As more retailers embrace the idea of digital retail media– both to keep up with competitors and to add a much-needed new revenue stream to their bottom line – so spending in the sector has continued to rise.
According to data, global digital retail media spending hit $136 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach $145.5 billion by the end of 2025. However, these figures grossly underplay the money that is currently changing hands in retail media worldwide. These figures are based on publicly available results from retailers and other owners of retail and commerce media networks and so only give an insight into part of the picture.
What is clear is that retail media takes a relatively consistent 20% of total digital ad spend worldwide – a figure that itself continues to rise – and shows how trenchant retail media is as a marketing channel for brands.
But it comes with challenges. Lack of consistency in measuring how effective campaigns are, coupled with an increasingly large and fragmented range of retail media networks for brands to choose from is seeing the market split into some behemoth winners and many minnow losers.
This fragmentation, however, may yet be what make the sector work. Specialising in niche markets – driven by the ability for first-party data to drill down very specifically into ‘individual’ customer mores – is the next area for the expansion of the global retail media market.
In this report we dissect where the industry is today, where it is heading and what is driving it there, including:
- Market dynamics – a snapshot of the value of the global retail media market in 2024
- The retailer perspective – a detailed look at how the retail media offering across onsite, offsite and in-store is evolving and how retailers drive and measure success
- The advertiser perspective – a look at how brands and advertisers view retail media networks, how they spend and what they are looking for when they select the retail media campaigns they choose
- The customer perspective – drilling down into ConsumerX data, the report uncovers how consumers want to be marketed to and what sways their purchases decisions
- The Road Ahead – next steps in the evolution of retail media, from AI data parsing to the role of AR, VR and beyond.
- Including 10 Retail Media Network profiles, such as Tesco Media & Insight, Amazon Ads, Retail Media Ninja and many more
