Retail media continues to attract more ad dollars, and brands are looking beyond the last mile to build awareness earlier in the customer journey, especially through off-site channels. 

• US retail media spending is expected to reach $72.97 billion in 2026, up 20.3% YoY, per EMARKETER’s forecast.
• US off-site display ad spend is expected to reach $16.09 billion this year, nearly twice the amount spent on onsite display ($9.63 billion), according to EMARKETER.

With broader campaigns that include both off-site channels and retailer-owned environments closer to purchase, brands have an opportunity to make lasting impressions prior to purchase with memorable campaigns.

“Brands should…resist the temptation to treat retail media as purely lower-funnel,” said Adam Lee, chief business development officer at AdCellerant. “Retail data can make the advertising smarter, but great creative still needs to create interest and give someone a reason to choose the brand.”

Matching creative with intent

Distance from the register changes what an ad can do. Off-site channels like connected TV (CTV) and social media reach shoppers who won't buy in that moment but may choose the brand later. Shoppers already standing in the aisle or on a retailer's site are a harder audience for recall, because an ad that doesn't match the purchase they came to make slides past them.

• US CTV spend in retail media campaigns is expected to grow 43.1% in 2026, according to EMARKETER’s forecast.

Ads on a retail site saw a 47% dropoff in recall compared to off-site ads, according to an Ipsos analysis, released in July, that tested 25 ads in simulated retail environments and standard programmatic website placements.

However, this doesn’t mean advertisers can’t grow awareness and recall in the retail environment. Video ads showed a substantial impact on shoppers over display ads when served to consumers in ecommerce environments, where brand recall for video ads soared 130% above display ad performance, in the Ipsos study.

Advertisers who use retail media’s off-site channels have a longer runway to build brand awareness, so the creative should be different from lower-funnel ads driving purchases.

“The biggest difference is context and proximity to purchase,” said Lee. “With television or CTV, a brand often has more time and space to create an emotional connection, tell a story, or build awareness. Within many retail environments, the consumer may already be considering a purchase. That changes the job of the creative.”

Impressing consumers with dynamic and distinct brand elements

Off-site channels let advertisers reach the right shoppers and build the creative around what the retailer already knows about them.

“Retailer first-party data can be activated across environments such as display, video, CTV, and other digital media, allowing brands to reach valuable shoppers when they aren't actively inside the retailer's site or app,” said Lee. "That gives the creative more room for storytelling, differentiation, prospecting, and sequential messaging.”

A retail media campaign that covers a wide range of levels of customer intent should include many different creative designs and messages to match each stage in the journey.

“Rather than building a single asset and distributing it everywhere, brands should think about creative as a dynamic experience that adapts to where consumers are in the shopping journey,” said Dan Mouradian, senior vice president, group client services at Innovid. “The strongest retail media creative connects audience signals, product availability, and context to deliver messaging that's timely, relevant, and actionable.”

The Ipsos study compared higher-quality creative that grew brand attention against lower-quality creative that didn’t. 

• An analysis of the design elements in each category of ads showed that higher-quality ads used a slogan at the end of the ad 74% of the time, versus barely any featured in the lower-quality creative. 
• Other distinct brand assets used in the higher-quality creative included the brand’s distinct colors (63% of higher-quality ads), distinct ad style (42%), package shape (32%), and representations of distinct tastes, textures, and scents (21%).

“Retail media has the benefit of richer commerce signals: product affinity, inventory availability, purchase intent, etc.,” said Mouradian. “That allows creative to become ultra-relevant. It can highlight different products, offers, or messages based on what consumers are likely to need, versus serving the same message to every audience.”

“Retail media has spent years proving it can capture demand,” said Lance Wolder, SVP of  commercial strategy and marketing at PadSquad. “Now it needs to prove it can create it. The right opportunity is there for the taking, and brands should be using creative earlier in the journey to inspire product discovery, provide useful information, and make shopping easier.”