Social Rocket
Retail media has long grown beyond sponsored products on the digital shelf. Networks from Amazon, Walmart, Kroger and other retailers increasingly want to win branding and upper-funnel budgets too. At the same time, current market studies show that proximity to the purchase does not automatically mean strong brand impact.
WARC forecasts 200,4 billion US dollars in retail media spending worldwide for 2026. By 2027 it is expected to reach 223,4 billion dollars – at which point the channel would account for 15,2 percent of global advertising spending.
Retail media is taking budgets from CTV, social and display
McKinsey now sees commerce media at a turning point. 56 percent of the US media buyers surveyed want to increase their spending over the next twelve months. The additional money often does not come from a separate retail media pot: 22 percent want to shift budgets from digital video, CTV and OTT, 20 percent from display, 18 percent from social and 15 percent from search.
As a result, retail media networks increasingly compete directly with classic reach and branding channels. This fits Walmart's expansion of Walmart Connect towards CTV, social and offsite.
Organisationally, retail, media and marketing are also moving closer together. At Lowe's, digital commerce, loyalty, personalisation and retail media now sit under the same CMO responsibility.
WARC: proximity to purchase is not automatically brand impact
The current WARC report offers an important counterpoint to the full-funnel pitch. In simulated shopping environments on Walmart and Amazon, memory encoding for ads on retailer platforms was 47 percent lower than in generic offsite environments.
This does not mean that retail media does not work as a branding channel. Rather, it shows that a highly transactional environment places different demands on creative and placement. Among undecided buyers, high creative quality in the same study led to a 12 percent increase in short-term brand choice.
WARC summarises the challenge accordingly: retail media is strong at converting existing demand, but weaker at long-term brand building. There is also the risk that too many ad placements degrade the shopping experience and with it the effectiveness of the advertising.
Measurement remains the bottleneck
The more branding budget flows into retail media, the less a single platform ROAS suffices as proof of success. That is precisely why the industry is working on more standardised measurement models.
IAB Europe has updated its Commerce Media Measurement Standards V2.1 2026. New elements include, among others, a clearer measurement funnel, standardised definitions for gross and net revenue, a formal definition of incrementality, and a standard 30-day lookback window with adjustable alternatives.
On 17 September 2026, IAB Europe also published new proposals for in-store measurement. A five-zone model and a simplified "Opportunity To See" framework are intended to make retail media in physical stores more comparable.
This development matters because brands are now spreading their budgets across several networks. According to McKinsey, advertisers now work with around six commerce media networks on median, up from four the previous year. Without shared definitions, comparing these platforms quickly becomes a reporting problem.
What marketers should take away
Retail media should not automatically be filed as a performance channel or as a branding channel. The specific campaign goal is decisive. For sales activation, retailer data, purchase proximity and closed measurement loops can offer huge advantages. For awareness and brand building, creative quality, audience overlaps and genuine incremental impact need closer scrutiny.
Anyone shifting budgets should therefore answer at least three questions: What effect arises in addition to the purchase that would have happened anyway? Are the metrics comparable across several networks? And does the creative work in an environment where users are primarily shopping rather than consuming advertising?
That retail media is no longer a side channel economically is also shown by Kroger: the company recently reported 24 percent profit growth in its retail media business and is increasingly connecting its data with YouTube, TikTok and CTV.