Amazon is the top dog of US retail, accounting for 37.6% of all US ecommerce sales this year for a total of $431.11 billion dollars, according to our forecast. While the giant has a successful stronghold in many US industries, Amazon isn’t dominant everywhere, especially as it pertains to a physical footprint and getting consumers comfortable with its elite tech. Here are a few areas Amazon hasn’t overtaken—yet.

On today's episode, we discuss what's currently driving retail media, the other retailers outside of Amazon to watch, and what advertisers should be focusing on in this moment. "In Other News," we talk about ads (and influencer content) in Roblox and why Tesla has decided to start advertising for the first time. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Max Willens.

Retail media provides a significant boost to Instacart’s bottom line: The company’s advertising business reportedly grew 30% last year to $740 million.

Generative AI is poised to reshape the search advertising market. With a significant first-mover advantage, will Microsoft grow its share of search ad budgets? How can advertisers stay ahead of the curve?

Walmart lags behind Amazon in total ecommerce sales, retail media ad dollars, and retail subscriptions. But there may be ways for it to minimize the gap in certain areas, namely search and AI capabilities.

D2C brands facing the declining effectiveness of search and social ads must use new strategies outside of the traditional D2C growth playbook.

The way advertisers think about TV is changing as it shifts from linear to ad-supported streaming. Here are three developments shaping TV ad measurement, streaming behaviors, and consumer targeting.

Interest rates are rising. The housing market is cooling. Combine those factors with two years of home improvement projects during the COVID-19 pandemic and outlooks don’t look great for home improvement retailers. This has led them to focus on other revenue streams, including advertising, professional services, and loyalty programs.

US retail media ad spend will hit $45.15 billion this year, an increase of almost 20% over 2022, according to our forecast. Growth will accelerate each year through 2027, when we expect spend to reach $106.12 billion.

Healthy growth will obscure the upheaval that retail media’s evolution is causing. Retailers racing to think more like publishers—and brands trying to rethink the value of retail media—are feeling some strain.

The retail space is changing rapidly as marketers experiment with things like retail media, generative AI, and social commerce. In this discussion, Zia Daniell Wigder, Chief Content Officer, Insider Intelligence, talks about the trends on her radar and what she learned at Shoptalk.

Sam’s Club rolls out closed-loop attribution: Connecting the dots between ads and cross-channel sales should help advertisers be far more efficient with their retail media ad spending.

Where many retailers struggled last year, Dollar General succeeded as cost-conscious consumers sought out lower prices amid inflation. But there’s a larger opportunity on the horizon for Dollar General: retail media. The discount store’s ability to reach rural audiences coupled with its popularity among marketers place it in a favorable position for the years ahead.

Which networks should brands be paying attention to as they refine their retail media strategy? From the king of them all to the ones that are just catching up, here are five retail media networks to keep an eye on this year.

An emerging tension between retailer ads and customer experience (CX) is brewing as consumers grow more attuned to high ad loads online and in stores. Retailers’ core competency of delivering exceptional CX is now being pitted against their own retail media networks’ desire to expand their digital advertising surface area to capture high-margin revenues.

Asos is working with Criteo to expand its retail media business: The retailer hopes that retail media revenues can help it navigate the challenging economic environment.

“We’re showing 20.5% growth for retail media ad spending this year, and 22.9% actually accelerating into next year,” said senior forecaster Ethan Cramer-Flood at our recent “Attention! Seizing the Retail Media Opportunity” summit. That stat assumes inflation will cool some in the second half of this year, which our forecasters currently predict it will.

This year, we forecast that Walmart’s digital ad revenue growth will outpace Google, Meta, and even Amazon. This success is driven by updates made to Walmart’s retail media platform as well as partnerships to help advertisers activate across channels like social and connected TV. “You know [how they say] crawl, walk, run? We’re getting to that walk/run phase now where our platform is maturing,” said Rich Lehrfeld, senior vice president and general manager at Walmart Connect.

Walmart is taking a page from Amazon: The retailer looks to diversify its revenue streams by growing its ecommerce, retail media, and services businesses.

Just two days ago, another TikTok ban bill was proposed. Though it’s not law, there are already state bans for the use of the social media app on government phones or accessed through Wi-Fi offered at some state colleges.