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EMARKETER

Retail Media Ad Spending Forecast and Trends H2 2025

Amazon and Walmart Are Running Away From Their Competitors

Report by Max Willens  |  Nov 5, 2025
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Retail media ad spending will increase by over $10 billion in 2026
Amazon and Walmart are eating up most of the growth, leaving a small slice for the rest of the RMNs
Commerce media competitors might be copying RMNs, but they’re not yet crowding them out
Search’s share will keep growing, both on- and off-site
Display’s growth and spending continue to migrate off-site
Amazon’s DSP and Walmart’s partnerships pull most of the off-site growth in their direction
Implications for advertisers
Implications for media sellers
EMARKETER Interviews
Sources
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About This Report
Even on the other side of its peak growth, retail media ad spending will continue expanding at a healthy pace. But almost all of the incremental spending is going to just two companies.
Topics
Retail Media
United States
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Retail media ad spending will increase by over $10 billion in 2026
Amazon and Walmart are eating up most of the growth, leaving a small slice for the rest of the RMNs
Commerce media competitors might be copying RMNs, but they’re not yet crowding them out
Search’s share will keep growing, both on- and off-site
Display’s growth and spending continue to migrate off-site
Amazon’s DSP and Walmart’s partnerships pull most of the off-site growth in their direction
Implications for advertisers
Implications for media sellers
EMARKETER Interviews
Sources
Media Gallery

US advertisers will spend $69.33 billion on retail media in 2026, up from $58.79 billion in 2025, as brands continue to embrace the unique combination of data, audiences, and inventory offered by retail media networks (RMNs). But with $9.42 billion of that $10.53 billion in incremental spending going to Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect, the ecosystem must now start to reckon with a bifurcation that is getting more and more pronounced.

Key Question: How is ad spend migrating within the retail media ecosystem?

Key Stat: Walmart and Amazon will vacuum up over 89% of the incremental dollars spent in retail media in 2026.

Amazon and Walmart Are Stiff-Arming the Rest of the Retail Media Ecosystem
E-Mail ChartDownload

Clients can find the full version of this chart later in the report.

authors

Max Willens

Contributors

Rahul Chadha
Director, Report Editing
Penelope Lin
Director, Data Visualization
Sarah Marzano
Principal Analyst, Retail Media
Andrew Spink
Senior Forecasting Analyst
Sakina Thanawala
Copy Editor
Matt Torpey
Senior Chart Editor
Emman Velasco
Chart Editor
Yoram Wurmser
Principal Analyst
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