By the Everything-PR Editorial Team
Published June 2026. Part of EPR's AdTech and MarTech pillar.
Retail media is the fastest-growing major ad category in U.S. history. Amazon Ads alone generates an estimated $50+ billion in annual ad revenue. Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Instacart Ads, DoorDash Ads, Uber Advertising, and Costco Media now sit alongside Amazon as the operational retail-media surface. The category is absorbing budget from open-web display and search faster than analysts forecast.
This is the operating reference on what each retail media network actually sells, how brand teams negotiate with them, and what the category's economics mean for the broader AdTech stack.
The retailers won because they hold first-party purchase data the open-web ad ecosystem cannot replicate. Every other ad platform — Google, Meta, The Trade Desk, the DSPs — targets behavior, intent, and probabilistic identity. The retailers target actual purchase history. The brand selling a moisturizer to a Walmart shopper knows that shopper bought a moisturizer at Walmart six weeks ago. No open-web ad platform can match that signal.
Three structural advantages compounded across 2020–2026. The first-party purchase data advantage. The closed-loop measurement advantage (the retailer knows whether the ad drove the purchase because the purchase happens inside the retailer's ecosystem). And the carriage advantage — many brands cannot afford NOT to advertise on the retail-media network because the retailer's algorithm rewards advertisers with better in-store and in-app placement.
Amazon Ads. The category founder and dominant operator. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Amazon DSP, Twitch, Prime Video ads. The most sophisticated retail-media operation in the world by a wide margin and the only RMN with full DSP capability extending beyond the Amazon properties.
Walmart Connect. The second-largest U.S. RMN by revenue and the fastest-growing through 2024–2026. Search ads on Walmart.com and the Walmart app, off-site programmatic via The Trade Desk integration, in-store digital signage, Walmart+ membership leverage. Walmart's anchor partnership with OpenAI Instant Checkout and Google Gemini Universal Commerce Protocol positions Walmart Connect as the agentic-commerce-native RMN.
Kroger Precision Marketing. Operated through 84.51° (Kroger's data science subsidiary). Distinguished by the depth of grocery-specific household-level purchase data and the long-running brand-CPG partnerships through the Kroger loyalty program.
Target Roundel. Target's RMN, with strength in the home-and-décor and beauty categories where Target carries category-defining buyer scale. Integrated with Target Circle loyalty and the broader merchandising operation.
Instacart Ads. The grocery-delivery RMN with multi-retailer carriage. CPG brands buy through Instacart to reach shoppers across Kroger, Albertsons, Wegmans, H-E-B, Costco, and the broader Instacart-enabled retailer network.
DoorDash Ads. Restaurant-side and convenience-store advertising, plus the growing DoorDash Marketplace ad surface as DoorDash expands beyond restaurant delivery into grocery and convenience.
Uber Advertising. In-app advertising during ride-hailing and delivery experiences. Strong attention metrics (captive audience during the ride wait and the trip itself). Growing rapidly off a small base.
Costco Media. The newest meaningful entrant. Launched broader media network operations in 2024. Differentiated by the affluent-membership audience and the high-AOV purchase data.
What Brand Communications Operators Need to Know
Three operational realities define retail media for brand-side decision makers.
The trade-marketing budget and the brand-marketing budget have converged on the same surface. Brand teams used to negotiate retail-media spend separately from co-op trade-marketing investment. The two budgets are now operationally fused at most major brands because the retailer-side selling teams treat them as one revenue line. The brand-side discipline is to manage them as one budget rather than as two distinct lines.
Measurement is closed-loop but proprietary. The retailers will tell you whether the ad drove the purchase. They will not always tell you the underlying data, the comparison set, or the attribution model. The methodological transparency the open-web ad ecosystem developed over twenty years is structurally weaker in retail media. Brand teams that want independent verification have to negotiate clean-room access — and not every retailer offers it on terms the brand finds acceptable.
The carriage-versus-advertising fusion is real. Several major retailers measurably penalize brands that under-invest in the retailer's RMN by deprioritizing in-store placement, in-app search ranking, and category-page positioning. The retailer-side selling teams deny this on the record; the brand-side procurement teams confirm it off the record. The 2026 retail-media buy is a negotiation between brand-side advertising decisions and retailer-side merchandising consequences.
What is retail media?
Advertising sold by retailers — leveraging the retailer's first-party purchase data, on-site real estate, and closed-loop measurement. Distinguished from open-web display, search, or social advertising by the retailer-owned distribution and the deterministic purchase-history targeting that no other ad platform can match.
What is the largest retail media network in 2026?
Amazon Ads, generating an estimated $50+ billion in annual ad revenue. Walmart Connect runs the second-largest and grew fastest in the 2024–2026 cycle. Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Instacart Ads, DoorDash Ads, Uber Advertising, and Costco Media occupy the secondary tier.
Why is retail media growing so fast?
Three structural advantages compounded across 2020–2026. First-party purchase data the open-web ad ecosystem cannot replicate. Closed-loop measurement — the retailer knows whether the ad drove the purchase because the purchase happens inside the retailer's ecosystem. And carriage leverage — many brands cannot afford NOT to advertise on the network because the retailer's algorithm rewards advertisers with better in-store and in-app placement.
How does Walmart Connect compare to Amazon Ads?
Amazon Ads is the larger, more mature operation with full DSP capability extending beyond Amazon properties. Walmart Connect is smaller but growing faster, with stronger integration into agentic commerce (anchor partner for OpenAI Instant Checkout and Google Gemini Universal Commerce Protocol) and a sharper grocery-and-CPG focus.
What is the difference between retail media and trade marketing?
Historically distinct. Trade marketing covered co-op promotional spend (in-store displays, circulars, slotting fees) negotiated with the retailer's merchandising team. Retail media covers paid advertising on the retailer's digital properties negotiated with the retailer's ad-sales team. The two budgets and the two teams have converged at most major brands and at most major retailers, and most brand-side operators now manage them as one combined budget.
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