Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel we track in the US, growing by 26.0% this year. Its share of total US media spend will reach 14.1% this year, and come 2028, nearly 1 in 5 ad dollars spent in the US will go to retail media. But the channel has the potential to grow even more. Here are four key factors that present challenges to retail media growth right now.

A rundown of the top trends and takeaways for advertisers from public policy- and privacy-related conferences held in early April.

As connected TV gradually eclipses linear, the measurement space continues to evolve. The market’s in for another year of transitioning from a single dominant currency to multiple currencies.

Programmatic will account for more than 9 in 10 display ad dollars this year. How it fares as the last legacy identifiers die out will make or break the future of digital advertising.

Creator content isn’t an experimental area for advertisers anymore. It’s an established, full-funnel channel that can deliver measurable results. Why is the channel so important right now?

Next year, US podcast ad spend will pass the $2 billion mark, according to our forecast. We project double-digit growth through the end of our forecast period in 2027. New data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) finds that podcast ads are trending toward brand awareness, with increasing emphasis on video formats.

Now that Google has reaffirmed it will deprecate third-party cookies for all users in the third quarter of 2024, it’s clear that marketers need to get their post-cookie plans in place, including how and where identity solutions fit. But there are a few things to keep in mind while exploring identity resolution.

US omnichannel retail media ad spend will increase by 22.6% next year for a total of $55.64 billion. One thing that could unlock spend even further? Standardization.

Brands need to align internal goals and present a united front when working with a retail media network on strategies. In turn, retailers should give more access to performance data and enable brands to optimize via self-service options. To expand audience reach beyond bottom-of-funnel retail channels, collaborations between brands, retailers, and media companies will play an even bigger role going forward.

Retail media networks may be working on standardization, but a universal measurement system is still a dream. Aside from a sluggish move toward standardization, here are four predictions about the future of retail media networks our analysts gave on our “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail” podcast.

The continued growth and success of retail media hinge on achieving measurement standardization, according to Jeffrey Bustos, vice president of measurement addressability data at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

The IAB and MRC propose retail media guidelines to help solve the industry’s measurement problem: The framework is meant to improve transparency and ensure consistency across RMNs.

Attention metrics are moving beyond consumer research into programmatic bidding strategies. But a lack of measurement standards is preventing mainstream adoption, even as AI-generated content threatens to upend engagement rates.

Historically traditional channels are being digitized, theoretically opening the door to more robust measurement. At the same time, third-party identifiers are being ousted in favor of identity solutions that preserve consumers’ privacy.

Following three consecutive quarters of ad revenue losses, YouTube faces an urgent need to restore growth. This could present marketers using YouTube with opportunities to target audiences on both connected TVs and smartphones.

Retail media has transitioned from its 1.0 era, defined by on-site search and sponsored product ads, into the era of retail media 2.0, which consists of a mosaic of ads on-site, in-store, and across other media channels. “The opportunity gets much bigger, but realizing the opportunity also gets a lot more complex,” our analyst Andrew Lipsman said on “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail.”

As economic uncertainty lingers, the dust has yet to settle on the TV currency battlefield. We review what’s changed since last year and which networks support which Nielsen alternatives.

B2B marketing leaders have lost their focus on the benefits of email marketing. Email is a key distribution channel, and investments will allow relevant messages with high engagement rates and ROI to be delivered efficiently and effectively.

These days, more TV inventory is addressable than not. But even as streaming audiences expand and technology advances, fragmentation of inventory and data is proving a barrier to success for advanced TV advertisers.

Advertisers should worry more about regulation than cookie depreciation: A report from the IAB calls out legislation as the biggest threat to signal loss.