Target retail media, the 2027 planning edition
This guide explains how Target Roundel works for 2027 planning, what changed at Roundel in 2026 and what it costs to start. It then walks through your first campaign in Roundel Media Studio, step by step.
Sources for every figure are listed at the end of the page. Facts were checked in September 2026.
- $915M Target advertising revenue in fiscal 2025, up 41% from $649 million Target 10-K, March 2026
- Nearly 20% Growth in Roundel gross billings, second quarter of 2026 Target CFO, August 2026
- 2x Target’s goal: double Roundel’s value between 2025 and 2030 Target fact sheet, June 2026
The short answer
What is Target Roundel?
Target Roundel, which calls itself Roundel Media Designed by Target, is Target’s in-house retail media network. It sells ads on Target.com, the Target app, partner publishers, streaming TV and Target stores to brands Target stocks and to Target Plus sellers, and targets and measures them with Target Circle shopper data, online and in stores.
Roundel started in 2007 with five people and now has more than 800. It works with more than 2,000 vendors and in 2025 drove more than 400 million visits to Target properties.
Three measures describe its size, and they differ. Target’s earnings tables show an “Advertising revenue” line of $915 million for fiscal 2025, up 41%. Target records some Roundel income as a reduction of its costs, so that line leaves part of the business out. On earnings calls Target’s finance chief also reports Roundel’s gross billings, and Target’s Roundel fact sheet cites “more than $2 billion of value”, a third measure that Target does not define.
Digiday’s 2026 survey of 125 marketers ranks Roundel as the third most used retail media network, after Amazon and Walmart Connect: 32% of respondents advertise on it. On a weighted-average basis, respondents doubled their Roundel budgets in 2026 compared with 2025. The sample is small, so treat it as directional. eMarketer, as quoted by VTEX, puts Roundel at 1.5% of U.S. retail media spend in 2025, against 79.7% for Amazon and 8.0% for Walmart Connect. Roundel is a small share of the market, and its billings are growing faster than Target’s own sales.
Target Roundel news
What’s new at Roundel: April to September 2026
Newest first. The six months from April to September 2026 brought one new Roundel pilot, a new executive overseeing Roundel, two quarters of advertising growth and several Target moves that change where your ads compete.
- Tentpole
Target Circle Deal Days return October 6 to 7
Target’s fall loyalty event runs October 6 to 7, 2026, with early access on October 5 for members of the paid Target Circle 360 tier. In 2024 Target called its October event Target Circle Week, and older planning calendars still use that name.
- Leadership
A new executive oversees Roundel
Mark Weinstein, formerly Hilton’s global chief marketing officer, joined Target as chief marketing and guest experience officer, reporting to CEO Michael Fiddelke. Target says he “will also oversee Roundel” and Target Plus. Roundel’s About Us page lists Matt Drzewicki as SVP, Roundel.
- Category
Target Beauty Studio replaces Ulta Beauty at Target
Target Beauty Studio opened in more than 600 stores and on Target.com with more than 1,600 products from 90 brands, most of them new to Target. It follows the end of the Ulta Beauty at Target shop-in-shops, which the two companies agreed in August 2025 to end in August 2026. For beauty brands this means new assortment to advertise and new competitors on the same search pages.
- Upcoming
Roundel’s 2027 planning forum on October 13
Roundel announced The Roundtable, its invitation-only executive forum, for October 13, 2026, in Tribeca, New York. Roundel frames it around the decisions brands will make for 2027.
- Earnings
Roundel billings up nearly 20% in the second quarter
Target reported advertising revenue of $279 million for the quarter, against $217 million a year earlier. On the call, CFO Jim Lee put Roundel’s gross billings growth at “nearly 20%”. Non-merchandise sales, which include Roundel, grew 20.1% while total net sales grew 5.3%.
- Research
Back-to-school and back-to-college insight reports
Roundel published its 2026 insight reports for the back-to-school and back-to-college seasons, two of the big shopping seasons of late summer.
- Marketplace
Target Plus adds brands, and they can buy ads
Target Plus, Target’s invitation-only marketplace, added brands such as Clarks, Forever 21, JanSport, Serta and Hisense. Target says Roundel Media Studio (Media Studio for short) serves Target Plus sellers too, so expect more marketplace sellers bidding in categories like K-beauty, where Target added hundreds of new items.
