Ecommerce

What Are the Top Retail Media Networks In 2025?

By Elizabeth Marsten

When I originally wrote this post in January 2021, retail media was seeing substantial gains across big box and specialty retailers. And…it hasn’t stopped. Looking back nearly five years later—cookie deprecation and privacy concerns top of mind—it’s clear that the importance of retail media will only continue to climb. And apparently, so will the number of networks and their offerings – even moving beyond traditional retailers!

To be certain, Amazon is still the undisputed leader of retail media networks (RMNs), with Walmart Connect taking a secure but distant second place. But the number of worthy networks for brands to consider is continually climbing, as are the self-service capabilities available from each that make retail media advertising more efficient and effective than ever.

So how to choose? Focus on the foundations of what a retail media network is to guide you.

What are Retail Media Networks?

Retail media networks are retailer-owned advertising spaces that allow marketers to purchase relevant digital ad space powered by the respective retailer’s first-party data insights. The ads themselves can appear in a variety of formats and locations to support different goals, including in prominent placements on search results pages, product pages, category pages, browse pages, onsite, instore, off site and more.

But back to those first-party data insights—arguably the most important part of the equation, and why retail media networks are increasing at such a rapid pace. When it comes to deciding which are the best retail media networks for your brand to invest in, start by considering which retailers offer the audiences you most want to reach, alongside your distribution amongst those retailers. More simply put, whose data and shoppers will matter most in reaching your goals?

Commerce Media vs. Retail Media 

You may have also heard the term “commerce media” in context with retail media or even used what seems interchangeably with one another. Retail media is a component of commerce media – commerce media is the larger bucket that can include non-endemic advertising (usage of the retailer’s 1st party data to drive to a 3rd party location, like a DTC or B2C website for lead generation) where the advertiser’s only real connection to the retailer is the purchase of that audience data or placements. Commerce media has been around for a long time and is seeing a renaissance with service based businesses today – especially in travel – where they have amassed years of loyalty program data and user behavior that they can offer to any business (goods or services) through a curated experience. Examples include Marriott Hotels, United Airlines Kinetic, Chase Banks’ Media Solutions. 

How Retail Media Networks Work

Imagine you’re in a grocery store. As you walk down the aisle, you notice a towering display of a new cereal brand. It’s hard to miss, right? That’s essentially what retail media networks do, but in a digital world. Instead of physical displays, retail media networks allow brands to purchase special placements on a retailer’s website or app. This can include:

One of the biggest advantages of retail media networks is the ability to target specific customers. Unlike traditional advertising, which often reaches a broad audience, retail media allows you to focus on people who are most likely to be interested in your product.

For example, if you’re selling a new type of protein powder, you can target customers who have recently purchased workout gear or healthy snacks. This targeted approach can significantly improve your return on investment.

Retail media networks rely heavily on first-party data, which is data collected directly from customers by the retailer. This data can include things like purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics. By using first-party data, retailers can create highly targeted ad campaigns without compromising customer privacy.

Retail media networks offer a powerful way for brands to reach potential customers and drive sales. By understanding how these networks work and leveraging the available targeting options, you can create effective campaigns that deliver results. Let’s dive more into the benefits…

The Benefits of Retail Media Advertising

Retail Media is technically nothing new. It’s the near point-of-purchase techniques of sampling, loyalty programs, coupons, and featured placements within a glossy paper catalog. Remember those? (R.I.P. IKEA paper catalog). Today, this includes digital marketing as well.

Retail media advertising offers a win-win-win situation for retailers, advertisers, and consumers. By understanding the benefits and leveraging the capabilities of these networks, businesses can effectively reach their target audience and drive growth. Let’s break down each… 

Benefits for Retailers

Digital retail media has been ramping up for years. Retailers recognize the need to not only offer experiences and convenience to compete with other ecommerce sites, but to meet the needs of brands to reach consumers in those digital spaces not previously permeated with advertising.

Google and Meta post humongous numbers in advertising revenues on their properties—followed quickly by Amazon—indicating that not only is there demand but also profitability in digital advertising.

You could say the biggest driver of why is money. It always is. And it helps pay the bills for the investment in tech.

By utilizing RMNs, smaller retailers can also offer brands a targeted advertising platform that leverages their unique first-party data. This allows them to attract high-quality ad spend and attract brands that might otherwise focus their advertising budgets solely on larger platforms. Essentially, RMNs level the playing field by enabling smaller retailers to offer compelling advertising solutions that drive both brand visibility and retailer profitability.

