Your ultimate guide to retail media and retail media networks (RMNs)
June 2, 2026 10 min read 41 views
Retail media is reshaping digital media and advertising. It allows brands to promote their products directly on a retailer’s websites, apps, and other digital properties, with the retailer’s first-party data to target shoppers more precisely. At the center of this shift are retail media networks (RMNs): AdTech platforms owned by retailers that turn their audiences and ad inventory into a new revenue stream. In this era of advertising, every retailer is also a media company, and every shopper journey is an opportunity.
Key points
- Retail media involves brands showing advertisements across a retailer or e-commerce company’s properties.
- Commerce media is an extension of retail media as it allows both retailers and their brand partners to reach audiences across the open web, not just on a retailer’s digital properties.
- Retail media ads can also come in many forms, with the main ones being sponsored products, onsite advertising, and offsite advertising.
- A retail media network (RMN) is essentially an advertising technology (AdTech) platform that’s owned and/or operated by a retailer.
What is retail media?
Retail media involves brands showing advertisements across a retailer or e-commerce company’s properties. Typically, you can associate this with ads on a retailer’s website, mobile app, and marketplace, but other examples include CTV, audio services, DOOH, and email list. It is similar to traditional display and search advertising but with a focus on retail and e-commerce products and services, often delivered through programmatic channels for greater scale and precision.
The retail media environment is constantly expanding. According to an analysis by Grand View Research, it is anticipated to expand to $36.53 billion by 2033,
The driving force for retail media networks is e-commerce. The concept of e-commerce includes not only online stores, but all e-transactions, e.g., auctions, currency trading, e-banking, travel industry services, etc.
Each of these industries can use retail media to find customers and show them ads for their products or services.
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What’s the difference between retail media, commerce media, and e-commerce?
Terms “retail media,” “commerce media,” and “e-commerce” all refer to the same thing — commerce, with the differences being in how it is carried out.
Retail media: Retail media involves a brand displaying ads for their products and services on a retailer’s websites, apps and platforms. Advertisements are shown to consumers to build brand awareness and influence the customer at the point of purchase, ultimately improving conversion rates at the moment of highest intent. Retail media allows retailers to monetize their first-party data and audiences and create a new revenue stream.
Commerce media: Commerce media is an extension of retail media as it allows both retailers and their brand partners to reach audiences across the open web, not just on a retailer’s digital properties. The idea here is to make it possible for advertisers to reach their target audience using their and their retailer partner’s first-party data across different websites and apps. This allows brands to communicate with their target audience along the entire purchase path by showing them relevant ads that are personalized to each shopper.
E-commerce: E-commerce sites are where customers conduct online transactions. They can also utilize retail and commerce media to show ads on their digital properties and across other websites.
What are examples of retail media advertising?
A classic example would be Samsung advertising its new TVs on Walmart’s website. While this may sound very similar to traditional display advertising, the key difference is the ad placement (i.e., a retailer’s website) and the fact that a brand will often utilize a retailer’s first-party data to power ad targeting.
Retail media ads can also come in many forms, with the main ones being:
Sponsored products: A brand’s products or services displayed on a retailer’s search results page.
Onsite advertising: A brand’s products or services shown as displayed ads on a retailer’s website.
Offsite advertising: A brand’s products or services displayed as ads on a different website (e.g., not the retailer’s) using a retailer’s first-party data.
Where did retail media come from?
Retail media can be seen as a digital version of in-store retail advertising, where ads for products are displayed in physical stores and close to points of purchase. With retail advertising, brands would utilize A-boards, in-store ads, loyalty cards, coupons, samples, etc. as a way of driving up sales.
In addition to in-store advertising, retailers also had advertising in traditional media channels at their disposal: newspapers, television, radio and out-of-home (OOH) advertising.
The ability to reach customers was limited to the reach provided by these traditional advertising channels. Reviewing whether advertising was a success or a failure was difficult and expensive.
Everything changed in 1994, when the telecommunications company AT&T displayed the first Internet ad on HotWired.com, which represented the beginning of digital advertising.
The development of advertising technologies has given retailers the opportunity to reach new customers and create new sources of revenue. Today, retailers and e-commerce companies can use online media to advertise their products and services.
What is a retail media network (RMN)?