- New pilot
DIRECTV premium video
Roundel is piloting a premium video partnership with DIRECTV Advertising: home screen placements, commercials during live programming and sports, and video on planes and in hotels, targeted with Target’s guest data. Marketing Dive reports that the pilot includes pause ads and more than 150 live channels, with reporting that links exposure to Target sales. Danone is an early tester, and Roundel is recruiting more brands.
- AI shopping
Target sells inside AI assistants
Target’s conversational AI fact sheet says AI-driven traffic to Target rose 2,000% in the first quarter from a year earlier. Target shopping is live in Google AI Mode and Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. The fact sheet names no ad product for these shopping experiences; the ChatGPT ads pilot below is a separate test.
- Tentpole
Summer Target Circle Deal Days
Target set its summer Target Circle Deal Days for June 23 to 26, with early access on June 22 for Target Circle 360 members.
- Earnings
First quarter: advertising revenue $246 million
Target’s advertising revenue line reached $246 million, against $163 million a year earlier, and non-merchandise sales grew 24.6%. Target’s first-quarter release and call gave no Roundel billings figure.
- Award
Precision Plus wins a commerce media award
Roundel won Best Off-site Performance Using Commerce Signals at The Drum Awards for Commerce Media 2026 for Precision Plus. Its entry claims a 49% lower cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for awareness campaigns and a 132% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS) for conversion campaigns. Roundel submitted these figures, and no independent audit of them has been published.
- Creators
Target’s creator programs, with LTK
Target launched two creator programs, Club Target and Target Ambassadors, the second powered by LTK for established creators. Brands can reach LTK creators through Influencers by Roundel campaigns.
Earlier in 2026: in February Target began testing contextual ads in ChatGPT, with ads from Target and from Roundel’s brand partners triggered by keywords in shopping conversations. Target has not published results from the pilot.
How to advertise on Target
How to advertise on Target: Roundel ad formats you run yourself or through Roundel
Roundel sells formats across Target’s own site and app, offsite publishers, streaming TV, social and stores, and the first question for each is who runs it. Target Product Ads are self-serve in Media Studio. Programmatic runs in your own demand-side platform (DSP), the buying software your team or agency already uses. Most other formats are managed by Roundel’s team.
Target Product Ads
- Target.com and app: search, category and product pages
- Cost per click, second-price auction
- 24 to 48 hours
Target’s sponsored product ads: native listings that look like the products around them, paid per click. On product pages they appear in recommendation carousels such as “More to Consider” and “Frequently Bought Together” (carousel names as reported by the agency Tinuiti). Target’s fact sheet says these placements “saw nearly 30% sales growth in 2025”.
Onsite display
- Target.com and app, from the homepage to the thank-you page
- Negotiated with Roundel
- Ask your Roundel representative
Display placements across Target’s own site and app, including the homepage megaboard and leaderboard, the empty cart, the store locator and the thank-you page. You can brief display campaigns in Media Studio’s Planning experience, and your account team builds the plan.
Bullseye Marketplace
- 150+ premium publishers, 30+ Spanish-language and Hispanic-content publishers
- Negotiated with Roundel, or self-serve
- Ask your Roundel representative
Roundel’s private, publisher-direct marketplace for display and video offsite, bought self-serve or managed. Target’s 2026 fact sheet says Roundel’s media footprint added 40+ premium publishers, including The New York Times, AMC Networks, Hearst, BuzzFeed and USA Today.
Programmatic by Roundel
- Premium publisher display, video and app inventory
- Through your DSP
- 3 to 5 business days
Target audiences activated in the DSP you already use, with closed-loop sales reporting (ad exposure tied to Target purchases) in The Trade Desk or in Roundel’s reporting tool, Reports.
Search Ads by Roundel
- Google Shopping and Dynamic Search Ads
- Negotiated with Roundel
- 6 to 10 weeks on average
Google ads built from Target’s product feed that send shoppers to Target.com. Reporting includes the share of buyers new to your brand in the last 13 months.
CTV by Roundel
- Connected TV screens only, with shoppable QR codes
- Negotiated with Roundel
- At least 6 to 10 weeks
Connected TV (CTV) ads verified by DoubleVerify, on devices such as Roku, Fire TV and Xbox. In a February 2024 survey, Roundel found that 91% of Target guests subscribe to a streaming service. Its 2024 CTV report with Innovid found “a 3x increase in average sales” for its shoppable formats.
