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Instacart leans on advertising to bolster its bottom line: The company鈥檚 advertising revenues grew 19%, significantly outpacing the 4% growth in the number of online orders on its platform.

Nike and Hoka battle it out over young consumers and runners; Shein and Temu are caught up in controversies and litigation; and DoorDash and Instacart take different approaches to the same problem.

Several retailers look to harness generative AI鈥檚 potential: Instacart, Walmart, and Levi Strauss are among those testing potential use cases for the emerging technology.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss how Walmart plans to use AI to enhance the customer shopping experience, Instacart pushing smart carts into in-store retail media, why consumers are dissatisfied with their in-store shopping experience, how best to reduce clothing returns, the rise鈥攁nd potential fall鈥攐f the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analysts Blake Droesch and Carina Perkins.

While retail is the most prominent vertical within the commerce media ecosystem, there are other emerging players, including financial services, travel, and commerce intermediaries such as Instacart, Uber Eats, and DoorDash. The evolution and expansion of commerce media has created opportunities for other industries.

From fridge to cart: Samsung said its Bespoke refrigerator models will identify low-stock items and enable consumers to reorder groceries on Instacart via the fridge screen. The fridge integrates Samsung鈥檚 AI Vision food recognition, which the company says can identify up to 37 items. It also uses Instacart鈥檚 product-matching API to link users to product listings on the delivery platform.

We downwardly revised the growth outlook for Instacart in our most recent forecast update and could do so again later in 2025. Netflix鈥檚 pivot to ads is working like gangbusters. Among an industry-diverse group of winning platforms, Netflix will emerge with the fastest digital ad revenue growth this year.

This places DoorDash second behind Instacart, which will rake in $35.35 billion, or 57.7% of US grocery delivery intermediary sales this year. However, DoorDash remains king of restaurant delivery intermediary sales, with sales growing 11.9% this year to reach $64.10 billion, over half (56.1%) of total restaurant delivery intermediary sales in the US.

Three of Canada鈥檚 biggest grocery conglomerates鈥擫oblaw, Empire, and Metro (and the other retail banners under their respective umbrellas)鈥攈ave aggressively introduced ecommerce solutions that include click and collect and home delivery (both direct and via third parties like Instacart). The auto and parts category ranks the lowest at just 5.0% of category sales.

Smart carts and Just Walk Out checkout technology are among the proprietary solutions developed by the likes of Instacart and Amazon鈥攁nd the companies are now shopping them around to third-party retailers. Any hesitation retailers may have about collaborating with their competition may be tempered by the recognition that developing in-house solutions can be prohibitively expensive.

Instacart followed in Walmart鈥檚 footsteps with a streaming partnership, giving Instacart+ members access to NBCUniversal鈥檚 Peacock. It also partnered with Uber Eats on free restaurant delivery, a move that will make Instacart+ more competitive with DoorDash鈥檚 DashPass. In turn, DoorDash partnered with Lyft to give its DashPass members rideshare discounts.

Amazon is second with $49.77 billion in US grocery ecommerce sales, followed by Instacart ($35.35 billion) and The Kroger Co. ($19.07 billion). In response to losing grocery share to other retailers, discount retailers may focus on other categories, like beauty, apparel, or toys, to maintain sales. Which leads us to our last prediction.

Though Amazon still commands nearly 40% of all retail media ad spending, retailers like Instacart and Target, are investing heavily in RMNs鈥攕ignaling that brands now have more options for reaching high-intent shoppers. Retail media is no longer just an add-on for ecommerce giants, but a critical revenue driver that is reshaping the digital advertising landscape. Sources. Alphabet, Inc. Amazon. Disney.

Interestingly, if you look at the Instacart and DoorDashers of the world, one of their biggest challenges is to avoid that substitution problem that Sky just talked about because no shopper wants that, and nobody really wants to trust somebody else to make that choice or have to have those interactions while they're waiting for their groceries at home.

This is the Q1 2025 installment of our quarterly 鈥淎d Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.

Retailers that aimed to be media giants are hitting headwinds as ad growth slows. To stay competitive, retail media networks must rethink org structure, sharpen media skills, and plan smartly to thrive in a more challenging landscape.

Retail media鈥檚 rapid growth has spurred nonretail verticals to harness their first-party data to fuel their own commerce media networks. Retail media spending still dominates the commerce media landscape, but distinct challenger cohorts are finding their footing.

How can retailers in grocery, the second-largest ecommerce category, optimize their online business to succeed?

Instacart partnered with YouTube on shopping ads. #3: TikTok. What fueled interest: In January, we noted that TikTok was gaining ground on Google as a search engine. In June, it unveiled image search; by fall, it had launched keyword-based search ads. Of course, the potential of a US TikTok ban made major waves.

鈥淔or example, a shopper could order their weekly groceries on Instacart, their dry goods from Amazon, and then use click-and-collect if they need to pick something up on their way home,鈥� said Droesch. By partnering with shipping carriers and third-party delivery services, retailers ensure customers receive their deliveries when and how they want.

It鈥檚 not just music platforms like Apple Music or YouTube Music with their own versions: Gaming platform Steam, grocery service Instacart, and many other apps across industries also roll out end-of-year personalized campaigns.

Nicole Silberstein of Retail Touchpoints was noting that there are all kinds of companies who either have one or working on one saying Walmart, Amazon, target, Victoria Secret, IKEA, Instacart, et cetera. Are we going to just live in a world where we have 50 different agents working for us at any moment? Jacob Bourne (15:45):.