Retail media ad spending in the U.S. hit over $60 billion in 2025, accounting for nearly 20% of all digital ad dollars (eMarketer, 2025). That number is projected to approach $130 billion by 2028. The growth is driven by one thing: first-party purchase data. As third-party cookies disappear and signal loss cripples traditional targeting, retailers are sitting on the most valuable advertising asset in the market: they know exactly what people buy.
A retail media network (RMN) is an advertising platform operated by a retailer that lets brands target shoppers using the retailer's own purchase, search, and browsing data. Amazon started the category. Now Walmart, Target, Kroger, Instacart, Costco, Home Depot, and dozens of others have launched their own networks. If you sell products through retail channels, retail media is no longer optional. It's where your customers are making buying decisions, and where your competitors are already spending.
Top Retail Media Networks Compared
| Network | Monthly Shoppers | Data Signal | Core Ad Formats | Off-Site Capability | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Ads | 310M+ active customers globally | Purchase history, search queries, browsing, streaming (Prime Video, Twitch, Freevee) | Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, Streaming TV | Yes (Amazon DSP reaches external sites, apps, and CTV) | Brands selling on Amazon. Full-funnel from search to streaming TV. |
| Walmart Connect | ~150M weekly U.S. customers (Walmart, 2025) | In-store + online purchase data, search behavior, store visits | Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Display, In-store (TV walls, self-checkout screens) | Yes (partnership with The Trade Desk for off-site programmatic) | CPG brands. Unique in-store ad formats. Strongest for grocery and household categories. |
| Target Roundel | ~100M+ Target Circle loyalty members (Target, 2024) | Purchase data, Target Circle loyalty program (100M+ members), browsing, app behavior | Sponsored Products, Display, Video, CTV, Social (Pinterest and Meta integrations) | Yes (off-site display and CTV through Roundel Media Studio) | Brands targeting younger, higher-income demographics. Strong in apparel, beauty, and home. |
| Instacart Ads | ~14M+ monthly active users (Instacart, 2024) | Real-time cart data, purchase history, search queries at the point of purchase | Sponsored Products, Display, Shoppable Display, Brand Pages | Limited (primarily on-platform, expanding to partner retailer sites) | Grocery and CPG brands. Ads appear while shoppers are actively building orders. |
| Kroger Precision Marketing (84.51) | ~60M U.S. households (Kroger/84.51, 2024) | Loyalty card purchase data (one of the deepest grocery datasets in the U.S.) | On-site Sponsored Products, Off-site Display, CTV, Social | Yes (strong off-site via 84.51 Audience Intelligence) | Grocery and CPG. Exceptionally strong closed-loop measurement tying ad exposure to in-store purchase. |
Why Retail Media Networks Are Growing So Fast
First-party data is the new gold
Retailers own transactional data that no other advertising platform can match. Amazon knows what people buy. Walmart knows what they buy in-store and online. Kroger has decades of loyalty card purchase history. This data allows targeting based on actual purchase behavior, not proxies like "interested in cooking" (which might be based on someone reading one recipe article). When you target "bought organic pasta sauce in the last 90 days" on Kroger, that signal is concrete.
Closed-loop attribution
The biggest pain point in digital advertising is proving that an ad actually caused a sale. On Meta or Google, you're dealing with attribution models, cross-device tracking gaps, and cookie limitations. On retail media networks, the transaction happens on the same platform as the ad. Walmart can tell you that a shopper saw your Sponsored Product ad on Tuesday and bought the product in-store on Thursday. This closed-loop measurement makes retail media the most accountable advertising channel available.
Brands must pay to play
As organic visibility on retailer platforms shrinks (sound familiar, Facebook circa 2014?), paid placement becomes necessary to maintain share of shelf. Amazon search results now show 2-3 sponsored listings before the first organic result. Walmart and Instacart are following the same pattern. If your competitor is paying for the top slot and you're not, you're losing sales at the point of purchase.
How to Choose the Right Retail Media Networks
Most brands can't afford to run on every network. Here's how to prioritize:
- Start where you already sell. If 60% of your retail revenue comes through Walmart and Amazon, those are your first two RMN investments. Advertising on a network where you have weak distribution is wasted spend.