Social, YouTube and influencers
- Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, LTK creators
- Negotiated; influencers have a minimum spend
- At least 6 to 10 weeks for social, 11 to 13 for influencers
Social ads built with Target audiences, each with a call to action that leads to Target.com, and able to run from Target’s own handle. On YouTube, Roundel runs In-Stream, In-Feed and Shorts ads with Brand Lift studies. Influencer campaigns work with LTK creators.
In store and out of home
- Billboards near stores, service hubs inside stores
- Negotiated with Roundel
- Ask your Roundel representative
Digital billboards near Target stores, now connected to Roundel’s reporting, and service hubs in high-traffic store areas. Target’s 2026 fact sheet adds demos, sampling and digital screens to its in-store plans.
Precision Plus
- Google, Meta, Pinterest and The Trade Desk
- Negotiated; working media and fees shown separately
- Ask your Roundel representative
Roundel’s AI buying product, launched in 2025, organizes offsite campaigns by goal (awareness, consideration or conversion) and optimizes them with Target’s shopper signals while they run.
Costs, minimums and the auction
How much does it cost to advertise on Target?
You can start Roundel advertising with Target Product Ads on any budget. Roundel’s Media Studio case study says there is no minimum spend to get started and no DSP or access fee; you pay for the clicks you buy. Criteo, the ad-tech company that has long powered Target’s sponsored product ads, bills Media Studio campaigns through an insertion order, the signed agreement that sets and funds your budget, according to Tinuiti. Agencies Tinuiti and Stratably report that brands buying through Criteo’s own platform paid a 20% DSP fee, which Media Studio does not charge.
Managed formats are priced with your Roundel representative; Roundel’s Ad Guide lists no prices for them, and influencer campaigns carry a minimum spend. Agencies and technology partners that run Target Product Ads for you set their own fees and minimums, listed in Roundel’s partner tables. Cost-per-click (CPC) ranges for Target that circulate online come from agencies and tool vendors. Neither Target nor Roundel publishes one, so treat them as estimates.
How the second-price auction works
Target confirms that Target Product Ads use a second-price auction. According to Tinuiti, the switch from a first-price auction took effect on February 4, 2025, and the winner pays the next-highest bid plus $0.01, so the competition sets the price you pay.
In Criteo’s engine your ceiling depends on the goal you choose. With the clicks goal, Criteo’s line item guide says the engine does not adjust your bid, so your bid is the most you pay per click. With the conversions or revenue goal, the engine can raise your bid on searches likely to convert, up to the CPC cap you set, and Tinuiti describes the same cap in Media Studio.
In practice, bid what a click is worth to you. When you win, the next bid sets your price, so a lower bid leaves the price of the clicks you win unchanged and loses clicks that were worth buying. Bidding far above a click’s value is still risky: when a rival bids close to you, you pay close to your own bid.
Self-serve, step by step
Roundel Media Studio step by step: launch your first Target Product Ads campaign
Media Studio is Target’s self-serve platform for Target Product Ads, and it is now also where you brief display campaigns and read reports. It opened to all Roundel advertisers on August 1, 2024, and Target now lists Target Plus marketplace sellers among the brands it serves. Media Studio bills through a Criteo insertion order.
Roundel keeps its Media Studio training behind the Partners Online login and publishes no public help center. The steps below come from Roundel’s public pages, from Target’s instructions as relayed by agencies, and from the documentation of Criteo’s engine that powers Media Studio. Screen labels in your account may differ, and each illustration is our drawing of what the step asks for.
Before you start, have these six things ready:
- Products on Target.com, as a Target vendor or a Target Plus seller
- Someone at your company who administers Partners Online
- A decision on who signs the Criteo insertion order, and for how much
- A product list grouped by goal and margin
- The most a click is worth to you, worked out from margin and conversion rate
- Seed keywords and negatives from what already works for you on other networks
Request Media Studio access
Fill in the sign-up form at roundel.com/rms-signup: brand name, category, whether you are an agency, your contact details and your current partner (Criteo or none). A Roundel team member replies with next steps. Roundel has not published a separate path for Target Plus sellers.
Get a Partners Online login
Media Studio uses Target’s Partners Online (POL) accounts. If you don’t have one, ask your organization’s POL administrator. Once you are in POL, your Roundel representative grants access to Media Studio, and you open it from the Apps and Reports page in POL or directly.