Benefits for Advertisers

One of the key benefits of RMNs is that they provide privacy-compliant access to first-party data insights from retailers. This data is invaluable for understanding consumer behavior and preferences. Advertisers can use these insights to reach the right audiences with targeted ads, either by connecting directly with new potential customers or by engaging more effectively with existing ones who are already interested in their products.

RMNs allow brands to deliver relevant ads at crucial moments, such as when consumers are actively comparing products or ready to make a purchase. This targeted approach not only improves ad relevance but also increases the likelihood of conversion. By leveraging the retailer’s data, advertisers can effectively connect with audiences that are most likely to engage with their brand, ultimately driving higher sales and better returns on ad spend.

Benefits for Shoppers

As for the consumers spending the money, they benefit by having an increased opportunity to discover new brands, as well as recommendations for products they might be interested in based on their shopping behavior.

Revenue from RMNs helps retailers offset costs, allowing them to keep prices competitive even amid inflation and logistical challenges. This means better deals for consumers.

RMNs use shopping behavior data to provide personalized product recommendations. If you often search for eco-friendly items, you’ll see suggestions for new sustainable brands and related products. This personalization helps you discover new brands and products tailored to your interests.

How to Choose the Right Retail Media Networks

As with all advertising initiatives, there is a lot to consider when adding retail media to your marketing mix. But there are certain elements to hone in on for the greatest success: budget allocation, retailer relationships, and streamlined reporting.

Set budgets early

“Where is the money going to come from?” was the most common concern I’ve heard. It’s important to know that some budgets may be tied into different groups within a brand. I have also seen budgets that simply didn’t happen due to COVID-19 (for example, if you were planning on having samples in-store)—or, more recently—ongoing supply chain issues. If you haven’t finalized the conversation for 2025 budgets, the time is now. Most have some trade or shopper marketing dollar funded but have really evolved into their own line items.

Consider your niche

The networks you choose should align with what you’re selling and the audiences you want to reach. If you sell cosmetics, for example, it makes sense to buy ad space at Ulta, Target, CVS, or even Kroger. Maybe skip on Home Depot; even though half of their customers are women who might be in your target market, they don’t sell cosmetics. But they have expanded to some apparel!

Consider network size

When choosing a Retail Media Network, the size of the network is an important factor to consider. Generally, larger networks can reach a broader audience, which is crucial if your products appeal to a wide range of customers. For instance, a general-use product may benefit from the expansive reach of a large RMN to maximize exposure.

However, smaller RMNs can still be highly effective if they cater to a specific audience relevant to your brand. For example, a cosmetic brand advertising on Ulta’s RMN may achieve significant engagement despite the network’s smaller size because it reaches a concentrated audience interested in beauty products.

Evaluate a network’s ad offerings

It’s important to remember that a newer RMN from a specialty retailer isn’t likely to have the same breadth of options as a larger, more established network like Amazon, Walmart or Target. That said, if you have specific needs in mind, there are a few questions you should start with in evaluating if a network will be a likely good fit, including:

Assess data and measurement capabilities

It’s all about the audiences. Retailers have amassed years of loyalty data through programs with perks, points, and personal information. While previously leveraged in a slow-to-scale (and rather impersonal) way, retailers can harness “people as data sets” with considerably greater relevance, and higher-quality targeting, to appeal to brands looking to generate new-to-brand buyers, foster loyalty buyers, and close the proverbial loop.

We’re now starting to look at audiences over channels. A single customer can exist in all channels (social, programmatic, Google, email, local), but how do you reach them at an efficient rate? How do you retain and engage them? Is the answer having eight different budgets and making a wish? Or is it to think about how a customer’s journey takes place, and to create touchpoints for when and where they are? (Hint: It’s the latter.)

If you think of it at the retailer or channel level—are all those audiences created equal? (For example, lapsed brand purchasers at Walmart versus Target, or the social audience of CVS compared to Ulta). They are all charged at different rates, have different reaches, and perform at different levels.

