2025 Retail Media Network Market & How to Start Your Retail Media Ads
Retail media has exploded from an emerging advertising channel to the fourth largest advertising medium globally, with spending projected to reach 25 billion EUR in Europe alone by 2026 and exhibiting over 30% annual growth through 2024. This explosive growth represents the most significant shift in digital advertising since the rise of social media, fundamentally transforming how brands reach consumers at the critical moment of purchase intent.
The retail media revolution stems from advertisers’ desperate need for first-party data in the post-cookie era, combined with retailers’ recognition that their customer data represents a goldmine of monetization opportunity. Over 50% of US brands now use retail media for upper-funnel objectives, signaling its evolution from a performance-only channel to a comprehensive marketing solution. Yet with over 200 retail media networks now operating globally, brands face an unprecedented fragmentation challenge that threatens to limit the channel’s full potential.
This guide examines the current retail media landscape, analyzes the key players and growth drivers, explores the measurement and analytics revolution, and provides strategic frameworks for navigating this complex but essential advertising ecosystem. For brands seeking to capitalize on retail media’s growth while avoiding common pitfalls, understanding both the opportunities and operational challenges has never been more critical. Whether you’re a challenger brand or a category leader, retail media puts your products in front of high-intent shoppers exactly when they’re ready to buy.
Retail media is indeed revolutionizing brand-consumer connections in 2025, moving us far beyond the era of marketing guesswork. It signifies a pivotal shift towards precision marketing, fueled by real-time data and the ability to directly attribute advertising spend to tangible sales outcomes.
Think of it this way: major retailers – the digital giants like Amazon, the brick-and-mortar powerhouses like Walmart and Target, and the online grocery leaders such as Instacart – are evolving their online platforms into sophisticated retail media networks. These aren’t just places to buy products; they’re becoming dynamic advertising ecosystems.
For brands, this presents a powerful opportunity. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to reach interested consumers, retail media allows for hyper-targeted campaigns. Imagine reaching shoppers who have previously browsed your product category or those actively searching for solutions your brand offers – all within the familiar and trusted environment of their preferred retailer.
This isn’t just about visibility; it’s about intent. Retail media intercepts consumers at the crucial point of purchase consideration. Whether you’re a challenger brand looking to disrupt a category or a category leader aiming to defend your market share, the ability to place your products directly in front of high-intent shoppers at the exact moment they’re ready to buy is a game-changer.
The beauty of retail media also lies in its measurability. Unlike traditional advertising methods, you gain access to granular data on campaign performance, allowing for continuous optimization and a clear understanding of your return on investment. This closed-loop system, connecting ad exposure to actual sales, provides invaluable insights for future marketing strategies.
In essence, retail media in 2025 is about leveraging the retailer’s direct access to consumer behavior and purchase data to deliver more effective and efficient advertising. Brands that embrace this evolving landscape early are strategically positioning themselves for significant growth and a stronger connection with their target audience.
The retail media surge reshaping digital advertising
The numbers behind retail media’s ascent are staggering. Global retail media spending is projected to reach between $24-87 billion by 2030, with growth rates that dwarf traditional digital channels. Europe leads this expansion with forecasts showing the market will hit €25 billion by 2026, while the Asia-Pacific region demonstrates the fastest growth at 7.56% CAGR through 2030.
Amazon maintains commanding dominance with 77% of the US retail media market and $56 billion in global advertising revenue for 2024. However, this concentration masks significant opportunities across the broader ecosystem. Walmart Connect generated $4.4 billion in revenue with 26.4% growth in 2023, while Target Roundel reached $1.76 billion and Kroger Precision Marketing continues expanding its grocery-focused approach.
The strategic shift extends beyond pure performance marketing. Budget reallocation trends show advertisers actively moving spend from traditional channels into retail media, with the majority of marketers planning to maintain or increase their retail media investments. This represents not experimental spending but fundamental strategic repositioning of media budgets.
First-party data access drives much of this growth, offering advertisers the precision targeting capabilities that disappeared with cookie deprecation. Unlike traditional digital advertising’s “vague impressions,” retail media provides real-time purchase intent signals and closed-loop attribution that directly connects advertising spend to sales outcomes.
The transformation represents more than channel diversification—it’s a fundamental reconceptualization of commerce media. Retailers are evolving from traditional commerce platforms into sophisticated media companies, monetizing their traffic and shopper data in ways that mirror Facebook and Google’s historic approaches. This shift creates new revenue streams for retailers while providing brands with advertising environments that combine high purchase intent with detailed attribution capabilities.
Investment patterns reveal the strategic importance brands place on retail media. CPG brands specifically report allocating 25-30% of their digital advertising budgets to retail media channels, with some categories like health and beauty reaching 40% allocation. This spending migration reflects retail media’s proven ability to deliver measurable business outcomes rather than merely awareness metrics, providing the performance accountability that traditional digital channels often lack.
Programmatic buying has long been the backbone of scalable, efficient digital advertising. As new channels emerge, they typically integrate into the programmatic ecosystem—just as traditional publishers did in the shift from print to digital, and as Connected TV (CTV) evolved from linear formats. Today, that evolution is happening in retail media.
As programmatic and retail media begin to converge, many retailers are approaching with caution. Retail media took off with Amazon and Walmart, who now dominate the space with $56.2B and $4.4B in annual ad revenue, respectively. In response, more than 200 retail media networks (RMNs) have launched, each bringing its own ad formats, targeting rules, and buying platforms. While Amazon and Walmart built custom, in-house ad tech, most other RMNs rely on third-party solutions to move fast and capture ad spend.