Create a campaign and set its budget
A campaign holds your dates and money. Name it, set a start date (the end date is optional), and choose whether the budget is capped, with optional monthly and daily limits that set your budget pacing. In Criteo’s engine a campaign needs a funded balance from your insertion order before it can spend.
Roundel has not published its default attribution window. In Criteo’s engine the default counts sales of the same product or category up to 30 days after a click, and of the same product 1 day after a view. Ask your representative which window your reports use before you compare ROAS with other networks.
Add a line item and choose your products
Line items hold products, keywords and bids. Add the products you want to promote by searching your catalog or pasting product IDs. Group products that share a goal and a margin, because every keyword you add must be relevant to every product in the line item. In Criteo’s engine, each product belongs in only one line item per campaign.
Pick an optimization goal and set your bid
Choose clicks, conversions or revenue as your bid strategy. Revenue aims at the highest ROAS and conversions at the lowest cost per order. Enter a CPC bid above the minimum; Criteo’s advice without history is to start about 20% above it. With conversions or revenue, also set a CPC cap at least 30% above your bid, which gives the engine room to raise bids on the searches most likely to convert.
Review keywords: automatic first, then your own
Automatic keyword targeting is always on: Criteo’s engine links over 100 keywords to a typical line item, using Target’s traffic data. You can add your own exact-match keywords (up to 1,000 per line item in Criteo’s engine), which a reviewer checks for relevance, and negative keywords, which in Criteo’s engine always win over positive ones.
Launch, then let it learn
Before you press Launch, check that the insertion order has a funded balance, that the goal and CPC cap match what a click is worth to you, that each product sits in one line item, and that your negatives are in. Roundel says ads go live within 24 to 48 hours of choosing your products; they are native listings built from your product page. With the conversions or revenue optimizer, Criteo recommends leaving bids alone for the first 21 days while the engine learns.
Read results in Reports
Reports, formerly called Roundel Kiosk, is Roundel’s reporting tool. You can open it as a tab inside Media Studio or as its own portal with a Partners Online login. It tracks metrics such as clicks and sales, with custom views, templates, scheduled exports and API access, and Roundel’s Ad Guide lists impressions, spend, units sold and ROAS among the Target Product Ads metrics. Target Product Ads data appears there only for campaigns that run through Media Studio.
Optimize every week
Once a week, review your line items’ search terms. Add terms that spend without converting as negative keywords, add terms that convert as exact keywords so you can bid on them directly, and move budget toward the line items with the best ROAS. After the learning period, adjust bids in small steps. To change keywords or bids for a single product, give it a line item of its own. One beauty brand working with Roundel and the agency Harvest Group shifted budget toward its better-performing terms and lowered its cost per click without losing conversions.
Seven mistakes that cost money in the first month:
- Putting the same product in two line items of one campaign
- Mixing unrelated products in one line item, which leaves few keywords that fit them all
- Setting the CPC cap equal to your bid, which leaves the optimizer no room
- Changing bids before the 21-day learning period of the conversions or revenue optimizer ends
- Submitting competitor brand names, which Criteo’s review rejects
- Expecting broad negatives to catch typos, which they do not match
- Leaving a line item paused: in Criteo’s engine, line items inactive for 90 days are archived and cannot be restarted
Self-serve or managed? Media Studio gives you direct control of bids and keywords with no DSP or access fee. To hand the work to a team, Roundel lists partners in its Target Product Ads partner directory, and names Criteo API partners such as CommerceIQ, Flywheel, Intentwise, MarinOne, Pacvue, Perpetua, Skai, Tinuiti and Tradeswell; top performers carry a “Roundel Select” label. RMIQ offers Target Roundel agency support and API-based optimization.
Targeting
Targeting on Roundel: Target Circle audiences and keywords
Roundel’s targeting runs on Target Circle, Target’s free loyalty program, which has more than 100 million members. Target said in March 2026 that Circle members spend 3 times as much as other guests on average. Their purchases in stores and online are what Roundel uses to build audiences and measure sales. That data reaches beyond Target.com through first-party data partnerships such as LiveRamp’s identity and conversion tools.
For Target Product Ads, the Criteo engine behind Media Studio handles keyword targeting differently from Amazon, and on brand keywords from Walmart:
- Automatic targeting cannot be switched off. Your own keywords add to it.