Think about your tech stack

More variables are coming—more shiny objects—and if you’re waiting or hoping the retailers are going to produce what you’re looking for, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Keep in perspective that the reality we live in today is really only a few years old, and we have this habit of comparing things to Amazon, Google and Meta, as these giants have proven what can be done. While true that most things are possible, a retailer has greatly divided attention, and a necessary continued dedication to the classic in-store framework it operates 90%+ of its business in today.

Consider how your existing tech will interface with the information from retail media networks. Starting at the beginning, consider what you already have in place, and what you need. Where do you need information to live, come in, and be accessed from?

Getting things out into a format where you can review CPMs, average ROAS, audience types, and then cross-reference that against other retailers, will give you a much better sense of the audiences as they move around, and helps you decide where that next dollar is best spent.

Ask questions

Ask for what you want or need (EVERY time.) Make no assumptions that what you’re seeing is all there is, or that you have to draw a definitive business conclusion every time. Some campaigns will seem too good to be true; they probably are. Dig into the measurement to determine if you’re truly seeing the full picture, or something closer to half?

Build retailer relationships

Retailer relationships are tricky sometimes. Do the math, and push back if the audience size/return seems too good to be true. Have a general idea of what is possible and what is an “investment” and always ask for more in the metrics department. They’ve never done this before, so don’t assume that it’s not available because it’s not important. Assume it’s not available because no one else asked yet.

Keep an eye on emerging capabilities

Some retailers are a bit behind on the technology front. How do they close the gap? After all, they are retailers, not technology companies. It’s expensive to employ a team of software engineers, data scientists, and wizards, as well as the infrastructure needed to host, maintain, and innovate to keep up with demand and differentiate.

So, you buy existing technology, dig deep to make it, or strike strategic partnerships with the latter two emerging as the path forward for now. Every week there’s an announcement of an acquisition, a preferred partner, or a chain of software platforms to execute on a media type. For example: PromoteIQ, Criteo, and Quotient—all working directly with retailers of all shapes and sizes to enable different types of digital media— most commonly, sponsored or featured products. Makes sense. Building an ad network is not a small undertaking.

Amazon and Walmart are creating an empire of tech that their offerings sit on top of, and expand far beyond sponsored products into programmatic/display, video, and AI-enabled units at scale. They also have hundreds of billions of dollars. Walmart’s playbook has been a combination of building (Media Group, Walmart Plus, Walmart Fulfillment Services), buying (Joyrun), and all of the partnerships, notably Rover.com, thredUP, and Shopify.

Comparatively smaller—though, by no means small—retailers like Target, Kroger, CVS, Best Buy, and Home Depot have found their path forward by staying the course as a go-to destination, but also by integrating with partners, building on their first-party data/audiences, and diversifying their offerings to include social media placements, private marketplaces for programmatic, email placements, search engine advertising placements, and onsite offerings through those partnerships. (Walmart does have some of these as well.)

And then, of course, there’s Instacart—everyone’s best friend for delivery and partner extraordinaire—with the exclusion of Target, which bought delivery competitor Shipt.

15 Top Retailers and Media Offerings Compared

Just about everyone with an ecommerce site and a brick-and-mortar store seems to be in the Retail Media game today, offering (at-minimum) onsite placements like Sponsored Products.

But let’s stick to 15 solid and promising emerging players—listed in no particular order…

  1. Walmart Connect
  2. Target Roundel
  3. Kroger – KPM 8451
  4. Instacart
  5. eBay
  6. Wayfair
  7. Home Depot
  8. Best Buy
  9. Ulta
  10. Macy’s
  11. Walgreens
  12. CVS
  13. Chewy
  14. Gopuff
  15. Amazon

1. Walmart Connect

Walmart Inc. will grow its US ecommerce sales by 13.5% in 2024 to reach $98.82 billion. Thanks to their vast and varied inventory, incredible brand recognition, and sizable physical footprint—with 90% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart store—their omnichannel retail capabilities are robust.

Walmart Connect is focused on combining in-store and online/app-based shopping as seamlessly as possible, including through in-app enhancements to guide in-store experiences (like product location and checkout), and adding web-based reviews and ratings to physical product shelves in the store.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Walmart advertising is worth your attention:

History has a habit of repeating itself, and Walmart has a history of continuing to do big things.

Learn more in our detailed posts focused on selling on Walmart Marketplace and advertising on Walmart Marketplace.

2. Target Roundel

Target’s steady growth in the advertising space continues, bolstered in part through a superstar curbside pick-up offering, and acquisition of membership-based service Shipt in 2017—which is benefitting them in a big way today as they expand their TLMD program.