Despite offering access to on-site, off-site, and in-store inventory within their own “walled gardens,” many RMNs still fall short of the capabilities and scale of the giants. Their current go-to-market model—focused on direct ad sales and proprietary self-serve tools—is beginning to constrain growth. In fact, eMarketer projects that by 2025, Amazon and Walmart will capture 84.2% of all retail media ad spend, leaving the remaining 15.8% to be divided among hundreds of other networks.
Initially, many retailers resisted programmatic activation via demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs), fearing it would compromise their customer experience. Sponsored ad activations often require advanced server-side integration, tight brand control, custom auction logic, and relevance algorithms tailored to the retail environment. Proprietary solutions and direct joint business plans (JBPs) felt like the only way to ensure yield and user satisfaction.
But the tide is turning. Advertisers now report increasing frustration with retail media’s buying complexity. Despite strong performance—thanks to rich first-party data and high user intent—brands want more. They’re demanding transaction-level data for media mix modeling (MMM), greater targeting flexibility, better measurement transparency, and easier cross-platform execution. Instead, they’re stuck navigating a fragmented landscape of managed services, self-serve platforms, and specialized tools—an approach that hinders scale and clouds performance clarity.
Meanwhile, RMNs are also feeling the strain. Expanding advertiser demand, optimizing yield, and maintaining a seamless customer experience are becoming more difficult. Traditional shopper marketing budgets are being pulled in new directions—now expected to support not just conversions but also in-store activations, digital content, and brand collaborations. This fragmentation risks capping the growth potential of retail media.
At its core, retail media refers to digital advertising placed on eCommerce or retailer-owned platforms. This includes sponsored product placements, banner ads, video content, and even on-site search results. Think of it as paid search — but happening on Walmart.com or Instacart instead of Google.
Unlike traditional digital ads, retail media delivers:
- First-party data access
- Real-time purchase intent
- Closed-loop attribution
First-Party Data Access — Retailers: The Ultimate Source of Shopper Intelligence
First-Party Data Access — Retailers: The Ultimate Source of Shopper IntelligenceKeywords: first-party data in retail, customer data platform, shopper behavior analysis, targeted advertising
Retail media provides brands with access to invaluable first-party shopper data, meticulously collected directly by retailers from their own digital platforms. This encompasses a wealth of information, including browsing patterns on Target.com, shopping lists created on Instacart, and comprehensive order histories from Walmart.com. This data is characterized by its:
- Authenticated Nature: Tied to logged-in users, ensuring accuracy and reliability.
- Real-World Basis: Derived from actual purchase behavior, reflecting genuine consumer actions.
- High Relevance: Filtered to your specific product category and target audience, maximizing impact.
By leveraging this anonymized, high-intent data, brands can execute laser-targeted campaigns directly on the digital shelf, precisely where it matters most in influencing purchase decisions.
⚡ Real-Time Purchase Intent — Capturing Consumers at the Moment of Decision
Keywords: intent-based marketing, purchase funnel optimization, moment marketing, high-intent audiences
Move beyond the limitations of vague “interest-based” targeting. Retail media strategically engages shoppers at the crucial moment of decision. Consider these scenarios:
- A shopper actively searching for “diapers size 3.”
- A consumer adding “organic cold brew” to their virtual shopping cart.
- A customer comparing various “protein bars” in the digital aisle view.
These actions represent live purchase intent – and retail media ensures your product is prominently displayed at precisely these critical junctures. This isn’t just advertising; it’s facilitating conversion in real-time.
Keywords: marketing attribution models, return on ad spend (ROAS), campaign performance measurement, ecommerce analytics
In the realm of traditional digital advertising, measuring the direct impact of ad spend on actual sales can often feel like a shot in the dark.
However, retail media revolutionizes this with closed-loop attribution, providing a clear and comprehensive view of the entire customer journey within the retailer’s ecosystem.
Here’s how it works:
- A shopper sees your ad on Kroger.com.
- The shopper clicks on the ad.
- The shopper adds your product to their online cart.
- The shopper completes the purchase.
The result? A fully tracked and verified sale directly attributed to your specific advertising spend.
Why this is crucial:
- ✅ Real ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Gain precise knowledge of which advertising dollars directly drove specific sales.
- 🧠 Smarter Optimization: Identify high-performing campaigns and strategically allocate resources accordingly. Eliminate underperforming initiatives.
- 📈 Growth with Proof: Move beyond vanity metrics and demonstrate clear, undeniable performance data.
RMIQ automates this loop across retailers so your team doesn’t have to guess, chase, or stitch data together. You get the “what worked” report — daily. Retail media doesn’t guess. It tracks.
The digital cookie jar is officially empty. And we’re happy about it!
The demise of third-party cookies isn’t an end; it’s the explosive genesis of a smarter, sharper, and frankly, better way to connect with your customers.
Here’s why retail media is booming:
- The death of cookies means first-party data is gold.
- Retailers are now media companies, monetizing their shopper traffic.
- CPG and DTC brands are shifting budgets toward performance-driven channels.
Retail media closes the loop between discovery and conversion, offering unmatched visibility into what actually drives sales.
Why Retail Media Is Exploding in 2025
Retail media isn’t just another marketing buzzword—it’s the fastest-growing channel in digital advertising. And in 2025, it’s become mission-critical for brands that want to drive real results.
Here’s why:
1. The Death of Cookies = First-Party Data Is King
With third-party cookies going extinct and privacy rules tightening, advertisers are turning to the one data source that’s still rich, accurate, and compliant: first-party retailer data.
That means actual shopping behavior—what people buy, browse, and search for—straight from the source.
2. Retailers Are Now Full-Fledged Media Companies
Walmart, Amazon, Instacart, and Target aren’t just retailers—they’re high-traffic ad platforms.