- Your keywords are exact match. Broad match exists only for negatives, and broad negatives do not catch misspellings, so add typos as exact negatives.
- Competitor brand names are rejected when you submit them. Criteo’s engine also offers a separate conquesting strategy (bidding on a rival’s brand terms), so ask your Roundel representative whether it is available at Target. Amazon lets you target competitors by keyword and by product, and Walmart Connect has allowed bids on brand keywords since April 2024.
Planning 2027
Building full-funnel Roundel campaigns
Target Product Ads are the usual first step because they are self-serve and use your existing listings. Other formats add reach beyond people already searching. A Roundel internal study from April 2024 found that pairing onsite ads with two offsite channels delivered 1.4 times the ROAS of its baseline, and adding a third offsite channel raised that to 2.4 times. Roundel does not define the baseline. In 2025 more than 30% of partner media spend on Roundel ran off Target’s own properties.
- Awareness CTV, DIRECTV pilot, social, YouTube, billboards, Bullseye Marketplace
- Consideration Onsite display, Precision Plus, influencers, programmatic
- Conversion Target Product Ads, Search Ads by Roundel
Always-on, plus seasonal peaks
Run Target Product Ads all year so Criteo’s bidding engine keeps its learning, then add budget for Target’s own peaks. For 2027, work back from each moment by the lead time of the format you want. Target Product Ads go live in 24 to 48 hours and programmatic in 3 to 5 business days. Social and CTV need at least 6 to 10 weeks, and influencer campaigns at least 11 to 13 weeks. Target has not announced its 2027 dates. In 2026 the calendar ran Target Circle Deal Days in June (23 to 26) and October (6 to 7), back to school and back to college from July, and the holiday season.
Precision Plus for offsite goals
Precision Plus is the managed route for offsite campaigns set by goal. Roundel’s product page compares the first half of 2025 with the first half of 2024, on selected platforms: a 53% lower CPM, a 404% higher click-through rate and a 63% higher ROAS. These figures differ from the ones in Roundel’s awards entry, and both sets are Roundel’s own, with no independent audit published. In Roundel’s case study, Spin Master piloted Precision Plus with Google and saw an 88% ROAS increase (Target internal data, 2025); Roundel says the campaign “converted over 40% of new-to-brand Target guests”.
How to split a first budget
Roundel publishes no recommended split. A reasonable way in is to fund always-on Target Product Ads first and measure them for a full season. Move money to managed formats once you have a goal the product ads cannot reach, such as guests who have never bought your category. If Roundel’s team manages your campaigns, ask about Optimize by Roundel, an AI tool its traders use to shift budget between line items. Use your 2027 retail media budget plan to set the total.
Category playbooks: strategies by vertical
| Category | Why it matters at Target | First format to test | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty and personal care | Target Beauty Studio replaced Ulta Beauty at Target in September 2026, after nearly 3,000 new beauty products in spring | Target Product Ads on new items, then social and influencers | A consumer packaged goods company’s back-to-college campaign: online beauty and personal care buyers made 66% of add-to-carts (undated case study) |
| Baby | Target Circle purchase data reaches recent baby-product buyers | Target Product Ads, then shoppable CTV | Enfamil’s shoppable CTV: 3 times the ROAS of Roundel’s 2023 shoppable CTV average |
| Toys | Demand concentrates in the holiday season | Always-on Target Product Ads, Precision Plus offsite | Spin Master: 88% higher ROAS with Precision Plus (2025) |
| Electronics | Higher prices make each click worth more | Target Product Ads with the revenue goal | A headphone brand: units sold at Target up 231% over a holiday season, against 14% at other electronics retailers (undated case study) |
| Grocery and packaged goods | Stock-up moments around Target Circle Deal Days and back to school | Target Product Ads, then CTV | Chobani: CTV averaged $3 in sales per $1 of ad spend in a 2021 to 2022 test, its strongest channel |
| Home, apparel and essentials | Target’s owned and exclusive brands compete for the same searches | Target Product Ads on the search terms where owned brands also compete | Owned and exclusive brands make up about 30% of Target’s merchandise sales (Target 10-K, fiscal 2025) |
The “Why it matters” and “First format” columns are our planning suggestions. The evidence column comes from Roundel’s published case studies, which show chosen campaigns, and, for home and essentials, from Target’s 10-K. Use them to pick a first format, and judge the result against your own history.