A retail media network (RMN) is essentially an advertising technology (AdTech) platform that’s owned and/or operated by a retailer. A retail media network gathers ad space across a retailer’s websites, e-commerce platforms and mobile apps and offers it to brands. The RMN would also utilize the retailer’s first-party data to help brands show personalized ads to their target audience.
Brands could also use their own first-party data and match it with a retailer’s first-party data, e.g. via a data clean room, to improve ad targeting, measurement and attribution, leading to a stronger return on ad spend across campaigns.
It is widely recognized that the first platform that brought retailers together was Amazon. Amazon sells ad space to retailers via its Amazon Advertising retail media network. The new business model caught on quickly, and other retailers have started to copy it.
Retail media networks have emerged to create new revenue streams with programmatic advertising that makes up for low and fixed margins on products and services.
Here are a few examples of retail media platforms that allow brands to advertise on the retailer’s website and mobile apps:
- Walgreens Advertising Group — A RMN offering access to over-the-top (OTT), CTV and linear TV audiences.
- Instacart Advertising — Instacart focuses on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) using its own data.
- eBay Ads — a platform created by eBay where advertisers can reach their customers.
Retailers with a wide and active user base have a good opportunity to create their own retail media networks.
They can build a new revenue stream by leveraging their existing business model and audiences, the potential of AdTech and the scale provided by the Internet.
Why are retailers building their own retail media networks?
Over the years, we’ve seen a massive increase in the number of retailers building their own retail media networks, from traditional brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart to digital-only e-commerce companies like eBay.
Retailers have opted to build their own retail media networks for several reasons:
- E-commerce development — e-commerce has been gaining popularity since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers appreciated its convenience, with many businesses having to move online because of lockdowns. Building an RMN allows retailers to take advantage of this trend and refine their retail media strategy as shopper habits evolve.
- Preparing for the event of end of third-party cookies — retail media networks open new advertising opportunities by allowing brands to reach potential customers with personalized advertising using a retailer’s, and their own, first-party data for ad targeting.
- Closed-loop measurement — retailers can measure the performance of ad campaigns using their first-party data and their retail media network, giving advertisers clearer visibility into ROI.
As user privacy becomes more and more important, brands will look for advertising solutions that allow them to use first-party data to identify and target their audience in a privacy-focused manner, as well as measure and attribute their ad campaign performance.
How can retailers leverage retail media networks?
Retail media networks offer a wide range of benefits for retailers. By leveraging RMNs, they can increase the worth of their brands, streamline their e-commerce sales, compete with Google and Meta for ad spend, enhance their product development with insights and reports, and deepen each partnership with their providers, all while improving the overall customer experience across digital touchpoints.
RMNs offer brands the ability to reach a retailer’s audience on other digital channels, such as:
- Ads for video-streaming services and video ads — ads that appear on streaming services during movies and TV shows.
- Audio ads — served between content when users are listening to music and podcasts.
- Email ads — displayed inside a retailer’s or company’s newsletters.
- Social media ads — displayed on a user’s social media feed.
How do retail media networks perform?
Retail media networks (RMNs) continue to experience significant growth, outperforming many other digital advertising channels. Leading retailers are expanding their advertising ventures to capitalize on this trend.
At the same time, new entrants are emerging in the retail media landscape. For example, PayPal has launched PayPal Ads, an advertising platform enabling marketers and third-party brands to leverage data from billions of transactions across its services, including Venmo and Honey.
These developments underscore the expanding role of RMNs in the digital advertising ecosystem, offering brands and advertisers new avenues to reach consumers effectively.
Below are some more numbers that represent the growth of RMNs.
- Amazon’s advertising business is projected to surpass $60 billion in 2025, putting it in the league of the world’s top media companies.
- In the retailer’s fiscal Q1 2026, Walmart’s global ad revenue climbed 50% year-over-year, while Walmart Connect—its U.S. retail media arm—grew by 31%, driven in part by its first full quarter leveraging Vizio CTV inventory.
- Instacart’s ad revenue surpassed $1 billion in 2024, reaching around $1.18 billion, on a 25.5% rise.
- As of mid 2025, there are approximately 275 retail media networks globally, and this number continues to grow.
FAQ
The future of retail media networks
Retail media has evolved from a niche advertising tactic into one of the fastest-growing pillars of the digital economy. Retail media networks are expanding beyond websites and apps into CTV, audio, email, and the open web, blurring the line between retailer and media companies. The question for retailers is no longer whether to invest in retail media, but how quickly they can build the capabilities to compete.
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