They’ve built internal media networks that monetize shopper eyeballs the way Facebook and Google once did.
Now, brands can place ads right where purchase decisions happen—inside the digital aisle.
3. Ad Budgets Are Shifting to What Works
CPG and DTC brands are moving fast. Awareness-only ads are out; performance-driven channels are in.
Retail media offers real attribution, high-intent audiences, and ROI you can actually prove—all of which matter more than ever in a tighter economy.
4. It Closes the Loop
Most digital channels split discovery from conversion. Retail media does both.
When someone searches, clicks, and buys—all on the same platform—you get full visibility from ad to purchase.
That’s not just efficient—it’s transformative.
The Takeaway
In 2025, retail media isn’t optional—it’s essential.
It combines data, intent, visibility, and performance in one place—and with the right platform (like RMIQ), brands can finally unlock the scale, efficiency, and results they’ve been chasing.
Want help making retail media work harder for your brand? We’d love to show you how.
Objective: Drive impactful business outcomes across the customer journey, including acquiring new customers.
Measure What Matters (Not Just ROAS)
Retail media isn’t just about return on ad spend. You should be tracking:
- New-to-brand metrics
- Incremental sales
- Organic lift from paid
- Category share growth
Use attribution windows and A/B tests to get a clearer read on impact.
Here’s how retail media fuels each stage:
- Boosting Awareness: Effectively introduce new products and broaden the reach of existing categories, reaching potential new customers.
- Driving Consideration: Increase engagement by directing relevant traffic to product detail pages (PDPs), attracting both existing and new shoppers.
- Maximizing Conversion: Optimize sales performance for key priority SKUs, while also focusing on first-time purchases.
To keep a close eye on our progress, these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial:
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
- TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sale): Indicates the percentage of total sales attributed to advertising costs.
- CTR (Click-through rate): Shows how often people click on your ads after seeing them.
- CVR (Conversion rate): Tracks the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, like making a purchase.
- Share of voice (SOV): Represents your brand’s visibility compared to competitors within a specific advertising space.
- New-to-Brand Rate: Tracks the percentage of conversions attributed to customers making their first purchase from your brand.
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Let’s dive deeper into the Fragmentation Problem within retail media: a significant hurdle created by disparate jargon, inconsistent Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and incompatible reporting structures.
The uncomfortable truth is that the retail media landscape is far from unified. Each platform operates within its own silo, leading to a complex and often frustrating experience for advertisers.
Consider the fundamental issue of differing definitions. A seemingly straightforward metric like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) can have vastly different interpretations across platforms. For instance, ROAS calculations on Amazon might incorporate the “halo effect”—sales of other products driven by an ad for a specific item. Conversely, Instacart’s ROAS likely focuses solely on direct attribution. This lack of a standard definition makes direct comparison and performance evaluation incredibly challenging.
Furthermore, each platform often touts its own custom KPIs, making it difficult to establish a universal understanding of success. While some metrics might overlap, their calculation methods and significance can vary considerably.
Delayed reporting cycles exacerbate this problem. The time lag between campaign execution and accessible performance data differs across platforms, hindering timely optimization and strategic adjustments.
Perhaps the most significant contributor to fragmentation lies in inconsistent attribution models. How a sale is credited to a specific ad interaction can vary dramatically. As highlighted, Walmart might attribute a sale to an ad click within a 14-day window, while Kroger might use a shorter 7-day lookback period. These discrepancies make it virtually impossible to achieve accurate benchmarking or gain a holistic view of campaign effectiveness without significant data manipulation.
Examples of this fragmentation are abundant:
- The varying definitions of ROAS, as mentioned with Amazon’s potential inclusion of halo effects versus Instacart’s direct attribution.
- Different platforms prioritizing unique custom KPIs beyond standard metrics like CTR or CVR, making cross-platform performance comparisons opaque.
- The range of reporting cycle lengths, which can span from near real-time to several days or even weeks, impacting the agility of campaign management.
- The diverse attribution windows (e.g., 1-day click, 7-day click, 14-day view-through) that platforms employ, leading to conflicting interpretations of campaign impact.
This fragmented environment makes benchmarking performance across different retailers nearly impossible without dedicated effort to normalize the data. Advertisers are often left juggling multiple dashboards and wrestling with inconsistent metrics, hindering their ability to make informed decisions and optimize their overall retail media strategy.
Pro Tip: To navigate this complex landscape and regain control over your data, leverage cross-platform analytics toolslike RMIQ. These solutions are designed to standardize your data, providing a unified view of performance and significantly reducing the chaos associated with disparate reporting systems. By normalizing metrics and offering a centralized platform, these tools empower advertisers to gain meaningful insights and make data-driven decisions across their entire retail media portfolio.
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Let’s shed light on some common pitfalls that even seasoned marketers can stumble into when navigating the complexities of retail media. Steer clear of these Rookie Mistakes to maximize your impact:
It’s surprising how often advertisers undermine their own efforts by running ads to weak Product Detail Pages (PDPs). Think of your PDP as the final destination for your ad clicks. If it lacks compelling content, clear information, high-quality images, or easy navigation, you’re essentially pouring valuable ad spend into a leaky bucket. A poor PDP experience will inevitably lead to low conversion rates and wasted investment, regardless of how well your ads perform initially.
Another frequent misstep is using the same strategy across all platforms. Each retail media ecosystem operates with its own nuances, audience behaviors, and ad formats. A one-size-fits-all approach neglects these crucial differences and limits your ability to capitalize on the unique strengths of each platform. What works effectively on Amazon might not resonate on Walmart.com or within Kroger’s digital environment. Tailoring your campaigns to the specific context of each platform is essential for optimal results.