Proving it worked
Roundel measurement: sales, incrementality and published ROAS results
Roundel ties ad exposure to purchases on Target.com and in Target stores through closed-loop attribution, its main advantage over networks with few physical stores. For incrementality, it uses synthetic control (a modeled comparison group built from similar shoppers or regions), matched market tests and randomized controlled trials; its Matched Market Model compares regions that saw your ads with regions held out. Incrementality measurement is available for eligible campaigns.
Roundel and its partners have published these results. Each comes from a campaign its publisher chose to share:
- 3 to 5 times higher average ROAS when brands use Target Product Ads, per Target data verified in May 2023. Roundel does not say what the comparison group is.
- $4 to $11 in sales per $1 of ad spend (average ROAS) in Media Studio campaigns from February to May 2024, against $3 to $5 on other platforms, per Roundel’s campaign analysis. Roundel does not name the other platforms.
- Traditional Medicinals earned $5 in sales per $1 of ad spend and a 3% click-through rate on tea Target Product Ads in November and December 2023, in Roundel’s case study.
- Oura increased its Roundel investment 3 times year over year and grew Target-channel sales close to 90% in 2025, with half of those sales in November and December, its executive said at CES in January 2026.
Judge Target on the measures Roundel reports in detail: return on ad spend, new-to-brand buyers and incremental sales. Compare your own campaigns against your own history first.
Where Target fits
Roundel vs Amazon Ads vs Walmart Connect
Amazon and Walmart are larger. Target’s case rests on its Target Circle shoppers, its 2,019 stores and closed-loop measurement across both.
| Measure | Target Roundel | Amazon Ads | Walmart Connect |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. retail media share, 2025 | 1.5% | 79.7% | 8.0% |
| Latest advertising figure | $915M advertising revenue, fiscal 2025 | Not directly comparable (global advertising services) | Nearly $6.4B global advertising, including VIZIO, fiscal 2026 |
| U.S. stores | 2,019 | Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh grocery stores | 4,611 |
| Self-serve sponsored products | Roundel Media Studio | Amazon Ads console | Walmart Connect |
| Bidding on competitor brands | Rejected on submission in Criteo’s engine; ask Roundel about conquesting | Allowed by keyword and product | Brand keywords allowed since April 2024 |
Sources: eMarketer via VTEX for shares; Target 10-K and 10-Q; Walmart fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 release and 10-K; Amazon’s sponsored products guide; Criteo; eMarketer on Walmart brand keywords.
Where Roundel wins: in-store sales measurement across 2,019 stores and publisher-direct offsite inventory. Where it trails: scale and self-serve depth. Target Product Ads are the only format you run inside Media Studio; programmatic runs through your own DSP; Bullseye Marketplace can be bought self-serve or managed; everything else is managed. For the wider picture, see our retail media guide, our Amazon Ads guide, the Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect network profiles, our Walmart keyword research tool, and every network side by side in our retail media database.
Before you launch
Your Roundel launch checklist
Access
Setup
First month
Target Roundel FAQ
What is Target Roundel?
Target Roundel is the Target retail media network, run in-house by Target. It sells ads on Target.com, the Target app, partner publishers, streaming TV and in Target stores, targets them with Target Circle loyalty data and reports which ads led to purchases online and in stores.
Is Roundel owned by Target, and what does it do for Target?
Yes. Roundel is Target Corporation’s in-house advertising business, started in 2007. Target reported $915 million of advertising revenue for fiscal 2025, most of it from Roundel, and says Roundel generates more than $2 billion of value, a measure Target does not define. Since September 2026, Target’s chief marketing and guest experience officer, Mark Weinstein, also oversees Roundel.
How much does it cost to advertise on Target, and is there a minimum spend?
Target Product Ads in Roundel Media Studio have no minimum spend and no DSP or access fee; you pay per click in a second-price auction. Managed formats such as CTV, social and display are priced with a Roundel representative, and influencer campaigns have a minimum spend.
What is Roundel Media Studio, and who can use it?
Roundel Media Studio is Target’s self-serve platform for Target Product Ads, with display briefs and reporting built in. It has been open to all Roundel advertisers since August 1, 2024, and Target says it also serves Target Plus marketplace sellers. You log in with a Partners Online account.