Target is applying a similar strategy to Walmart, fulfilling many Target.com orders with in-store stock from the Target store(s) closest to that shopper. Target then leverages 3P delivery partners—including their own Shipt—to get those orders in customers’ hands faster, at no extra cost to the customer.

Roundel, Target’s internal Retail Media agency, has a dizzying array of options in the display realm alone, with managed services and self-service for those that want to pay for the privilege of the first-party data—and take that in-house and use their own programmatic platform, like DV360 or The Trade Desk.

They also have offerings that include Target social channels (Pinterest, Facebook) and Google Shopping. Add in a streamlined Circle Promotions offering in the mobile app that brands can use to offer discounts at their convenience to specific audiences (or all of Target Circle members)—and an always-on sponsored products option through Criteo—and you’ve got yourself a retail media mogul.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Target advertising is worth your attention:

3. Kroger KPM 8451

While Kroger continues to navigate regulatory scrutiny on their proposed merger with Albertsons – they are still two different companies, with Kroger’s KPM 8451 being the larger of the two – so we’ll focus there. .

It’s important to consider that this is not a large company merging with a small company; this is two large companies becoming one giant company. Once combined, Kroger and Albertsons will have more stores than even Walmart—roughly 5,000 locations across the US. That makes for a lot of shoppers, a lot of data, and a lot to consider for your marketing mix.

“The companies’ combined retail media network would be capable of reaching 85 million US households, creating one of the largest in-store media channels in the US and giving them an edge over Amazon, Instacart, and Walmart.” (eMarketer)

Outside of the pending merger, Kroger has been busy with valuable advances for advertisers, including the recently revamped In-House Kroger Advertising Platform that went live in October.

“The launch of the new Kroger Ad Platform enables Tinuiti to manage our Kroger buys more efficiently by allowing us to see everything we need for our on-site campaigns within one platform. This gives us the ability to measure, gather insights and optimize campaigns quickly to drive better performance for our clients.”

Raquel Kozlowski Sr. Director, Innovation and Growth at Tinuitiraquel-kozlowski-headshot

Kroger Advertising Details

Key reasons Kroger & Albertsons advertising is worth your attention:

4. Instacart

Instacart is everywhere, with 1 billion shoppable products in their catalog, 80K stores (1400 retailers) including local grocers and major chains, and millions of orders handled each year across 14K cities in the US and Canada. 

A major player in the grocery delivery industry specifically, Instacart is more broadly a grocery technology company. The Instacart Platform gives retailers an array of options to suit their partnership needs, including Retailer Storefronts, Fulfillment, Connected Stores, Modular E-commerce and more.

They also handle delivery for a LOT more than groceries, with some of many notable partnerships including Sephora, Five Below, Bath & Body Works, Sam’s Club, and Kiehl’s.

In 2020, they launched a self-service sponsored products platform that allowed brands to boost that ever-important first-page visibility. Two years later, they added a self-service banner display option onsite, and a complete brand experience with pages that support images, videos, and product collections. And don’t forget coupons, hero banners, delivery promotions available through the Instacart team, plans to enhance reporting on in-store performance, and more.

The biggest takeaway for Instacart advertising is how incredibly qualified the traffic is: a user must first sign in, enter their geography, be presented with a marketplace of stores available in that area, choose a store, and then perform a search in the store. You can’t get lower in the funnel than that.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Instacart advertising is worth your attention:

5. eBay

eBay’s Promoted Listings Standard ads have long helped advertisers effectively and affordably increase their listings’ visibility, and are still a strong and efficient ad solution for broad coverage. eBay Promoted Listings Advanced ads are also worth a closer look. These CPC ads help Above Average and Top Rated Sellers secure top-of-search placement for specific keywords and keyword phrases.

“The importance of advertising on eBay is heightened compared to platforms like Amazon due to the absence of shared listing pages. Unlike Amazon, where multiple sellers offering the same product share one page, eBay assigns individual pages to each seller. This makes effective advertising on eBay crucial for standing out amidst the expansive inventory and ensuring visibility.”