Overlooking the power of organic presence is another critical error. Ignoring organic rank and reviews means you’re leaving valuable, often free, traffic and social proof on the table. A strong organic ranking complements your paid efforts, increasing overall product visibility and building long-term brand authority. Similarly, positive customer reviews act as powerful endorsements, influencing purchase decisions and boosting conversion rates. Neglecting these elements creates a fragmented approach and misses opportunities for synergistic growth.
Finally, becoming fixated on chasing only short-term ROAS can lead to short-sighted decisions that harm long-term brand building and customer acquisition. While immediate profitability is important, solely focusing on immediate returns can cause you to miss opportunities for brand awareness, new-to-brand customer acquisition, and fostering customer loyalty. A balanced perspective considers both immediate performance and sustainable growth.
Here’s how to fix these common mistakes and build a more robust retail media strategy:
- Invest in compelling product content: Elevate your PDPs with detailed descriptions, high-resolution images and videos, customer testimonials, and comprehensive FAQs. Ensure a seamless and informative user experience that encourages conversion.
- Diversify placements and tailor strategies: Understand the unique audiences and ad formats available on each platform. Customize your targeting, creative, and bidding strategies to align with the specific environment and objectives for each retailer.
- Think beyond just paid advertising: Implement a holistic strategy that integrates paid media with efforts to improve organic search ranking (SEO) and encourage positive customer reviews. A strong organic presence amplifies the impact of your paid campaigns.
- Adopt a balanced, long-term perspective: While monitoring ROAS is crucial, also track metrics related to brand awareness, new-to-brand acquisition, and customer lifetime value. A sustainable retail media strategy considers both immediate returns and long-term growth.
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Let’s explore the exciting phase of Scaling Up your successful retail media initiatives, transitioning from initial tests to full-scale implementation.
Once your initial campaigns have demonstrated consistent Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and you’ve gained confidence in your targeting parameters, it’s time to amplify your efforts and unlock greater growth. This involves strategically expanding your reach and sophistication.
One key step in scaling is to test additional SKUs or retailers. Having found success with a core set of products or on a specific platform, the next logical move is to broaden your scope. Introduce new products from your catalog to your winning campaigns or explore opportunities on new retail media platforms. This allows you to tap into new customer segments and revenue streams. Remember to apply the learnings from your initial tests to these expansions, but also be prepared to iterate and optimize based on the new performance data.
Another powerful scaling tactic is to run branded versus non-branded keyword splits. This strategy provides valuable insights into how different search queries drive performance. Branded keywords target consumers specifically searching for your brand, often indicating higher purchase intent and conversion rates. Non-branded keywords, on the other hand, target broader product-related searches, allowing you to reach new customers who may not yet be familiar with your brand. By separating these keyword types, you can optimize bids and messaging accordingly, maximizing both direct conversions and brand discovery.
Capitalizing on seasonal peaks is crucial for scaling revenue. Expand budgets during seasonality to align with increased consumer demand and search volume during key shopping periods (e.g., holidays, back-to-school). Failing to increase investment during these high-traffic times can result in missed opportunities and lost market share. Ensure your inventory and fulfillment capabilities can support the anticipated surge in sales.
To further refine your targeting and reach more relevant audiences, layer in audience data and custom segments. Retail media platforms often provide access to valuable first-party and third-party data, allowing you to target specific demographics, purchase behaviors, and interests. Creating custom audience segments based on your customer data or platform insights can significantly improve ad relevance and efficiency, leading to higher conversion rates and a more effective use of your ad spend.
Pro Tip: To effectively manage the increased complexity of scaled campaigns, set automated rules using platforms like RMIQ or Pacvue. These rules can automatically adjust bidding thresholds based on performance metrics, protect your profit margins by adjusting bids based on cost of goods sold (COGS), and ensure your campaigns remain within your target ROAS range, even as you scale your investment and reach. Automation frees up valuable time for strategic analysis and further optimization.
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Win the Digital Shelf Without Losing Your Budget
Retail media isn’t just another line item. It’s the frontline of modern commerce.
Brands that win the digital shelf aren’t just chasing clicks — they’re earning cart share, shopper loyalty, and prime visibility across Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, and beyond.
But here’s the truth: it’s noisy out there. Data’s messy. Channels are fragmented. And your time is limited.
That’s where RMIQ steps in.
Built to scale your retail media ads fast Optimizes shopper targeting across top RMNs Turns spend into actual sales (not just dashboards)
Start small. Move fast. Measure what matters.
And when the chaos hits? That’s exactly why we built RMIQ — to turn messy media into measurable growth.
Ready to win the shelf?
The global retail media networks landscape
The retail media ecosystem has expanded far beyond Amazon’s marketplace model to encompass over 200 networks worldwide, creating both unprecedented opportunity and significant operational complexity. These networks span multiple business models and geographic regions, each offering distinct advantages and targeting capabilities.
Regional distribution shows the United States leading with 80+ networks, while Europe represents the most fragmented market with 100+ networks. France alone hosts 40+ retail media networks, with 25+ in the United Kingdom and significant presence across Germany and other major markets. Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions show rapid expansion, particularly with platforms like Mercado Livre, Alibaba, JD.com, and Shopee.
Network categories have evolved beyond traditional e-commerce platforms. 65% of listed retailers now operate marketplace models, while 40% successfully blend digital and physical channels. This includes online pure-players like Amazon and Zalando, brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart and Target, marketplace operators, specialty retailers like Home Depot and CVS, and grocery chains including Kroger and Carrefour.
