Retail media will make huge gains this year in Canada. Our first-ever forecast for retail media ad spending in Canada and our joint survey of ad buyers (conducted with IAB Canada) highlight the latest developments.

Grocery is set to become the largest US ecommerce category by 2026.

Nascent partnerships from 2023 will start packing a punch in 2024. Companies without an overwhelming market advantage will need to join forces with rivals or complementary partners to keep boosting revenues.

Walmart+ increased the money it spent on advertising by 87% between January and September 2023 as compared with the same time period in 2022, per MediaRadar.

It’s been a complicated year for advertising, punctuated by a slow first half of the year followed by better growth in the back half. Limited budgets mean brands have had to get creative. One form of creativity has been partnerships from names both big and small. Here are five that caught our eye.

Instacart leans on advertising to bolster its bottom line: The company’s advertising revenues grew 19%, significantly outpacing the 4% growth in the number of online orders on its platform.

Retail media networks are rolling out more advanced targeting capabilities as advertisers seek to more accurately and effectively reach their audiences. Here are two recent examples.

“The misconception in my mind is that you can ignore [generative AI],” Vincent Yates, chief data scientist of consulting firm Credera, said at Advertising Week New York 2023.

Amazon’s search capabilities are set for an AI-powered upgrade: The retailer will incorporate a chatbot to offer customers personalized suggestions based on their queries and shopping history.

As retail media grows, it is changing. At the moment, search remains retail media’s bread and butter and sales ads are the best awareness drivers. In the future, in-store media and shoppable video ads may take on a bigger role. But no matter how ad formats change, one thing is for certain: Measurement will be key for retail media’s continued growth.

Less than 19% of US digital grocery buyers used Amazon Fresh within the past year. Nearly all of them have also shopped on other digital grocery platforms.

ChatGPT use has declined over the past few months, but AI isn’t going anywhere. Retailers are innovating with their own homegrown and acquired AI tools to scale listings, improve search, and enhance personalizations.

Ecommerce success relies on a seamless search strategy. To help consumers find, learn, and buy products more easily, retailers are building out their on-site search capabilities, adding video, incorporating AI, and giving shoppers more tools to find what they are looking for. Here are some of the latest improvements from Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart.

Walmart has the largest audience of any digital grocery platform. But our survey found that Amazon Fresh customers were more active and willing to try new products.

Here’s how ad buyers ranked the retail media networks of 14 leading CPG-focused retailers—including Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons, Amazon, Costco Wholesale, CVS, Instacart, Kroger, Target, and Walmart—according to the attributes they value most.

Instacart rolled out several updates to its Instacart Storefront platform: It added AI-powered conversational search and an in-store mode to its omnichannel digital commerce platform.

Instacart’s gross transaction volume grew just 5% in the first half: That’s a troubling number that can’t be glossed over by the company’s 30% revenue growth.

Though growth is slowing, digital grocery will continue to fuel overall ecommerce growth in the US. “Growth is no longer driven by new adopters, but heavy digital grocery users,” our analyst Blake Droesch said on a recent “Reimagining Retail” podcast episode. Here’s how retailers like Instacart, Amazon, and Walmart can capitalize on frequent buyers.

DoorDash’s grocery business is booming, and Instacart is leaning on advertising to tide it over as its delivery volumes are down. Perhaps taking a cue from both, Uber Eats continues to add non-restaurant delivery partners while also building out its advertising platform.