Stuart Clay Director of Commerce Strategic Services at Tinuiti

Advertising Details

Key reasons eBay advertising is worth your attention:

6. Wayfair

You don’t need a physical location to be one of the hottest locations for shoppers and advertisers alike. Wayfair’s sponsored product offering has been around since circa 2019 and is a homegrown solution. If you’re one of many brands selling through their home goods marketplace, it could be the boost you’re looking for, especially around key dates like Way Day and Amazon’s Prime Day Events.

For even more brand and catalog visibility, check out Wayfair’s Sponsored Shops. This offering “places banner ads for your brand page, promo, or browse page in front of customers to capture mindshare and stand out from the competition.”

While fairly straightforward to use, Wayfair’s offering is unfortunately a best-kept secret. And while it doesn’t have the volume of Walmart or Amazon, it certainly has its niche audience, along with a massive marketing machine backing it to bring users to the site across email, social, app, push notifications, and their Pro program.

Another interesting note is the depth of their investment in Standard Display, Waylift and Waystack—an algorithm they developed and adopted to power decision making in contextual advertising at scale.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Wayfair advertising is worth your attention:

7. Home Depot

Early in the game, the Home Depot enabled house projects and improvements with buy online/pick up in-store and—of course—advertising on-site via PromoteIQ for sponsored products and banners. This is in addition to email services through WorldData, a third-party partner that enables a partial self-service capability.

Their program, rebranded to Orange Apron Media, which includes a front end UI to tie it all together through Vantage.This includes additional offerings in programmatic, using Home Depot’s first-party data. Home Depot vendors can take advantage of these offerings any time of year, or during home improvement-themed seasonal sales events such as Spring Black Friday or other holidays.

Recently added to their tech stack is Pentaleap, which sits alongside their other partners, adding additional functionality in targeting capabilities and supplementing media efforts. 

Home Depot boasts thousands of brands in store and online, so if you’re looking for a supplement to your big box retail media—and it makes sense for your category—this is a diversification to consider.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Home Depot advertising is worth your attention:

8. Best Buy

Specialty retailers have a lot to offer brands and advertisers, with incredible reach and unique advantages that are not to be overlooked. The beginning of 2022 brought with it a Best Buy Ads refresh, officially kicking off the program’s new name and revamped offerings. Best Buy continues to be a non-CPG staple on Instacart (yes, you can get that TV delivered today), and their curbside pickup option is still a winner.

Notable is the expansion of the free My Best Buy loyalty program, and the paid subscription service of Best Buy Total Tech. Both are great at collecting first-party data, of course. Their bets, like the acquisition of Great Call—a senior-focused tech company with assets such as the Jitterbug phone and medical alerts—are set to benefit the company not only in the long-term (per the plan), but in the short-term as well, as retail media growth accelerates.

Best Buy’s vast collection of first-party data (compiled over the last few decades), paired with over 1,000 brands and tech support services, indicates there’s more here than you might think in terms of potential retail media opportunities. By having an aging population focus, and tech services with their products, they’ll build stickiness with consumers in a space with less competition and a long-term outlook.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Best Buy advertising is worth your attention:

9. Ulta

Formerly known as DMPP (Digital Marketing Partnership Program), re-branded and expanded UB Media hit the scene in mid-2022 with their 37 million loyalty members that make up 95% of their sales. (Don’t forget to connect that Ultamate Rewards Card to your Target Circle account too, so you get credit for those Ulta stores within Target store concepts!) Fast-forward to October 2023, and they announced a partnership with Meta for retail ad network measurement.

Sponsored products in key page and results placements powered by Criteo have been effective in bringing eyeballs to brands in need of a boost, especially with the ultra competitive beauty category bursting forward with what seems like a new brand-to-watch every week.

A managed UB Media offering to harness 1P data in programmatic and social channels (like FB/IG and Snapchat) allows brands to get specific with the existing audiences at Ulta, and find new ones, digging into that loyalty card information at different loyalty levels (like Diamond and Platinum), and leaning in heavy to fan-favorite retailer seasonal moments like Faul Haul, Skinfatuation, and 21 Days of Beauty.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Ulta advertising is worth your attention:

10. Macy’s

Macy’s Media Network—featuring self-service capabilities for sponsored products through Criteo, and a long list of managed service options that target 1P audiences across category, complementary category, previous purchase behaviors, contextual and more—has a few stand-out features.

In addition to the decades-old Star Rewards loyalty program loaded with customer data, the average price point at Macy’s makes it amenable to credit card or Macy’s card payments. This helps close out the loop as well as the lazy load feature of the website, meaning that impressions actually count when the user sees them. (Not all retailers are on the up-and-up with the MRC standard.)

