蘑菇AV

Food and beverage is a much bigger part of ecommerce than it used to be. The food and beverage ecommerce category is set for robust 16.7% sales growth in 2024, and we anticipate growth to remain elevated for the next several years after that. But equally noteworthy is how quickly the category has grown as a share of overall ecommerce in the US.

US ad spending is projected to grow 6.8% next year, surpassing $400 billion, according to 蘑菇AV鈥檚 forecast. Despite robust ad spending growth, AI tools, advancements in attribution, and cautious consumer behavior will add complexity for the latter half of 2024.

The pace of change in social media won鈥檛 slow in 2024. The rising number of disruptors鈥攚hether it鈥檚 AI, creators, social search, or TikTok Shop鈥攚ill both reshape old trends and create new ones.

Even as some signs foretell a rebounding economy, total US ad spend is still down. Advertisers will keep investing in performance-oriented channels, which is good news for retail media search. At some point, retail media search ad spend will hit a ceiling. Amazon shoppers say the feed has already become cluttered with sponsored results.

Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel we track in the US, growing by 26.0% this year. Its share of total US media spend will reach 14.1% this year, and come 2028, nearly 1 in 5 ad dollars spent in the US will go to retail media. But the channel has the potential to grow even more. Here are four key factors that present challenges to retail media growth right now.

CEOs鈥� politics impact their brands: Hastings鈥� endorsement triggers Netflix boycott, drawing parallels with Musk's controversies impacting Tesla and X.

CTV will rank No. 2 for ad spending growth. Retail media is the only breakout we forecast that we expect to outperform CTV in ad spending growth. CTV will outperform other digital advertising categories (e.g., formats, devices, channels). Retail media and CTV are increasingly overlapping. CTV鈥檚 ad spending growth is, in part, a result of retail media鈥檚 strength.

Why it matters: Retail media and commerce media, which focus on optimizing shopping experiences both online and offline, has become a critical area for ad spending.

Apple has also resumed advertising on X after a 15-month pause, shortly after Amazon increased its ad spending on the platform. While advertisers initially left the platform in light of some of Musk鈥檚 controversial comments and questions over brand safety, major brands and tech platforms including Amazon have returned since Donald Trump鈥檚 reelection.

Programmatic advertising will account for 91.3% of US digital display ad spend this year, or a total of $157.35 billion, per our December 2023 forecast. Last week, advertisers at Programmatic I/O discussed where those ad dollars are headed and how programmatic advertising is changing. From ad spend waste to the expansion of retail media, here are three big trends discussed at the event.

US retail media ad spend will reach $59.61 billion this year, according to our October 2023 forecast. 18.5% of retail media network ad spend is coming from off-site advertising, and that share is growing, per our forecast. With retail media gaining so much of the digital ad landscape, it鈥檚 no surprise ad giants like Google and Microsoft are building out their own retail media tools. Use this chart:.

Search ads launch on TikTok: The keyword-based feature enables brands to reach users during searches, aligning ad efforts with user intent and behavior.

Though we鈥檝e downgraded our retail media forecast, we anticipate the channel will experience double-digit growth through 2027. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 an exaggeration to say that retail media is one of the most important and potentially most transformative ad spending channels in media right now,鈥� said our analyst Max Willens.

The ad spending winter of 2022 and early 2023 was mild and short-lived, as we predicted. And after a solid H2 2023, things are looking up across the board for 2024.

But for now, YouTube leads competitors in both time spent and ad spend. For 2024: Embrace the pivot to digital. It鈥檚 where viewers are spending an increasing amount of time and where ad formats tend to be more shoppable. 3. Cookies are going away, for real. Google confirmed last month that it will begin deprecating third-party cookies in 2024.

Ecommerce giants power the retail media boom. Amazon drove鈥攁nd now dominates鈥攄igital advertising鈥檚 third wave with a powerful combination of search, display, and streaming TV ads. Walmart and Instacart are replicating this as they scale their retail media businesses. Streamers embrace ads. Netflix and Disney+ recently unveiled their own ad-supported tiers. Spotify ads are beginning to scale.

Note: Examples of websites or apps primarily engaged in retail ecommerce include Amazon, Walmart, and eBay; examples of retail media networks include Amazon's DSP and Etsy's Offsite Ads.