Are Target Product Ads the same as sponsored products?
Yes. Target Product Ads are Target’s sponsored product ads: native listings on Target.com and app search, category and product pages that look like the products around them. You buy them per click in Roundel Media Studio, and they are built from your existing product listing.
Does Roundel offer Sponsored Brands ads?
Roundel’s Ad Guide lists no format named Sponsored Brands. Target Product Ads promote individual products, and brand-level placements on Target.com are bought as onsite display through your Roundel representative, who can take the brief in Media Studio’s Planning experience. Onsite display is the closest Target equivalent to Amazon’s Sponsored Brands.
How does Roundel’s second-price auction work?
Target Product Ads use a second-price auction. According to the agency Tinuiti, since February 4, 2025, the winner pays the next-highest bid plus $0.01. With the clicks goal your bid is your ceiling; with the conversions or revenue goal your cost-per-click cap is. Bid what a click is worth to you.
How does Roundel’s ROI compare with Amazon Ads?
We found no independent study that compares the two directly. Roundel’s own campaign analysis reports $4 to $11 average ROAS for Media Studio campaigns from February to May 2024, against $3 to $5 from other platforms; Roundel does not name those platforms, so this figure says nothing about Amazon. By spend, Amazon is far larger: eMarketer, as quoted by VTEX, puts Amazon at 79.7% of U.S. retail media spend in 2025 and Roundel at 1.5%.
What’s new at Roundel in 2026?
Between April and September 2026, Roundel began a DIRECTV premium video pilot (June), and its gross billings grew nearly 20% in the second quarter. Target replaced Ulta Beauty at Target with Target Beauty Studio (September) and named Mark Weinstein as the executive overseeing Roundel (September). A ChatGPT ads pilot began earlier, in February 2026.
Can software manage Target Roundel ads?
Yes. Roundel lists Criteo API partners such as CommerceIQ, Pacvue and Skai that manage Target Product Ads through software. Platforms such as RMIQ automate bids, budgets and keywords across retail media networks, and several of these tools manage Amazon, Walmart and other networks from the same account.
Sources, checked September 2026
- Target Corporation: Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 (March 2026), Form 10-Q for the second quarter of 2026, first- and second-quarter 2026 earnings releases and call transcripts, and the fourth-quarter 2025 call transcript.
- Target fact sheets: Roundel (updated June 18, 2026), conversational AI (June 18, 2026), ChatGPT ads (February 2026).
- Target press releases: Mark Weinstein (September 14, 2026), Target Circle Deal Days (June 2 and September 15, 2026), Target Beauty Studio (August 26, 2026), Target Plus (July 1, 2026), Club Target and Target Ambassadors (May 6, 2026), spring beauty (January 28, 2026), Ulta Beauty at Target (August 14, 2025), Target Circle Week (2024).
- Roundel: Media Studio, sign-up, Reports, Target Product Ads, Ad Guide (display, CTV, search, social, programmatic, influencers, partners), Bullseye Marketplace, Precision Plus, Measurement, About Us, YouTube, social, partner directory, insights (off-platform, budget optimization, reports 2026), case studies (Traditional Medicinals, beauty brand, CPG company, Enfamil, Spin Master, electronics, Chobani), The Roundtable.
- Criteo Commerce Max Help Center: keyword model, negative keywords, bidding strategy, keyword bidding best practices, campaign and line item setup; Criteo on Pacvue and Target.
- Agencies and trade press: Tinuiti on Media Studio (2024) and the second-price auction (2025); CommerceIQ on Media Studio open access (2024); Stratably on Criteo’s DSP fee; Marketing Dive on DIRECTV (June 2026) and Mark Weinstein (September 2026); Retail Dive on Beauty Studio (September 2026); Digiday on ChatGPT ads (February 2026) and its 2026 retail media survey (August 2026); The Drum Awards for Commerce Media 2026; Chief Marketer on Oura at CES (January 2026); Innovid and Roundel CTV report (2024); eMarketer via VTEX and eMarketer on Walmart brand keywords; Walmart fiscal 2026 release and 10-K; LiveRamp; Amazon Ads sponsored products guide.
Ready to start? Request Media Studio access at roundel.com/rms-signup and work through the checklist above. Once campaigns run, RMIQ keeps bids, keywords and budgets tuned every week across Target, Amazon, Walmart and other retail media networks.