Technology infrastructure varies significantly across networks. Criteo powers approximately 40% of retail media networks across diverse segments, while The Trade Desk enables off-site programmatic advertising for 20% of networks. CitrusAd (Epsilon Retail Media) maintains strong presence in grocery chains, and approximately 15% of retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Mercado Livre operate in-house platforms.
The competitive landscape reveals clear performance hierarchies. Beyond Amazon’s dominance, Walmart Connect demonstrates strong growth but remains distant from Amazon’s scale. Regional leaders include established players like Carrefour and Tesco in Europe, Alibaba in Asia-Pacific, and emerging platforms throughout Latin America and other developing markets.
Retail Media Networks in the United States and Canada
The North American retail media landscape represents the most mature and sophisticated ecosystem globally, with over 80 active networks generating the highest concentration of advertising revenue. Amazon Ads maintains overwhelming dominance with $56.2 billion in annual revenue and 77% market share, establishing the baseline for retail media performance expectations and competitive benchmarks across the region.
Walmart Connect serves as the primary challenger with $4.4 billion in revenue and 26.4% growth in 2023, leveraging both its massive brick-and-mortar footprint and rapidly expanding e-commerce capabilities. The platform combines in-store media placements with digital advertising across Walmart.com and grocery pickup services, creating omnichannel advertising opportunities that extend beyond pure digital channels. Target Roundel generates $1.76 billion annually, focusing on fashion, home goods, and general merchandise categories with strong audience data derived from Target Circle loyalty program insights.
Grocery-focused networks demonstrate significant growth potential, with Kroger Precision Marketing leading through its 84.51° data analytics platform that leverages purchase history from over 60 million households. Instacart Ads captures the online grocery surge with advertising opportunities across the shopping journey, from product discovery through checkout completion. Albertsons Media Collective represents the consolidation trend in grocery retail media, offering advertising access across multiple banner stores including Safeway, Vons, and Jewel-Osco.
Specialty retailers create category-specific advertising opportunities with highly targeted audiences. CVS Media Exchange focuses on health and wellness advertising with pharmacy and healthcare-focused targeting, while Walgreens Advertising Group provides similar capabilities across personal care and wellness categories. Home Depot Orange Apron Media and Lowe’s Media Network serve the home improvement category with advertising options that span DIY consumers and professional contractors. Best Buy Ads captures electronics and technology purchases, while Ulta UB Media dominates beauty category advertising through its comprehensive loyalty program data. Canada’s retail media development centers around Loblaw’s Advance platform, which leverages the country’s largest grocery retailer network to provide advertising opportunities across both digital and physical touchpoints.
Top U.S. Retail Media Networks
Tip: Choose platforms where your customers already shop. Don’t spread thin.
Keywords: best retail media platforms, amazon ads vs walmart connect, instacart ads guide
Amazon’s Ads RMN – th industry giant, with end-to-end ad solutions from DSP to Sponsored Products.
Walmart Connect is Walmart’s full-funnel retail media offering with in-store and digital touchpoints.
Target’s in-house media agency with strong audience data and omnichannel reach.
Instacart Ads across online grocery journeys — great for CPGs and new product discovery.
Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM)
A powerful media arm using 1st-party shopper data from Kroger’s Precision Marketing.
Electronics-focused retail media platform Best Buy Ads combines tech sales and media precision.
CMX is a health and wellness-focused media network using CVS shopper data.
Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG)
Walgreens Advertising Group – the media platform focused on pharmacy and personal care verticals.
Albertsons Media Collective offers scalable retail media through Albertsons’ chain of grocery brands.
Ads for home improvement brands reaching DIYers and contractors alike on Orange Apron Media.
Ulta’s network for beauty brands, leveraging loyalty and purchase data.
Powered by Lowe’s extensive customer data and media inventory, Lowe’s One Roof Media Network is the real deal.
Reaches fashion, beauty, and home shoppers through Macy’s digital platforms – Macy’s Media Network.
Kohl’s Media Network taps into its loyalty-driven customer base to deliver targeted retail ads.
7-Eleven’s new media platform Gulp Media Network uses real-time shopper behavior.
DoorDash Ads offers sponsored listings and promotions in food and convenience delivery.
GoPuff Ads offer On-demand retail media — rapid delivery meets product discovery.
Pet-focused Chewy Ads‘ RMN targeting high-intent pet parents across channels.
Ecommerce advertising giant eBay via eBay Ads across millions of product listings and shopper segments.
While not yet fully public, Costco Media Network is the new RMN by Costco launched recently!
EMEA Retail Media Networks
The European retail media landscape represents the most fragmented global market, with over 100 active networks spanning diverse regulatory environments, languages, and consumer behaviors. This fragmentation creates both significant opportunities for localized targeting and operational complexities for brands seeking pan-European advertising strategies.
United Kingdom networks lead European retail media development, with Tesco Media and Insight Platform leveraging the country’s largest grocery retailer data to provide comprehensive advertising solutions. ASDA’s LS Eleven MediaServices and Sainsbury’s Nectar 360 complete the major grocery trifecta, each offering distinct approaches to loyalty data monetization and targeted advertising. Very Media Group and Argos Nectar 360 represent the general merchandise and home goods categories, while Boots MediaGroup dominates health and beauty advertising across both digital and physical store environments.
French retail media networks demonstrate the highest concentration globally, with over 40 platforms operating across different retail categories. Carrefour’s Unlimitail provides the largest reach through Europe’s second-largest retailer, offering both digital and in-store advertising opportunities. Leclerc’s Consoregie and Intermarché’s Infinity Advertising represent the cooperative retail model’s approach to media monetization, while Fnac-Darty’s Retailink focuses on electronics and cultural products. Galeries Lafayette and Printemps serve the luxury retail segment through premium advertising environments.
