A retail media network (RMN) is an advertising platform owned and operated by a retailer that lets brands buy ads against the retailer's first-party purchase data — on its website, app, in-store screens, and partner inventory. Because the retailer can match an ad impression to an actual transaction, RMNs offer closed-loop attribution that search and social cannot.
Retail media is now the third great digital ad channel — after search and social — and it is the fastest-growing of the three.
This is a satellite of the Paid Media in the Answer Engine Era pillar, with adjacency to the Digital Marketing pillar.
Retail media solved two problems at once. For retailers, thin-margin businesses like grocery and general merchandise discovered that selling ads against their own shopper data is dramatically more profitable than selling products. For brands, the deprecation of third-party cookies destroyed much of the targeting and measurement that paid social once delivered, and a retailer's logged-in, purchase-verified shopper data became the most reliable signal left.
The result is a channel built on a structural advantage no other media owns: the retailer knows what the shopper actually bought. That closes the loop between an ad and a sale in a way Google and Meta, for all their scale, cannot match on their own platforms.
The Numbers
U.S. retail media ad spend will reach roughly $69 billion in 2026, up about 18% year over year, growing faster than the broader digital ad market. Global retail media is forecast to exceed $163 billion by 2027, and on current trajectory it will represent roughly a quarter of all digital ad spending worldwide by 2028.
This is no longer an emerging channel. It is a core line in every consumer brand's media plan, and increasingly in categories, financial services, travel, telecom, that did not have retail media at all three years ago.
The Player Landscape
The U.S. retail media market has a clear hierarchy:
| Network | Owner | Position |
|---|
| Amazon Ads | Amazon | The largest RMN by a wide margin |
| Walmart Connect | Walmart | #2; strongest omnichannel reach, in-store plus online |
| Target Roundel | Target | Known for brand-partnership depth |
| Instacart Ads | Instacart | Grocery delivery, high purchase intent |
| Kroger Precision Marketing | Kroger | Deep grocery loyalty data |
Beyond the leaders, a long tail is forming, Home Depot, Best Buy, CVS Media Exchange, and a wave of newcomers in financial services and travel building networks on their own transaction data. CitrusAd (now part of Epsilon) provides retail media network infrastructure to smaller retailers building their own networks, a meta-layer that explains some of the category's continued growth.
The Amazon–Walmart Duopoly
The defining dynamic of 2026 is concentration. Amazon and Walmart are capturing close to 90% of the incremental growth in U.S. retail media. The gap between the two leaders and everyone else is widening, not closing.
For advertisers, this creates a hard allocation question. The leaders offer scale, mature tooling, and the deepest data, but also pricing power and a growing "retail media tax." The long-tail networks offer differentiated audiences and lower competition, but inconsistent measurement and thinner inventory. The disciplined approach treats Amazon and Walmart as non-negotiable base spend and the long tail as a tested, incremental layer, not an even spread.
Beyond the Website: In-Store and Connected TV
Retail media is no longer just sponsored product listings. Two expansions matter.
In-store has become digital. Retailer apps in "store mode" turn a shopper's phone into the most valuable inventory in the building, serving offers, navigation, and scan-and-go checkout at the point of decision. Walmart's in-store digital screens, Target's Bullseye in-store network, Kroger's KPM in-store integration, and smart-cart deployments (Instacart's Caper Carts, Amazon's Dash Cart) all extend the network into the physical store. Brands that have invested in this physical-digital integration produce measurable conversion lift at the moment of purchase decision; brands still treating in-store as a separate trade-marketing layer are losing to the ones that have integrated the two.
Connected TV is converging with retail media. Retailers increasingly use purchase data to target and measure streaming ads, combining high-intent shopper signals with the reach of the living-room screen. It is one of the fastest-growing slices of the channel.
A parallel category is emerging: commerce media networks run by intermediaries that sit between shoppers and merchants. DoorDash Ads and Instacart each already generate close to $1 billion in annual U.S. ad revenue, and they offer something traditional RMNs cannot, visibility into cross-merchant purchase behavior. They are still proving they deliver genuinely incremental audiences, but they are competing directly for budgets that once flowed only to retailer-owned networks. The broader "commerce media" category also includes Pinterest Shopping, TikTok Shop's advertising layer, Google Shopping Ads, Meta's commerce surfaces, and the emerging payment-platform networks (Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay), all operating inside the same closed-loop measurement logic.
