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In-store retail media spend is growing quickly. Just $370 million will go to US in-store retail media ad spend this year, or 0.7% of omnichannel retail media ad spend, but by 2028, that figure will more than double to $1 billion, per our March 2024 forecast. In-store retail media spend is comparatively low despite a massive audience. There鈥檚 limited space and limited inventory.

By 2027, retail media will nearly tie with social media as No. 2 ad spend channel, second only to search. Retail media will be bigger than connected TV, digital audio, traditional television advertising combined in 2027. 鈥淭he reality is that retail media is not invincible,鈥� said our analyst Max Willens during a recent webinar.

Last year was similar鈥擟PG ad spending increased by just 4.7%, versus the national industry average of 10.6%. Regardless of slow growth, CPG is locked in as the second-largest spender on digital ads. CPG鈥檚 $39.50 billion in spending this year will be over $9 billion more than the third-ranked spender, financial services. Conversely, CPG鈥檚 total will trail retail by more than $34 billion.

鈥淭hat disparity can create wildly different pictures of the effectiveness of the ad spending,鈥� said Willens. Who is pushing for standardization? The Interactive Ad Bureau and Media Ratings Council released a set of proposed retail media standards in September, as did Albertsons Media Collective back in June. We鈥檝e written about other emerging solutions as well.

Shoppers can鈥檛 easily abandon carts in stores as they can online, but they can grow frustrated and cut shopping trips short or decide not to return. Instead, think about how retail media can assist shoppers on their journeys. 鈥淢aybe it's facilitating product discovery, or offering knowledge that they would want about a product and that doesn't feel disruptive,鈥� Marzano said.

The pandemic ecommerce boom may have come to an end, but marketplaces will continue to expand their share of US retail ecommerce. We expect US ecommerce sales to grow by $588 billion over the next five years with marketplaces accounting for nearly 40% of those gains. The channel will continue to grow in importance as more brands seek consumers wherever they are.

US in-store retail media ad spend will total $370 million this year. But as the channel expands, oversaturating stores with ads can cause tension between retail media teams, which focus on maximizing ad dollars, and merchants, which focus on the store as a whole. Online advertising and in-store advertising are not two distinct channels, but instead work together.

Real-world example: Klarna has a retail media network on its platform, which also boasts an AI-powered shopping assistant. This was originally featured in the Retail Media Weekly newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.

Our take: For now, performance wins; even before tariffs entered the picture, far more US advertisers planned to boost performance ad spending over brand advertising. Ad buyers are acting with caution, not necessarily because they don鈥檛 see long-term value in brand-building鈥攂ut because the current environment makes it hard to wait for payoffs.

Until a standard is widely adopted, the job of a retail media network is to be as clear as possible when communicating their return on ad spend. Keep your finger on the pulse. Hiatt and Opare-Abetia are both bullish on in-store retail media innovations. In a future state, retailers could offer personalized ads, tether screens to mobile devices, and create individualized offers.

Being able to get more granular with search targeting would be a major benefit, according to Emily Frankel, senior vice president and head of ecommerce marketing at PepsiCo. 鈥淭he ability to do audience targeting across media tactics has been around for a while.

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.

Off-site retail media network ad spend will rise by 61.5% this year to reach $10.64 billion in the US, per our forecast. With third-party cookies (eventually) going away, we expect to see more such partnerships that allow publishers to leverage retailer first-party data on publisher sites.

We鈥檙e showing some strength in retail ecommerce thanks to our internal assumption that the US is going to successfully achieve something of a soft landing, that inflation is going to get, by the second half, somewhat under control, and that fears of a recession are going to recede at least somewhat in the US market, leading to a very marginal rebound in the outlook for ecommerce 辞惫别谤补濒濒.鈥�.

That can help drive other sources of revenue, like retail media, because the more sellers they have on their e-commerce platforms, the more incentive there is for those sellers to then advertise to get higher placement on their websites. Marcus Johnson:.

Those insights have reportedly led to an average increase of nearly 30% in overall return on ad spend (ROAS) for Sam's Club MAP advertisers. Analyst take: Sam鈥檚 Club is leveraging its deep understanding of its members to deliver what advertisers have long seen as a holy grail: closed-loop attribution.

On today鈥檚 special edition podcast, 蘑菇AV analysts鈥疭arah鈥疢arzano and鈥疢ax鈥疻illens explore how commerce media is reshaping advertising鈥攃overing platform innovation, measurement, and its overlap with CTV and social鈥攂efore a fireside chat with Chase鈥疢edia鈥疭olutions鈥� Lauren鈥疓riewski. Recorded live at the 蘑菇AV Commerce鈥疢edia鈥疶rends鈥�2025 virtual summit on May鈥�9th. Listen wherever you find podcasts, or watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Amazon鈥攖he largest driver of spending in this channel鈥攈as recently seen modest retail media revenue growth relative to its past performance. As a result, we have revised our retail media forecast down from where it was in H1 2024.

TikTok is ByteDance鈥檚 global engine: Despite slowing growth in China, the platform continues to expand monetization and user base worldwide.

Click here to view our full forecasts for US programmatic direct nonsocial digital display ad spending and US real-time bidding (RTB) nonsocial ad spending. But PMPs have also gained share of programmatic budgets. In 2020, PMPs and the open exchange each accounted for about half of nonsocial RTB ad spending.

Between the lines: As tariffs threaten ad budgets, it鈥檚 crucial for advertisers to prove the worth of their retail media campaigns. 94% of advertisers are concerned about the impact of tariffs on ad spending, according to a recent survey from the IAB.

Launched by the holding company in 2020 as a full-service ecommerce offering. Key clients: Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Forno Bonomi, Puma, Tigullio, Sognid鈥檕ro. Social media. US social network ad spending will grow by 16% YoY to $86.75 billion this year and will continue increasing by double-digit YoY rates through 2027, per our forecast.