German networks emphasize the country’s strong retail infrastructure, with Schwarz Media (serving both Lidl and Kaufland) representing the largest reach across the discount and hypermarket segments. REWE’s Retail MediaConnect and EDEKA’s regional networks provide grocery-focused advertising, while MediaMarkt Saturn Retail Media dominates consumer electronics. OTTO’s advertising platform serves the catalog and online retail segment that remains significant in German commerce.
Nordic countries show sophisticated retail media development relative to market size, with Denmark’s Coop and Sweden’s ICA providing grocery-focused platforms, while Norway’s Rema 1000 and Finland’s Kesko offer localized retail media opportunities. Fashion and lifestyle networks include Zalando PartnerMarketingServices across multiple European markets, ASOS Media Network for younger demographics, and About You for German-speaking regions.
MENA Retail Media Networks
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) retail media landscape represents a high-growth emerging market characterized by rapid e-commerce adoption, young demographics, and increasing digital infrastructure investment across key economies. The region benefits from high smartphone penetration rates and growing consumer confidence in online shopping, creating favorable conditions for retail media network development.
United Arab Emirates leads regional development through Noon’s media network, which leverages the Dubai-based platform’s position as the region’s largest homegrown e-commerce marketplace. Noon operates across multiple MENA countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait, providing advertising opportunities across electronics, fashion, home goods, and grocery categories. Amazon UAE and Amazon Saudi Arabia provide international retail media capabilities, though with more limited local market penetration compared to other global regions.
Saudi Arabia represents the largest market opportunity given its Vision 2030 digital transformation initiatives and substantial e-commerce investments. Jarir Bookstore has developed advertising capabilities across electronics and educational products, while Extra (owned by United Electronics Company) provides consumer electronics-focused retail media opportunities. Noon Saudi Arabia serves as the primary domestic platform, while SACO and eXtra offer specialized electronics and appliances advertising.
Egypt’s retail media development centers around local e-commerce platforms including Jumia Egypt (part of the pan-African Jumia network) and emerging domestic platforms. Carrefour Egypt has explored retail media opportunities within its hypermarket operations, though comprehensive platforms remain in early development stages. B.TECH and Souq.com (now Amazon Egypt) provide electronics-focused advertising opportunities.
Regional characteristics include Arabic language requirements, Ramadan seasonality impacts, cultural considerations for advertising content, and varying payment preferences across different countries. Oil-rich economies like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar show higher e-commerce adoption and digital advertising sophistication, while emerging markets like Egypt and Morocco demonstrate strong growth potential but face infrastructure and economic constraints. Cross-border e-commerce represents significant opportunities, particularly for platforms serving multiple Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with shared cultural and economic ties.
Retail Media Networks in Africa
Africa’s retail media landscape represents an emerging opportunity with significant growth potential, driven by increasing internet penetration, mobile commerce adoption, and the development of modern retail infrastructure across key markets. While the ecosystem remains nascent compared to other regions, several markets show promising early development.
South Africa leads continental development through Takealot’s media network, which leverages the country’s largest e-commerce platform to provide advertising opportunities across consumer electronics, fashion, and home goods categories. The platform benefits from South Africa’s more advanced digital infrastructure and higher e-commerce adoption rates compared to other African markets. Pick n Pay and Shoprite have begun exploring retail media opportunities within their grocery operations, though platforms remain in early development stages.
Nigeria represents the largest potential market given its population size and growing middle class, though retail media development remains limited by infrastructure constraints and lower e-commerce penetration. Jumia operates across multiple African countries and has begun developing advertising capabilities, though the platform functions more as a marketplace advertising solution than a comprehensive retail media network. Konga provides similar marketplace advertising opportunities within Nigeria specifically.
Kenya’s retail media development centers around Naivas and Carrefour Kenya, both of which have explored digital advertising opportunities, though comprehensive retail media platforms remain underdeveloped. Morocco and Egypt show early retail media interest through major retailers exploring advertising partnerships and sponsored product placements, but dedicated platforms have not yet launched at scale.
Mobile-first approaches characterize African retail media development, given the continent’s high mobile phone adoption and relatively lower desktop internet usage. Mobile money integration and SMS-based advertising represent unique opportunities that differ from retail media approaches in more developed markets. Regional challenges include limited digital payment adoption, logistics infrastructure constraints, and regulatory variations across different countries that complicate pan-African advertising strategies.
Retail Media Networks in Asia
Asia’s APAC retail media ecosystem demonstrates the highest growth rates globally, driven by massive e-commerce adoption, sophisticated mobile commerce integration, and several of the world’s largest retail platforms. The region’s diversity spans from highly advanced markets like China and South Korea to rapidly developing economies throughout Southeast Asia.
China dominates Asian retail media through Alibaba’s Alimama platform, which generated over $13 billion in advertising revenue in 2023 and serves as the backbone for advertising across Taobao, Tmall, and other Alibaba properties. JD.com’s media network provides comprehensive advertising solutions across China’s second-largest e-commerce platform, while Pinduoduo has rapidly expanded its advertising capabilities to serve its group-buying model and lower-tier city focus.
Southeast Asia shows explosive growth led by Shopee’s advertising platform across multiple countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The platform combines marketplace advertising with social commerce features and gamification elements unique to the region. Lazada (owned by Alibaba) provides similar multi-country advertising capabilities, while Tokopedia and Bukalapak dominate Indonesia’s large domestic market.
