidly as the dominant online grocery delivery platform in North America. Its data advantage lies in high-frequency, high-recency grocery purchase data — users shop for groceries weekly, providing a continuously refreshed view of household consumption patterns. CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands are the primary advertisers, using Instacart to promote new products, drive trial, and defend shelf share in the digital grocery aisle. Kroger Precision Marketing and Albertsons Media Collective operate similar platforms for their respective store networks.
3. Closed-Loop Attribution
The most powerful feature of retail media is closed-loop attribution — the ability to directly connect an ad impression to a subsequent purchase on the same platform. This eliminates the attribution challenges that plague other digital advertising channels.
In a typical closed-loop measurement flow:
- Ad exposure: A user sees a sponsored product ad for Brand X's new laundry detergent while browsing Walmart.com.
- Purchase event: Within 14 days, the same user (identified by their authenticated Walmart account) purchases Brand X's detergent, either online or in-store (linked via their Walmart+ membership or payment method).
- Attribution: Walmart Connect attributes the purchase directly to the ad exposure, reporting a deterministic ROAS (return on ad spend) figure to the advertiser.
This level of certainty is impossible in traditional programmatic advertising, where the connection between ad exposure and purchase requires probabilistic modeling, cookie matching across domains, or panel-based measurement. Retail media's closed loop eliminates these intermediary assumptions, giving advertisers a clear, auditable connection between media spend and revenue.
4. Why Brands Are Investing
Retail media has become a priority investment for brands across all categories, driven by several converging factors:
- Privacy signal loss: As third-party cookies deprecate and mobile tracking identifiers become restricted, retail media offers a privacy-compliant targeting alternative built on first-party, consented purchase data. Brands that previously relied on third-party data for targeting are redirecting budgets toward retail media where data quality and consent are unambiguous.
- Shelf digitization: The shift from physical shelf to digital search has fundamentally changed how consumers discover products. On Amazon, over 70% of shoppers never click past the first page of search results. Sponsored product placements have become essential for visibility, analogous to trade spend for physical shelf positioning.
- New product launch acceleration: Retail media enables brands to launch new products with targeted awareness campaigns reaching relevant shoppers immediately, rather than waiting for organic search ranking to build over weeks or months.
- Defensive positioning: As competitors increase retail media investment, brands face pressure to defend their search result positions and category visibility. The "pay to play" dynamic in retail search is driving a self-reinforcing cycle of investment.
- Trade budget migration: Traditional trade spend (slotting fees, end-cap displays, circular promotions) is increasingly being digitized and migrated into retail media budgets. Brands view digital shelf placement as more measurable and flexible than physical trade promotions.
5. Market Size & Growth
The global retail media market reached approximately $141 billion in 2025, with Amazon accounting for roughly 37% of the total. The market is growing at a compound annual rate of 18-22%, significantly faster than the broader digital advertising market.
| Year | Global Spend ($B) | YoY Growth | % of Digital Ad Spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $72.4 | 26.8% | 13.1% |
| 2023 | $95.8 | 32.3% | 15.6% |
| 2024 | $119.5 | 24.7% | 18.2% |
| 2025 | $141.2 | 18.2% | 20.7% |
| 2026 (est.) | $166 | 17.6% | 22.5% |
Beyond the US and China, retail media is expanding rapidly in Europe (led by Carrefour, Tesco, and Ahold Delhaize), Latin America (Mercado Libre), and Southeast Asia (Shopee, Lazada). The International Retail Media Association estimates that over 300 retail media networks are now operational globally, though the vast majority of revenue remains concentrated in the top 20 platforms.
6. How to Buy Retail Media
Retail media buying varies by platform, but generally follows three models:
Self-Serve Platforms
Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and Instacart all offer self-serve advertising platforms where brands and agencies can create campaigns, set bids, define targeting, and monitor performance in real time. Self-serve is the most common approach for performance-focused sponsored product campaigns, where advertisers optimize bids on a per-keyword or per-product basis, similar to paid search management.
Managed Service
For larger, brand-oriented campaigns (particularly display, video, and CTV placements), retail media networks offer managed service options where the platform's team handles campaign setup, optimization, and reporting. This model is common for CPG brands running awareness campaigns with larger budgets and more complex creative requirements.
Programmatic Integration
Several retail media networks have integrated with programmatic infrastructure, allowing advertisers to activate retail audience data through their existing DSP. Amazon DSP, for example, enables advertisers to target Amazon shopping audiences on and off Amazon through standard programmatic workflows. Walmart Connect's partnership with The Trade Desk provides similar off-site activation capabilities. This integration bridges the gap between retail media's first-party data advantages and the scale and flexibility of programmatic buying.
7. Retail Media vs. Traditional Programmatic
| Dimension | Retail Media | Traditional Programmatic |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | First-party purchase data (deterministic) | Third-party behavioral data (probabilistic) |
| Attribution | Closed-loop, deterministic to purchase | Modeled, view-through, last-click |
| User intent | High (active shopping environment) | Variable (content consumption context) |
| Avg ROAS | $4-$8 per $1 spent | $1-$3 per $1 spent |
| Inventory type | Sponsored listings, on-site display, off-site | Display, video, native, mobile, CTV |
| Scale | Limited to retail platform users | Open web, 98%+ internet reach |
| Brand suitability | High (retail environment, shopping intent) | Variable (requires brand safety tools) |
| Transparency | High (known publisher, clear pricing) | Variable (supply chain complexity) |
Retail media and traditional programmatic are complementary, not competitive. Most sophisticated advertisers run both: retail media for bottom-funnel, conversion-focused campaigns targeting active shoppers, and traditional programmatic for upper-funnel awareness, audience building, and reaching consumers outside the retail environment. The optimal media mix leverages retail media's purchase data for conversion optimization while using programmatic's scale for reach and frequency.
8. Challenges & Future Outlook
Fragmentation & Complexity
With 300+ retail media networks, each with its own platform, reporting format, and audience taxonomy, managing retail media at scale has become operationally complex. Agencies and brands are investing in retail media orchestration platforms (such as Pacvue, Stackline, and CommerceIQ) that unify campaign management, reporting, and optimization across multiple retail networks.
Measurement Standardization
Unlike traditional digital advertising, where IAB and MRC standards provide common measurement definitions, retail media lacks standardized measurement frameworks. Each network defines "attribution window," "new-to-brand," and "incremental sales" differently, making cross-platform comparison difficult. The industry is working toward standardization through initiatives like the IAB's Retail Media Measurement Guidelines and the Joint Industry Committee for Retail Media.
Ad Load & Shopper Experience
As retail media revenue grows, there is increasing tension between advertising monetization and the shopping experience. Amazon's search results pages now feature 4-6 sponsored products before any organic results appear, and product detail pages include multiple ad placements. Excessive ad load risks degrading the consumer experience and eroding trust in the retail platform. Retailers must balance short-term advertising revenue against long-term customer lifetime value.
Off-Site Extension
The next frontier for retail media is off-site activation — using retail audience data to target ads on third-party publishers, social media, and CTV platforms. Amazon DSP and Walmart Connect's partnership with The Trade Desk represent early examples, but the full potential of retail data activation on the open web remains largely unrealized. Privacy considerations around data portability and consent management will determine how quickly off-site retail media scales.
For advertisers and agencies, retail media is no longer optional — it is a core channel that requires dedicated investment, expertise, and infrastructure. The brands that succeed in retail media will be those that treat it as a strategic capability rather than a tactical line item, building internal teams and technology stacks that can manage the complexity of a rapidly expanding ecosystem.