Growth has slowed, but bright spots remain in key categories.

AI-driven personalization is one of the top trends US digital retailers believe will impact their business this year. It’s tied with an increased focus on omnichannel tools like SMS, according to December 2023 data from Bolt.

We look at the demographic trends driving this and why retailers need to prioritize offering consumers’ preferred payment methods.

Nearly three-quarters (74.2%) of the $59.61 billion in US digital retail media ad spend we forecast for 2024 will go to Amazon. That leaves $15.35 billion going to non-Amazon retailers and $370 million going to in-store formats.That should excite marketers, said EMARKETER’s new principal analyst Sarah Marzano.

Though on-site search and display remain retail media’s bread and butter, off-site advertising—placing ads in channels outside of a retail media network’s (RMN’s) own properties—will lead the next evolution due to its ability to expand advertisers’ reach and achieve upper-funnel goals like increasing brand awareness.

“The beauty of a clean room is that it's a privacy-centric way for CVS to share data from its 74 million Extra Care members and for us to share the data from our 498 million users, and end up with a repository of powerful, completely anonymized first-party data,” said Carrie Sweeney, VP of retail at Pinterest. “Then we can connect our users with targeted ads without sharing any of their personal data, just as CVS can on its website.”

Consumers care about sustainability, but often aren’t willing to buy environmentally friendly products if they’re deemed lower quality, especially if it costs more. One solution for retailers and consumers is resale, an industry worth $108.64 billion in 2024, per our December 2023 forecast. Not all environmental initiatives have to be at the consumer level, though.

All eyes are on streaming. Last year, non-pay TV viewers surpassed traditional pay TV viewers in the US, per our forecast. Years of streaming platform proliferation are over, yielding to consolidation and fragmented ad measurement. Bundles between streaming platforms and partnerships with retail media platforms are forming, leaving media buyers with a headache over how to strategize.

Since bringing its retail media capabilities in-house, grocery giant Kroger continues to develop its self-service strategy for advertisers, Cara Pratt, SVP, Kroger Precision Marketing at 84.51°, recently told EMARKETER.

On today's podcast episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss what AI can do for retail, who the biggest players are, and if hyperpersonalization is something people even want. Then, for "Pop-Up Rankings," we rank four promising examples of AI in retail. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analyst Carina Perkins.

Digital ad spend is growing and going increasingly toward programmatic formats. Search ad spend is on the rise as well, as retail media growth remains healthy. And social media is in better shape than previously projected. Here are five recent charts forecasting the future of ad spend.

In just five years, retail media went from a $1 billion segment to a $30 billion segment. With US omnichannel retail media ad spend poised to reach $59.98 billion this year, per our October 2023 forecast, non-retail industries from health and fitness to restaurants and financial institutions are looking to build out their own media networks.

The vast majority (81.5%) of retail media ad spend will go toward on-site formats this year, per our October 2023 forecast. As advertisers seek to target consumers whenever and wherever possible, other formats are emerging, particularly in-store, streaming, and social.

Amazon Prime Video ads launched today, defaulting Amazon’s 163.3 million US viewers into its ad-supported tier unless they pay a premium to opt out. This is good news for Amazon’s $44.26 billion dollar retail US media business. But who could this move hurt?

It may be a new year, but 2023 shopping habits aren’t going anywhere, according to Barbara Connors, vice president of strategy and acceleration at 84.51, a retail data company under The Kroger Co. Customers are still motivated by price and value, still expecting the shopping experience to seamlessly shift between online and offline channels, and still interested in buying private label goods.

With the majority of retail sales still taking place offline, marketers are rethinking the in-store experience, attempting to combine the reach of physical retail with the engagement of digital channels via in-store retail media.

To help keep return volumes down, retailers are trying everything from implementing return fees to ensuring product descriptions are as accurate and detailed as possible. But there are still a couple of out-of-the-box solutions that they could try, like leveraging peer-to-peer solutions to cut down on logistics costs or being more cautious around inspiring impulse purchases.

Our newsletter team has already made a number of advertising and retail predictions, but now it’s time to combine the two. Retail media is still on the rise in the US (growing by a projected 28.6% this year), but competition is getting fierce. From commerce opportunities to consolidation, here’s what we expect to see from retail media in 2024.