India’s retail media landscape centers around Flipkart Ads, which leverages India’s second-largest e-commerce platform to provide advertising across consumer electronics, fashion, and home goods. Amazon India operates as a significant platform, while Myntra dominates fashion advertising and BigBasket has developed grocery-focused retail media capabilities. Social commerce platforms like Meesho represent emerging retail media opportunities that blend social networking with e-commerce advertising.
Japan and South Korea demonstrate sophisticated retail media development through Rakuten’s advertising platform in Japan and Gmarket, Coupang, and Lotte networks in South Korea. These platforms integrate advanced loyalty programs, mobile payment systems, and omnichannel retail experiences that create comprehensive advertising environments. Australia and New Zealand complete the Asia-Pacific region with Woolworths Cartology and Coles 360 providing grocery-focused advertising, while The Warehouse MarketMedia and Noel Leeming serve general merchandise and electronics categories.
LatAm Retail Media Networks
Latin America’s retail media ecosystem represents one of the fastest-growing global markets, driven by increasing e-commerce adoption, smartphone penetration, and the development of modern retail infrastructure across major economies. The region’s growth trajectory particularly benefits from consumers’ rapid adoption of digital commerce during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brazil leads regional development with Mercado Livre’s Mercado Ads platform generating over $2.1 billion in advertising revenue and serving as Latin America’s largest e-commerce and retail media network. The platform’s success stems from its dominant marketplace position across multiple countries and integration with Mercado Pago’s payment system. Magazine Luiza’s Magalu media network provides domestic Brazilian advertising opportunities, while Via (formerly Via Varejo) offers retail media across electronics and appliances categories.
Mexico represents the second-largest market with Amazon Mexico, Mercado Libre Mexico, and emerging domestic platforms like Liverpool and Walmart Mexico developing comprehensive retail media capabilities. Soriana and Chedraui have begun exploring grocery-focused retail media opportunities, while OXXO has launched its convenience store media network to capture the country’s large convenience retail market.
Argentina and Colombia show significant retail media development through both Mercado Libre operations and domestic retailers. Falabella’s F.media platform operates across multiple countries including Colombia, Peru, and Chile, leveraging the department store chain’s strong regional presence. Exito in Colombia and Ripley in Chile and Peru represent domestic retail media development efforts.
Regional characteristics include strong mobile commerce adoption, social commerce integration, and payment method diversity that includes cash-on-delivery and installment purchasing options. Cross-border e-commerce represents significant opportunities, with platforms serving multiple countries and currencies. Logistics challenges and varying regulatory environments create operational complexities, while Economic volatility across different countries requires flexible pricing and currency management strategies.
Emerging markets throughout Central America and smaller South American countries show early retail media interest, though development remains limited by market size and infrastructure constraints. Social media integration and WhatsApp commerce represent unique regional opportunities that differ from retail media approaches in other global markets.
Australasia Retail Media Networks
The Australasia region, primarily comprising Australia and New Zealand, demonstrates sophisticated retail media development despite relatively small market sizes. The region benefits from high e-commerce adoption rates, advanced digital infrastructure, and concentrated retail markets that facilitate comprehensive retail media platform development.
Australia leads regional development with Woolworths Cartology serving as the country’s largest grocery-focused retail media network, leveraging data from Australia’s largest supermarket chain and its Everyday Rewards loyalty program. Coles 360 provides competitive grocery advertising opportunities, while both platforms extend beyond traditional grocery categories to include general merchandise, pharmacy, and fuel retail segments.
General merchandise networks include Bunnings Hammer Media for home# The Complete Retail Media Networks Guide for 2025
Retail media has exploded from an emerging advertising channel to the fourth largest advertising medium globally, with spending projected to reach €25 billion in Europe alone by 2026 and exhibiting over 30% annual growth through 2024. This explosive growth represents the most significant shift in digital advertising since the rise of social media, fundamentally transforming how brands reach consumers at the critical moment of purchase intent.
The retail media revolution stems from advertisers’ desperate need for first-party data in the post-cookie era, combined with retailers’ recognition that their customer data represents a goldmine of monetization opportunity. Over 50% of US brands now use retail media for upper-funnel objectives, signaling its evolution from a performance-only channel to a comprehensive marketing solution. Yet with over 200 retail media networks now operating globally, brands face an unprecedented fragmentation challenge that threatens to limit the channel’s full potential.
This comprehensive guide examines the current retail media landscape, analyzes the key players and growth drivers, explores the measurement and analytics revolution, and provides strategic frameworks for navigating this complex but essential advertising ecosystem. For brands seeking to capitalize on retail media’s growth while avoiding common pitfalls, understanding both the opportunities and operational challenges has never been more critical.
Frameworks for retail media success
Successfully navigating retail media’s complexity requires sophisticated strategic frameworks that account for the channel’s unique characteristics and operational challenges. The most effective approaches balance platform diversity with focused execution, leveraging data-driven insights while maintaining strategic coherence across multiple touchpoints.
Portfolio optimization emerges as the critical strategic capability, requiring brands to balance Amazon’s massive reach against the specialized audiences and competitive advantages offered by smaller networks. Cross-platform attribution models help brands understand how media budgets interact across retailers and channels, identifying trends and optimization opportunities that single-platform analysis cannot reveal.
Budget allocation strategies must account for the significant performance variations between networks. Attribution windows vary dramatically—Walmart’s 14-day window versus Kroger’s 7-day window—creating inconsistencies that manual management cannot effectively optimize. Successful brands implement dynamic budget reallocation that moves spend toward momentum rather than maintaining static distributions.
Creative strategy requires platform-specific adaptations while maintaining brand consistency. Creative fatigue happens faster in retail media environments due to highly targeted audiences and concentrated exposure periods. A/B testing capabilities with creative rotation become essential for maintaining performance as campaigns scale.
