Retail media budgets are still climbing, and the networks competing for them can no longer win on inventory and price alone. Advertisers are rewarding partners that offer deeper audience libraries, faster activation, and measurement they can defend to leadership. They are pulling spend from the ones that fall short.

The money is there. Some 85% of advertisers working with retail media networks (RMNs) and commerce media networks (CMNs) said they plan to increase spend on these networks in the next 12 months, according to GrowthLoop's "2026 Commerce Media Investment Index," a survey of 291 US and Canadian advertisers. Already, 73% allocate at least 15% of their digital ad budgets to RMNs and CMNs, and 94% say those partnerships are meeting or exceeding ROI targets.

With more networks chasing the same budgets, the deciding factors are operational: how many audiences a network can offer, how fast it can deliver them, and how clearly it can prove what worked.

Audience depth now carries as much weight as price

Advertisers weigh a network's audiences almost exactly as heavily as its rates. Pricing and fees ranked as a top partner-selection factor for 47% of respondents, while audience targeting capabilities, reach, and segmentation depth ranked for 46%. Ease of campaign setup (42%) and reporting transparency (41%) followed close behind, according to GrowthLoop's report.

Most advertisers want more than they are getting. Only 38% are extremely satisfied with the audiences available to them today, and 95% say access to more segments would likely lead them to increase spend, including 48% who strongly agree. Large libraries remain uncommon: 58% of advertisers have access to at least 50 active segments across their partners, but just 24% have access to 100 or more, per GrowthLoop.

That threshold matters. Advertisers with 100 or more active segments are more than five times as likely as those with fewer than 25 to plan a spend increase of 25% or more (32% vs. 6%). The biggest spenders also lean harder on audience quality. Advertisers allocating 30% or more of their digital budgets to RMNs and CMNs rank audience targeting (48%) and strategic retailer relationships (44%) ahead of cost, and they prioritize first-party data integration more than lower-investment peers (40% vs. 29%), according to GrowthLoop's data.

For networks, a thin segment catalog is now a competitive liability, especially with the advertisers controlling the largest budgets. Marketers evaluating partners should ask how many active segments a network offers and how easily they can layer in their own customer data, since both track with stronger investment and returns.

Slow audience delivery is putting budgets at risk

Retail media's pitch rests on reaching shoppers close to the moment of purchase. Custom audience fulfillment often runs on a much slower clock. Half of advertisers typically wait four days or longer for a network to deliver a custom audience, and only 11% get one the same day. For a brand trying to respond to a shift in shopper behavior or launch a time-sensitive promotion, that delay can blunt the value of even strong audience data, according to GrowthLoop.

Advertisers notice, and they are ready to act on it. Nearly 9 in 10 (86%) say slow fulfillment would lead them to cut spend with a partner or drop it entirely. The same impatience works in favor of networks that move quickly: most advertisers say faster delivery would earn more of their budget, and many would pay extra for same-day turnaround.

Advertisers bring the same expectation to cross-channel activation. They want an audience built once to show up consistently on-site and off-site, yet fewer than half are very satisfied with how their partners handle that today.

Networks that still treat custom audiences as a multiday service request are exposed, particularly with their largest accounts. For advertisers, fulfillment timelines and self-service access belong on the partner scorecard alongside rates and reach.

Measurement confidence decides who gets the next dollar

Retail media has long promised closed-loop proof that ads drive sales. Most advertisers remain unconvinced they are getting it: only 40% say they are very confident in the incrementality measurement their partners provide, per GrowthLoop.

That confidence carries real weight. Advertisers who trust their incrementality data commit more to these networks across the board. They are more likely to plan big spend increases and to report beating their ROI targets, and nearly three times as likely to devote over 30% of their digital budgets to RMNs and CMNs. Advertisers who doubt the numbers have a harder time making the case for more.

Part of the problem is pacing. Nearly half of advertisers wait a week or longer for post-campaign results, which leaves little room to fold what they learned into the next audience or campaign decision. It shows in practice, with only about a third saying they can consistently use results to sharpen future targeting.

The fixes advertisers ask for are practical: faster post-campaign results, sales lift and new-to-brand reporting, consistent metrics across partners, and clearer explanations of methodology. Each would make the numbers networks already produce easier to trust and act on.

Networks that shorten the reporting cycle and standardize their metrics give advertisers the evidence they need to defend, and grow, their budgets. Marketers should press partners on reporting turnaround and methodology before committing more spend, since slow or opaque results limit what they can learn from every campaign.