Retail media has reached a point where measurement is table stakes. But what table stakes actually look like is changing fast. With the launch of its latest measurement tool, Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) is signaling its priorities for retail media measurement: Speed, incrementality, and clearer decision-making.

Restaurant reservations become measurable media, as OpenTable’s pay-per-seated-guest model links ad spend directly to confirmed dining occasions.

Creator marketing is no longer a sidecar to retail strategy. Increasingly, it’s becoming part of the infrastructure retailers use to drive commerce media growth, unlock new budgets, and influence sales both online and in-store.

Infillion’s Catalina deal adds verified purchase data to support cross-network attribution and optimization, which should help offsite retail media grow.

The Supreme Court’s tariff relief offers incremental upside and could add billions to search and social spending.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the three big questions surrounding TikTok right now: Will TikTok spend this year fighting perceptions of bias? Will the new algorithm be as good? How much bigger can TikTok Shop get? And more. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Analyst Emmy Liederman and Principal Analyst Max Willens. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Walmart’s ad business is entering its scale phase: Growth is moderating, but monetization is broadening across search, display, offsite, and CTV.

Despite the noise around agentic commerce, discovery isn’t fully automated. Consumers may encounter products through digital platforms, but they aren’t yet handing over curiosity or preference-setting to AI.

The top Super Bowl campaigns now hinge on multi-channel activation as audiences engage via social, streaming, and retargeting.

Amazon expands its agentic ad footprint; its new MCP server turns AI-driven advertising from experimentation into infrastructure, prioritizing controlled automation over raw API access.

Retail media strategies are diverging; Macy’s and Iceland show how retailers are choosing between faster scale through partners and deeper control through bespoke in-store systems.

A free myDG Delivery offer is part of a bigger ecommerce and media play.

Sam’s Club and BJ’s aim to show that samples and screens drive sales.

Super Bowl campaigns aren’t one-size-fits-all; brands are now splitting between full-scale TV buys and multi-channel activations that extend beyond the broadcast.

Retail media is entering an execution era; advertisers are now judging networks on speed, flexibility, and clarity, not just closed-loop performance or topline growth.

28% of retail commerce media decision-makers in North America and Europe say they review and approve creatives manually but lack automation or dynamic capabilities, according to November 2025 data from Koddi and Forrester Consulting.

PayPal rolled out Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement at CES to gives advertisers and merchants a clearer, cross-merchant view of how people actually shop and purchase—and early results suggest meaningful impact.

At CES, Amazon is repositioning Amazon Ads as a full advertising ecosystem rather than a commerce-adjacent channel, emphasizing unified reach across TV, streaming, live sports, audio, and programmatic partners.

In a year marked by platform volatility, AI acceleration, tariff shocks, and shifting consumer behavior, marketers searched for clarity across EMARKETER’s most-read topics. The top 10 themes reflect where advertiser attention truly moved in 2025. These trends captured the forces reshaping performance, discovery, and measurement: AI-driven optimization, creator-centric social ecosystems, commerce-led advertising, and CTV’s rise as the new premium video default. Together, they tell the story of a market recalibrating around efficiency, accountability, and cultural relevance as marketers prepared their 2026 strategies.

Amazon is recalibrating its relationship with the agencies and adtech firms that helped build its retail-media dominance. While Amazon insists agencies remain central, many intermediaries say rising data costs and tool duplication echo earlier platform playbooks from Google and Meta—centralize strengths, limit external dependencies, and scale in-house automation. The result is a more controlled, AI-driven ecosystem that may reduce tooling diversity while boosting Amazon’s own ad stack. For marketers, the challenge will be balancing Amazon’s convenience and scale with the flexibility, transparency, and customization offered by independent partners.