What It Means for Advertisers
The appeal of retail media is real: closed-loop attribution, purchase-verified targeting, and proximity to the moment of decision. But the channel carries its own problems.
It is fragmented, running retail media well means operating across a dozen networks, each with its own platform, data definitions, and reporting. Measurement is not standardized, which makes cross-network comparison difficult. And there is a live question of incrementality, whether a retail media ad genuinely created a sale or simply took credit for a purchase that would have happened anyway. The brands getting real value treat retail media with the same rigor as any other channel: incrementality testing, not platform-reported ROAS taken at face value.
The growth of retail media networks restructures the relationship between consumer brands and the broader media ecosystem, not just where the ad dollars go, but where the trade-marketing and brand-communications dollars go too. Budget that historically funded retailer slotting fees, in-store displays, and category management has migrated into retail media spend. Budget that historically funded brand-awareness advertising and conventional editorial relationships has started migrating as well, as brands recognize that retail media converts better for direct-response purchases than equivalent conventional channels. The brands building communications operations that integrate earned media, brand voice, and retail media spend into one coordinated plan, rather than running them as separate functions, are the ones positioned to own this category as it keeps growing.
The Outlook
Retail media's hyper-growth phase is maturing into something more permanent, a structural pillar of digital advertising rather than a novelty. The center of gravity will stay with Amazon and Walmart. The growth edges are in-store, connected TV, and commerce media. For consumer brands, the question is no longer whether to invest in retail media. It is how to operate across a fragmented landscape without overpaying the leaders or spreading too thin across the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a retail media network?
A retail media network is an advertising platform owned and operated by a retailer that lets brands buy ads against the retailer's first-party purchase data, across its website, app, in-store screens, and partner inventory. Because the retailer can match an ad impression to an actual transaction, retail media offers closed-loop attribution that search and social advertising cannot.
How big is the retail media market in 2026?
U.S. retail media ad spend is projected to reach roughly $69 billion in 2026, up about 18% year over year. Global retail media is forecast to exceed $163 billion by 2027, and on current trajectory could represent roughly a quarter of all digital ad spending worldwide by 2028.
Who are the biggest retail media networks?
Amazon Ads is the largest retail media network by a wide margin, followed by Walmart Connect. Target Roundel, Instacart Ads, and Kroger Precision Marketing round out the next tier. Amazon and Walmart together capture close to 90% of the incremental growth in U.S. retail media.
What is a commerce media network?
A commerce media network is run by an intermediary that sits between shoppers and merchants rather than a single retailer. DoorDash Ads and Instacart are the leading examples, each generating close to $1 billion in annual U.S. ad revenue by offering visibility into cross-merchant purchase behavior that a single retailer's network cannot.
What's the biggest risk in retail media spending?
Incrementality. A retail media ad taking credit for a purchase that would have happened anyway is a live measurement problem across the category, made worse by fragmented, non-standardized reporting across a dozen different networks. Advertisers getting real value run incrementality testing rather than accepting platform-reported ROAS at face value.
Is retail media replacing search and social advertising?
No, it's becoming the third major channel alongside them. Retail media is the fastest-growing of the three because it offers purchase-verified targeting that neither search nor social can match on their own platforms, but brands are adding it to their mix rather than replacing established channels outright.
Related reading
Inside the Paid Media cluster: Paid Media in the Answer Engine Era · Why the 2026 Marketing Budget Looks Different From 2024
The 2026 Retail Media Walled Gardens · How Walmart Rebuilt Its Reputation · Walmart's Agent Stack · Target Corp: The Canonical Mass Merchant Profile
Methodology and Updates
This is an evergreen explainer, reviewed and updated quarterly. Market data is drawn from primary industry sources including eMarketer, GroupM, and company filings. Where forecasts differ across sources, the page reflects the consensus range rather than the outlier.
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