Scaling frameworks follow progressive approaches from testing to optimization to expansion. The most successful implementations start small, move fast, and measure what matters, beginning with platforms where customers already shop before expanding to secondary networks. This approach enables learning and optimization without overwhelming operational capacity.
Performance measurement must extend beyond vanity ROAS to actionable metrics that drive business outcomes. Advanced practitioners focus on SKU-level optimization, audience segmentation analysis, and cross-retailer spillover effects that reveal the broader impact of retail media investments on overall business performance.
Goal setting methodology requires clarity on whether campaigns aim to drive awareness, consideration, or conversion, with corresponding KPI frameworks. New-to-brand acquisition metrics become particularly important for long-term growth, while Total Advertising Cost of Sale (TACoS) provides a more comprehensive view of advertising efficiency than traditional ROAS calculations by including organic sales impact.
Operational excellence demands systematic approaches to common retail media challenges. Product Detail Page (PDP) optimization serves as the foundation for campaign success, requiring compelling content, high-quality visuals, and comprehensive product information. Inventory management integration ensures advertising spend aligns with product availability, preventing wasted investment on out-of-stock items. Review and rating optimization supports both organic performance and paid campaign effectiveness through improved conversion rates and social proof.
Technology solutions like RMIQ are addressing RMN fragmentation
The retail media ecosystem’s rapid expansion has created a fundamental fragmentation problem that threatens to limit the channel’s potential. With over 200 retail media networks operating globally, brands face the impossible challenge of manually managing multiple platforms, each with distinct interfaces, attribution models, and performance metrics.
Unified platform solutions address this fragmentation by providing single interfaces for managing campaigns across multiple retail media networks. These platforms offer direct API integrations with major networks, eliminating additional work for retailers while providing brands with cross-platform analytics tools that standardize metrics and normalize data variations.
AI-driven optimization represents the next evolution in retail media management, with autonomous agents that learn cross-network signals in real-time and adjust campaigns accordingly. These systems optimize based on 50+ signals including competitor moves and inventory shifts, providing the speed and sophistication that manual management cannot match.
Cross-network intelligence enables platforms to identify patterns and opportunities that single-network analysis misses. For example, performance improvements on one network might indicate broader market trends that suggest optimization opportunities across other platforms. This holistic approach prevents the siloed thinking that leads to suboptimal budget allocation and missed growth opportunities.
Accessibility improvements make retail media viable for smaller brands that previously couldn’t justify the resource investment required for multi-platform management. By providing economies of scale and specialized expertise, unified platforms democratize access to sophisticated retail media capabilities.
The technology evolution also addresses data standardization challenges. Different networks use varying definitions for ROAS, different attribution windows, and inconsistent metrics that make cross-platform comparison nearly impossible. Advanced platforms normalize and validate data across all networks to provide true, independent performance views.
Programmatic integration represents the next phase of retail media evolution, with traditional programmatic buying capabilities extending into retail media environments. Demand-Side Platform (DSP) integration enables buyers to access retail media inventory alongside other digital channels, while Supply-Side Platform (SSP) connections help retailers maximize yield and manage their advertising inventory more efficiently.
Automated rule systems provide sophisticated campaign management capabilities that adjust bids, budgets, and targeting based on performance thresholds and business rules. These systems can automatically protect profit margins by incorporating Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) data, maintain target TACoS levels, and scale spending during high-performing periods while reducing investment when performance declines below acceptable levels.
RMN outlook and opportunities
Retail media’s trajectory points toward continued rapid expansion with several key trends shaping the channel’s evolution. In-store media demonstrates the strongest growth potential with 11.9% CAGR compared to the overall market’s 6.43% growth rate, representing the next frontier for retail media expansion beyond digital channels.
Global expansion offers significant opportunities, particularly in Asia-Pacific and Latin America where retail infrastructure development creates new advertising inventory. European markets show strong growth potential as local networks mature and compete with Amazon’s expansion across the region.
Non-endemic advertising represents substantial growth opportunity as financial services, automotive companies, and other categories expand their retail media presence beyond traditional product categories. This expansion broadens the advertiser base and increases total addressable market size significantly.
Emerging formats including video, social commerce, and gaming integration create new advertising opportunities that extend retail media beyond traditional display and search advertisements. Connected TV integration using first-party retail data shows particular promise for upper-funnel marketing objectives.
However, significant challenges must be addressed for continued growth. Data privacy regulations continue limiting targeting capabilities, particularly in Europe where GDPR creates operational constraints. Talent shortages in professionals skilled in both merchandising and programmatic advertising create hiring and training challenges across the industry.
Market saturation with over 200 networks creates decision complexity for advertisers that could limit overall growth if not addressed through better aggregation and management solutions. The industry’s evolution toward standardized measurement and unified management platforms will determine whether this complexity enhances or inhibits the channel’s continued expansion.
Retail media has evolved from an experimental channel to an essential component of digital advertising strategy, driven by exceptional growth rates, strategic budget reallocation, and expanding use cases across the marketing funnel. The combination of first-party data access, closed-loop attribution, and real-time purchase intent signals provides competitive advantages that traditional digital channels cannot match.
Yet the channel’s rapid expansion has created operational complexity that threatens to limit its potential. With over 200 retail media networks operating globally, successful implementation requires sophisticated strategic frameworks, advanced measurement capabilities, and unified management approaches that address fragmentation challenges.
The brands and agencies that succeed in retail media will be those that embrace both the channel’s opportunities and its operational realities. This means implementing technology solutions that provide cross-network intelligence, developing strategic frameworks that optimize portfolio performance rather than individual platform metrics, and building organizational capabilities that can scale with the channel’s continued growth.
