Retail media ad spending in France, Germany, and the UK continues to rise, outpacing all other ad formats. The space is developing rapidly despite fragmentation and a lack of standards.

With Amazon accounting for 76.7% of the US retail media industry’s $60.81 billion in ad spend, smaller retail media networks (RMNs) have to innovate to differentiate themselves in the longtail of the marketplace.

Retail media will account for about 1 in 5 digital ad dollars this year. That’s about double the share it held in 2020. We expect it to surpass the one-quarter mark by 2028.

As the path to purchase becomes more fragmented, brands must be everywhere the customer is—and retail media partnerships are stepping up. “There really isn't [one] common flow, and so you really have to make sure you're present in any place the consumer is thinking about your brand's products,” Eric Tarnowski, senior vice president, connected commerce at Kenvue, said during Advertising Week New York. “Every conversion point is a brand-building opportunity.”

Consumer behaviors will be shaped by continued uncertainty, heightened in an election year, and cultural trends spilling over into commerce (think Krispy Kreme and Ozempic). Retailers that lean into tech advancements and get back to basics will win.

Larger retailers are beginning to act more like digital media companies by leveraging their web traffic and first-party customer data into ad businesses.