Retail Media Networks: How They Work in 2026

retail media networks

Retailers know what shoppers buy, browse, and add to carts, enabling targeting precision that third-party data cannot match. It’s not surprising to see the bulk of retail media spend going to sponsored products, the most native of all ad formats on RMNs. Globally, sponsored products capture 40% of those budgets, followed by sponsored brands (24%), display (20%), and video ads (16%). In fact, outside of retail and technology, all other industries represented in our survey prioritized using RMNs for top-funnel use cases over low-funnel conversions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is finding its most immediate applications in operational efficiencies within trade desk, sales, and category management functions. The growth of retail media ecosystems is tremendous as the industry acquires massive amounts of transaction data, advanced targeting capabilities, and emerging in-store technologies. “With RedVest Media, we’re now extending that helpfulness to our brand partners, giving them the tools and data to drive meaningful engagement and measurable results at both the national and local level.” Additionally, retailers and brands will work collaboratively with vendors and partners to optimize marketing spend.

Over time, this will https://cafelam.com/abcdx-segmentation-a-comprehensive-guide/ become an even more important driver of both growth and margin.” “As data and direct customer relationships become the most valuable currency in advertising, those with scale and trusted customer connections will be the long-term winners,” Foran said. He said Kroger Precision Marketing is a high-margin business that it built on first-party data. Foran said a strong ecommerce business empowers a retail media network. Within delivery, orders that Kroger fulfilled in less than an hour led digital sales growth. Furthermore, Kroger is No. 1 in the database’s Food & Beverage category, though it competes with Mass Merchants — Walmart and Target — that rank higher in the Top 2000 for online grocery sales.

retail media networks

How can pharma companies improve their pharmacy retail media approach?

  • The platform also provides real-time analytics, helping you track campaign performance and make informed decisions.
  • That can include non-endemic advertising (using a retailer’s first-party data to drive traffic to a DTC site or lead form) and sectors such as travel, hospitality, and financial services, where loyalty programs and booking data create highly targetable audiences.
  • And retailers often aren’t seeing the ad revenue they expected from their retail media platform investments.
  • For Nectar360, the certification reinforces its focus on delivering accountable media solutions to brand partners, while contributing to wider industry alignment at a time of rapid retail media growth.
  • The platform provides customizable dashboards, allowing you to track key metrics that matter to your business.
  • Following Albert Heijn, it’s encouraging to see another leading retailer complete the process, signalling growing momentum.

Because pharmacies control both advertising inventory and transaction data, they can provide marketers with clearer performance insights. This creates a level of visibility that many digital advertising platforms cannot offer. Instead of relying on broad demographic targeting, brands can create campaigns tailored to specific patient needs and health interests. When combined responsibly and compliantly, this information creates highly detailed audience segments.

retail media networks

What’s Fueling Retail Media Growth In 2026?

Global ad spend is growing in double digits year over year, and new retail media networks are launching every month. But there are hundreds of other retail media networks worldwide — exactly 277 as of November 2025. This state-of-the-industry report from Fugo covers all things retail media growth, including the numbers and statistics behind its rapid-fire. Or a digital signage professional wondering whether OOH and retail media networks (RMNs) mean the same thing? In a recent episode of CSP’s “At Your Convenience” podcast, Drew Walls, sales director for retail media at Broadsign, discussed the challenges retailers face when building retail media networks.

The New Retail Reality

RedVest Media’s underlying programmatic infrastructure and multichannelaudience segment tools went through tests and brand trials for roughly 10 months leading up to the official July 2026 Pacvue platform integration. Ace Hardware does not break out revenue numbers for Redvest Media, but in June the parent company reported a record $10 billion in totalrevenue for its full fiscal year. Home improvement is a category where the shopper journey rarely starts and endsin one place, according to Ace Hardware analysis. Fifty percent of Americans live within 3 miles of an Ace Hardware store and 75% live within a 15-minute drive, wherethey can shop for brand power tools, paint supplies, grills, lawn and garden products, and related categories. Ace Hardware’s platform can connect the reporting view with cross-retail dashboards to compare resultsand identify trends.

