Retail media is everywhere

The average shopper may not notice it, but retail media is already everywhere.

It’s in our online shopping experiences, in the form of product ads and display banners. It’s in the stores we shop in, evolving from end-of-aisle displays and checkout cash register offers into digital ads on checkout screens and in hand-held scanners.

Retail media even extends to out-of-home environments, as it does for Australian retailer Woolworth’s after it acquired DOOH company Shopper Media Group in 2022. Beyond retail, it’s in the apps that we use, like Uber, and in non-retail sites, like Expedia Group.

Even travel is becoming part of the mix. Last June, Uber announced it would expand its JourneyTV — its video ad platform — across more than 50,000 rideshare vehicles in the US, partnering with T-Mobile’s for inventory. United Airlines also launched its media network last year, with access to ad space across 100,000 seatback screens.

That retail media is found in so many online destinations is a sign of the broader trend: the fragmentation of media, as consumers increasingly spend time outside of walled gardens.

“What I think is different now, the travel landscape has certainly become more fragmented, and we have so much data about that customer that it really allows us to support our advertising partners to find the most relevant customer, regardless of where they are in their journey,” says Rob Torres, senior vice president, media at Expedia Group.

With growth comes complexity. Several executives interviewed expressed concern at the sheer number of networks available worldwide. In response, some retailers are expanding their media inventories to help attract advertisers seeking scale and convenience in one place.

Last September, Roku announced a partnership with UK electronics retailer Curry’s, giving advertisers access to Roku’s ad inventory. Walmart’s acquisition of TV maker Vizio last year may have been designed to compete against Amazon and its Prime Video advertising flywheel.

At this rate, any place where people spend time — and money — could become a retail media network. Advertisers may benefit from access to more diverse media channels and nuanced insights into purchase journeys, but they’ll also need creative versatility to meet this growing variety of ad formats.

Let’s take it off-site

Retailers’ owned and operated media properties have limited ad inventory. That’s why the next frontier for retail media’s footprint could be off-site.

“We only have so much inventory on our own sites, but [the opportunity] of using that information to define that customer off-site is pretty much unlimited,” says Expedia Group’s Torres.

This data can be applied in a variety of online environments to find relevant audiences, from CTV to podcasts.

“I think we're going to see, over the course of the next year or two, a lot of retail media networks trying to rebrand themselves as audience networks,” says Dave Raggio, vice president, Intuit SMB MediaLabs. “The conversations that I'm hearing are about, how do they package up their audiences for off-site buys?”

CTV viewers are growing comfortable with shopping via their TVs, says the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). So much so that eMarketer projects that in 2027, one in five CTV ad dollars will be retail media spend.

This growth is no mystery: as third-party cookies lose relevance, retailer’s first-party data becomes more valuable than ever.

“Advertisers can no longer rely just on search history. We need ways to see what consumers have bought and to predict what they’ll likely buy again next,” says Mark Grether, SVP and general manager of PayPal Ads.

Rather than broadly targeting “expecting parents,”, advertisers can now reach shoppers who’ve recently bought diapers, for example. A similar opportunity is unfolding in music streaming and podcasts.

In-store media remains underdeveloped, with eMarketer forecasting that it will account for less than 1% of retail media spend through 2028. High capital requirements and complicated attribution models are barriers.

But simple math suggests retailers, with grocers leading the charge, may start looking at in-store applications once online real estate becomes saturated. After all, the majority of transactions still happens offline.

“We've seen huge growth in e-commerce, however the in-store shop is still an incredibly important part for most customers in terms of how they engage with retailers,” says Mike Tyquin, managing director at Cartology, the retail media arm of Woolworths.

LINK to next part - Need copy.