Commerce media is pushing brands to break down internal silos and rethink how they organize teams, allocate budgets, and measure success across an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.

US CPG advertisers are expected to spend nearly $59 billion on ads in 2026, according to an EMARKETER forecast. How that budget gets activated across retail media networks matters more than ever as brands navigate fragmentation, demand better measurement, and push for industry standardization.

Major brands are racing to optimize their presence in large language models (LLMs), but they're confronting an uncomfortable reality: Traditional measurement frameworks don't work, and executives demanding ROI metrics may be asking the wrong questions.

"One of the biggest disconnects in our industry today is that commerce media has shoppers experience a certain single, continuous omnichannel journey," said Guthrie Collin, vice president of product at Roundel, during the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) recent Connected Commerce event. "But in our world, media, data, technology, measurement systems, we think of them, and they still operate in quite a fragmented way."

Amazon’s AI ad engine: Q1 ad sales rose 24% to $17.2 billion as automation and first-party data power full-funnel buys.

Ten charts reveal where digital markets are headed as AI shapes ad trends, social and retail media take a bigger share of ad spend, and consumer adoption of AI-driven buying influences ecommerce growth.

The lack of a standard definition for agentic commerce reveals a fundamental split in how the industry is preparing for AI’s role in shopping

Many retail media networks operate independently from core business functions, but staying disconnected may limit how far they can grow. "Most retail media networks essentially were launched as startups within large legacy organizations, and they are tasked to grow and scale quickly in an industry that the rest of the retailer is not familiar with, which is media," said Molly Hjelm, head of retail media for Ace Hardware's RedVest Media network, during IAB’s Connected Commerce event last week.

Retail media is reshaping search advertising. Costs are rising unevenly while performance gaps widen, forcing advertisers to rethink where spend delivers real results as traditional search dominance fades.

In-store retail media is moving beyond pilot programs and becoming a strategic priority for major brands, with leading consumer-packaged goods (CPG) companies now operationalizing campaigns across budgets, teams, and measurement frameworks to reach shoppers where most purchase decisions are made.

This FAQ examines why the brand-versus-performance tension is intensifying, what the data reveals about budget shifts, and how marketers can prove brand marketing's value in an era of heightened accountability.

Social platforms want a bigger role in search ad budgets, but user habits lag behind. As search expands beyond traditional engines, these platforms must turn occasional behavior into intent-driven activity to grab ad dollars.

Social media is emerging as a key growth channel for retail media networks (RMNs) as they expand beyond their owned properties.

In today's podcast episode, EMARKETER Vice President & Principal Analyst, Sarah Marzano, examines what's holding in-store back, what it will take to overcome these constraints, and where the most meaningful opportunities lie as retailers work to scale the next stage of retail media.

Though both commerce media spend and measurement capabilities are growing rapidly, the gap between investment and the ability to accurately measure performance continues to widen.

New shoppable placements, unified logins, and strong results tie streaming ads to measurable sales impact.

Both retailers are enhancing attribution capabilities as marketers demand better measurement.