Macy’s is also still very much the leader in the fragrance and prestige skincare spaces, and bring with them a stable of private label brands in the apparel space. Additionally, Macy’s hosts an online store-within-a-store assortment with partner Toys ‘R’ Us, and is a sister company to Bloomingdale’s.

Macy’s Media Network is a heavily managed service today outside of sponsored products, but the insights and connections to previously-run campaigns (same brand and across the category)—and comparing what’s worked and what hasn’t—is a part of their DNA.

The added a non-endemic offering via Rokt to provide relevant offers to shoppers upon checkout on site using Macy’s first party data and Rokt’s partner data.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Macy’s advertising is worth your attention:

11. Walgreens

When it comes to drug and pharmacy retailers, one of their greatest advantages is locations, locations, locations. Simply put, they have a lot of them! And with click-and-collect sales on the rise, they also have a lot of eyeballs on their websites from shoppers planning to make a curbside pickup.

Boasting a ~8600 store count—and robust myWalgreens loyalty program, with ~113 million active members—Walgreens entered the retail media fray in 2020 with a sponsored products partnership with Criteo for onsite, “traditional” managed service options, and a PMP deal with The Trade Desk and Open Ap. This allows a self-service helping of their 1P data without the managed burden of timing, restrictions and minimums, putting the ability to reach a Walgreens customer that much closer. In 2022, WAG announced the launch of self-serve programmatic and clean-room solutions.

One particular thing to note is that when you have that many stores, geographic targeting becomes a much more important component, as a Walgreens customer may have more than one location that they frequent (i.e. one near work and one near home).

Don’t worry though; they’ve got that covered. Unlike many other retail media networks, Walgreens can divide and conquer. Online traffic is relatively low, as you might expect, with most shoppers going into a physical store for those everyday, drugstore-like items rather than going online and checking to have them shipped. There is a strong curbside pickup program to accompany the online sales behavior; just plan on 90%+ of the sales being and continuing to be offline.

Advertising Details

12. CVS

CVS launched the CMX Media Exchange in late summer 2020. An advertising network that allows advertisers to target ads across channels using a myriad of placements is looking to join the fray with their ExtraCare loyalty program’s rich first-party data.

While CVS.com might not be where the majority of their customers shop today, customers most certainly use that ExtraCare card both offline and online. Add in activities to further close that loop—like Instacart for last mile delivery, sponsored product options with Criteo, and the ability to do programmatic display onsite, offsite in their private network and social media marketing options—and depending on your category, you may find yourself a fan. And don’t forget their paid Care Pass program, which focuses heavily on folks with many prescriptions who may need them delivered.

CVS also has over 9,000 physical stores, meaning that most sales will be in-store, and could even be across multiple locations. Additionally, CVS serves as a store-within-a-store through their partnership with Target.

CMX has really charged their offerings (self-service via The Trade Desk), in store technology improvements and partnering heavily with policy makers of retail media like the IAB to help move the industry forward in measurement and visibility standards.

Advertising Details

13. Chewy

Chewy’s relatively new RMN presents a fantastic opportunity for pet brands to increase their visibility with actively shopping pet parents (20M+ of whom are Chewy members). Chewy’s self-serve platform uses Microsoft’s PromoteIQ for sponsored products and sponsored brands campaigns.

Chewy’s retail ecommerce sales growth is on the rise; the retailer nabbed second place in 2023, joining Walmart on the podium with Amazon.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Chewy advertising is worth your attention:

14. Gopuff

Philadelphia-based Gopuff is a food delivery startup, offering fast and affordable delivery of an increasing array of items in select cities across the country. In addition to popular soft drinks, chips and snacks, cookies and ice cream, canned beer and alcohol, and health and home essentials, Gopuff shoppers can also add Starbucks drinks, frozen goods, items from the Gopuff Kitchen, and more to their delivery order.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Gopuff advertising is worth your attention:

15. Amazon

I saved Amazon for last not because they aren’t important, but because you likely already know how important they are. According to eMarketer, Amazon is expected to receive $58.5 billion in retail media ad spending globally in 2024, which is about 42% of the total. When a retailer prides themselves on having everything—including great prices and easy returns—and ships it super fast…well…they tend to get a lot of business.