retail media networks

One of the biggest reasons retail pharmacies are gaining advertising power is their access to first-party data. Instead of serving only as retail partners, pharmacies are now becoming full-scale media owners. For example, a customer searching for allergy medication or filling a diabetes prescription creates a rich opportunity for highly relevant advertising. Retailers now control valuable patient touchpoints, first-party data, and in-store digital channels that can shape healthcare decisions at the exact moment consumers are ready to act. The upwards of 20,000 retail media screens installed at https://www.wtf-film.com/a-simple-plan-21/ those locations would supplement mobile ads offered to more than 7 million customers through T-Mobile’s T Life application. You’ll leverage your expertise in ecommerce, digital media, analytics, and client services to inform data-driven decisions, optimize performance, and deliver best-in-class partner experiences—all while balancing vendor objectives with Staples’ business priorities.

High-performing ad placements across every touchpoint

retail media networks

These include issues with data, weak tools, too many vendors, and a lack of transparency across new channels, such as retail media networks, which are exciting but add complexity. Pharmacies now offer targeted digital advertising, loyalty-based audience segmentation, and measurable campaign analytics that compete with major retail media networks. The growth in https://viamrkting.com/ideal-customer-profile-icp-for-b2b-marketing/ AI-driven analytics will come from revenue-generating features like retail media networks, dynamic pricing models, assortment planning optimization, and collaborations with vendors across platforms.

  • Furthermore, Kroger is No. 1 in the database’s Food & Beverage category, though it competes with Mass Merchants — Walmart and Target — that rank higher in the Top 2000 for online grocery sales.
  • Within delivery, orders that Kroger fulfilled in less than an hour led digital sales growth.
  • IndoorMedia ensures only two businesses of the same category advertise in any one grocery store.
  • Designing and implementing successful receipt advertising campaigns is a key area of expertise at IndoorMedia and a major factor to our success over the past 30 years.
  • Retailers can solve common RMN challenges with a shopper-first retail media tech stack that maximizes their first-party data.

Its US retail ecommerce sales are growing faster than any other major retailer EMARKETER tracks, and its off-site ad business now exceeds $1 billion annually. Retail media CTV is growing rapidly as advertisers seek TV ads targeted using retailer first-party data. Advertisers’ appetite for full-funnel campaigns is pushing retail media beyond retailer-owned websites. This approach provides advertisers with metrics like return on ad spend (ROAS), incremental sales lift, and conversion rates tied to specific campaigns. US retail media ad spending will grow 17.8% year-over-year in 2026, outpacing both social network and search ad spending growth rates, according to EMARKETER. This data also powers closed-loop measurement, connecting ad impressions directly to transactions.

In this guide, you’ll learn the basics about retail media networks, why they’re important, and how they can help you grow your business. Third-party businesses that look to reach relevant audiences will work with a retailer to create ad campaigns for those digital channels.Retail media networks have become an important category for the growth of programmatic advertising, but many marketers still don’t know about the retail media landscape or how to buy media in this space. In a fragmented advertising world, retail media networks offer trust, context, and results. That means using tools like Bliss Point, always-on incrementality testing, and cross-network optimization frameworks to evaluate how each RMN fits into a full-funnel plan designed to drive growth.

Retail Media Networks: The Complete Guide for Retail & CPG

A sizzle reel teases appearances from P&G brands including Bounty, Head & Shoulders and Vick’s, as well as a shop-the-series feature in Albertsons’ mobile app. “That creates a closer link between the story, the audience and the commercial outcome.” Using shopper insights at the outset, rather than applying data only after the work is made,” said Lela Coffey, vice president of user growth acceleration at P&G, in a press statement. Shopper insights from the grocer’s retail media network informed “Rico’s Tacos,” which will run across its YouTube, social and in-store channels. With a long-term thematic approach, Staley Capital brings decades of investing and operating experience to support management teams achieve sustainable growth.

Non-endemic is the growth frontier but requires third-party attribution because the conversion happens off the retailer’s platform. Foot traffic platforms like PassBy provide the cross-visitation and incrementality signals that make non-endemic RMN spend measurable. When the conversion happens outside the retailer’s ecosystem, both sides need third-party data sources to close the loop.