- Match the network to your category. Instacart and Kroger are strongest for grocery and CPG. Target Roundel over-indexes in beauty, home, and apparel. Amazon covers everything but dominates in electronics, home goods, and consumables.
- Evaluate measurement capabilities. Kroger's 84.51 has some of the strongest closed-loop measurement in the industry, linking digital ad exposure to in-store purchase at the household level. Amazon's attribution is strong for on-platform sales but weaker for offline lift. Ask each network: "Can you prove my ad drove an incremental sale?"
- Consider off-site reach. If you want to use retail data for targeting beyond the retailer's own site, Walmart Connect (through The Trade Desk), Amazon DSP, and Kroger's 84.51 all offer off-site programmatic capabilities. This extends your retail audience targeting to the broader web, CTV, and social.
Example: A CPG Brand's Retail Media Expansion
A snack food brand spent 90% of their digital ad budget on Amazon Sponsored Products. When Walmart Connect launched improved targeting capabilities, they allocated 15% of their Amazon budget to test Walmart's retail media platform. The results surprised them: Walmart's lower competition meant their cost-per-click was 40% less than Amazon, and their ROAS on Walmart was 4.2x compared to 2.8x on Amazon. The eMarketer Retail Media Ad Spending Forecast projects US retail media ad spend will reach $60.3 billion in 2025 and $71.1 billion in 2026. The snack brand's experience illustrates why: retail media isn't just Amazon anymore. Brands that diversify early capture lower CPCs and less saturated audiences on emerging retail media platforms.
Common Retail Media Mistakes
- Treating retail media as separate from trade spend. Many brands fund retail media from their digital marketing budget while trade and shopper marketing budgets remain siloed. The most effective approach treats retail media as the digital evolution of trade spend. Your shopper marketing, trade, and retail media teams should be coordinating strategy.
- Running only lower-funnel sponsored product ads. Sponsored Products are the easy win, but they only capture existing demand. Brands that invest in display, video, and off-site campaigns on retail media networks build the awareness that feeds future search volume. Think of it the same way you'd balance prospecting and retargeting on Meta.
- Ignoring incrementality. Retail media platforms love to report on "attributed sales," but some of those sales would have happened without the ad. Demand incrementality testing from your network partners. Ask for lift studies and holdout tests. Without incrementality data, you might be paying for sales you would have gotten organically.
- Spreading budget too thin. Running $5,000/month on five different retail media networks means you're under-investing on all of them. Concentrate budget on 1-2 networks where you have the strongest distribution and the highest sales potential. Scale there first, then expand.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I budget for retail media?
A common starting point is allocating 10-15% of retailer-specific revenue back into that retailer's media network, adjusting based on category competition and margin structure. If you do $5 million annually on Amazon, a $500K-$750K Amazon Ads budget is a reasonable starting point. But the right number depends on your category, competitive intensity, and growth goals.
Do I need to work with each retail media network separately?
Currently, yes. Each network has its own platform, targeting options, ad formats, and reporting. This is one of the biggest operational challenges in retail media. Tools like Pacvue, Skai, and Intentwise help manage multiple networks from a single interface, but each network still requires distinct strategy and creative.
Is retail media just for big CPG brands?
No. Amazon Sponsored Products has no minimum spend, and many small brands build profitable businesses there. Walmart Connect and Instacart have also lowered barriers to entry. The network comparison table above shows that entry points exist for most budget levels. The enterprise-scale commitment comes when you start adding DSP, CTV, and off-site campaigns across multiple networks.
How does retail media affect my organic rankings on these platforms?
Indirectly, it helps. On Amazon, ad-driven sales velocity boosts organic search ranking. A product that sells 100 units per day (partly from ads) will rank higher organically than one selling 50 units per day with no ad support. This flywheel effect means retail media investment compounds over time, unlike traditional advertising where stopping spend stops results immediately.
Read next: Amazon DSP for a deep dive into Amazon's programmatic advertising platform, or Amazon Sponsored Products for the fundamentals of Amazon's search advertising.