Amazon is the most-established RMN in just about every way. They were first-to-market, for starters, launching their network in 2012. And as their business has grown vertically and horizontally, with new ad opportunities and capabilities that set the standard for the industry, they’re simply too big to ignore in your marketing strategy.

If you want to reach the most people possible—with 50% of shoppers starting their search journey on Amazon—you have to sell and advertise on Amazon.

Advertising Details

Key reasons Amazon advertising is worth your attention:

And that’s just 15 top networks to explore, not even touching on SSP (sell side platforms) retail media platforms like Criteo and CitrusAd that help brands purchase retail media at scale from multiple networks. It’s a lot to keep up with, so we made it a full-time job for a whole team of talented experts.

Challenges of Using Retail Media Networks

While Retail Media Networks offer significant opportunities for brands, they also come with their own set of challenges. Understanding these challenges can help brands navigate the complexities of RMNs more effectively.

Data Sharing

One major challenge with RMNs is that marketers don’t own the data within these networks. This lack of ownership can create data silos, as platforms often do not communicate with each other. This fragmentation makes cross-platform and cross-channel decisions difficult. Brands can mitigate this issue by developing their own data, measurement, and analytics strategies to gain a clearer picture of their marketing performance.

Inconsistent Capabilities & Standards

Another challenge is the inconsistency in capabilities and standards across different RMNs. Each platform may use different measurement techniques, attribution models, ad types, and targeting capabilities. This inconsistency means that effectiveness on one RMN may not be easily transferable or comparable to another, complicating efforts to evaluate and optimize ad performance across multiple networks. The IAB has published multiple buying guides and established standards for retailers to opt into in order to provide that consistency and trust that brands need in order to understand media effectiveness and measurement needed to attribute sales to their investments. These buying guides illustrate definitions across online and instore, both in the US and the EU.

Competing on Bids

Bid competition is another significant challenge, particularly in larger RMNs. Depending on the size of the network and the ad types available, securing ad placements can become highly competitive. Balancing bid costs with your marketing budget requires careful strategy, especially for businesses with tighter budgets compared to their competitors. Winning bids without compromising your bottom line can be a delicate balancing act.

The Bottom Line

So now that you have all the information, where do you go from here?

The world of retail media is dizzying at times—especially when you expand your thinking beyond retail media into the greater mechanics and interplay of the retailers themselves, including private marketplaces like Target Plus, Mirakl, and private label brands that sneak in onsite retailer search results. (And that is just the online piece.)

The next rabbit hole of retail media is: How do you connect an in-store transaction to an online ad every time? The answer tends to be an investment and structural change that can handle this audience-based approach over individual retailers or channels and their ROI/ROAS.

Want to learn more about how Tinuiti can help you elevate your retail media strategy on Amazon and beyond? We’d love to chat!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published by Elizabeth Marsten in January 2021 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

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Media Update: DirecTV and Dish Merger, Meta & Snap AR, TikTok Search Campaigns Available

Tinuiti Innovation & Growth Team
Blog Sep 30 2024

Creative Testing Tactics to Improve Social Ad Performance

emily-sullivan-headshot
Emily Sullivan Content Specialist, Blog
Blog Sep 25 2024

Preparing for Prime Big Deals Days: Amazon’s Fall Deal Event

emily-sullivan-headshot
Emily Sullivan Content Specialist, Blog
9/19/24 paid media update collage
Blog Sep 19 2024

Media Update: Election-Driven CTV Spend Surge, Snap’s AI-Powered Spotlight, and Google Faces Antitrust Pressure

Tinuiti Innovation & Growth Team
Blog Sep 12 2024

What Advertisers Need to Know About Google Trusted Execution Environments

emily-sullivan-headshot
Emily Sullivan Content Specialist, Blog
woman in crowd portraying audience targeting
Blog Sep 05 2024

Audience Targeting Strategies for the Data-Driven Marketer

Tinuiti Team
9/4/24 Paid Media Update collage
Blog Sep 05 2024

Media Update: DirecTV-Disney Dispute, Snapchat Sponsored Snaps, and Google’s Video Action Campaign Deprecation

Tinuiti Innovation & Growth Team
Blog Aug 28 2024

Disney+ Advertising Guide: Specs & Strategy Tips for Marketers

emily-sullivan-headshot
Emily Sullivan Content Specialist, Blog

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