marketing

Brands Strain to Meet Audiences as Retail Media Networks Catch Fire

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Leora Kelman discusses Retail Media Networks

FOR CPG MARKETERS, the rise of Retail Media Networks (RMNs) continues to create opportunities to drive brand awareness and sales lift in stores by advertising to shoppers much nearer to the point of decision.

The lion’s share of this ad spending in North America has been concentrated on a handful of the very largest digital RMNs. Now many more retailers are angling to capture a fair share of this growing pie, installing digital screens, promising better measurement and even bringing merchants to the table.

At January’s National Retail Federation (NRF) pre-Expo conference day in New York, “What’s In-Store for Retail Media Networks,” sponsored by STRATACACHE, an all-star cast of industry experts and practitioners offered bullish forecasts and strategic advice for advertisers.

Originallly published in CPGmatters.com, Feb. 2026. Reproduced here by permission.

“The retail media market is exceptionally concentrated between Amazon and Walmart,” said Leora Kelman, Managing Director and Partner for Boston Consulting Group, noting that Amazon will control more than 75% of all retail media spending “through at least 2027.”

In-store is a more level playing field than ecommerce. A handful of digital giants command more than half of all online retail sales, led by Amazon with 40 percent, Walmart with 7 percent, Apple and eBay with 3 percent each, as reported by eMarketer in its May 2025 Forecast.

By comparison, total retail sales are far less concentrated, with Walmart garnering 11 percent and Amazon capturing just 5 percent in the NRF 2025 Top 100 Retailers ranking.

“How do we capture that attention of all of the people that we are not reaching through Amazon and Walmart?” Kelman asked. “They are shopping local retailers and a much, much wider range of players. How do we make sure we’re telling stories across those touchpoints? This is a huge opportunity.”

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Unified Shopper Engagement is Coming. Are Brands Ready?

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Unified customer engagement panelists at Groceryshop

CALL IT UNIFIED SHOPPER ENGAGEMENT. Once-sharp dividing lines that have separated trade marketing from personalized offers from retail media are blurring, as trading partners pursue best total returns across the full marketing funnel.

At the recent Groceryshop event in Las Vegas, executives from Ahold Delhaize USA’s AD Retail Media, Kroger Precision Marketing, and Walgreens Advertising Group shared how their organizations are each taking a more connected approach with these core marketing processes, to cover more of the spectrum of shopper engagement. They have aligned organizational structures and platforms to make this possible.

“We brought the digital merchandising team inside the retail media practice,” said panelist Bobby Watts of Ahold Delhaize USA. “We call it our connected store initiative.”

Originallly published in CPGmatters.com, Nov. 2025. Reproduced here by permission.

Watts’ job title offers a clue to what’s happening. He is SVP, AD Retail Media, Digital Merchandising & Marketing.

He elaborated in an interview: “We believe that you need to bring these areas together and build a holistic omni-channel commercial plan. This includes brick-and-mortar display, brick-and-mortar promotions, and price.”

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As Retail Media Evolves, Brands Face Tough Challenges

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Shopper media experience

AMONG THE MANY CHALLENGES facing CPGs in their efforts to make sense of retail media networks has been a pervasive storytelling bias.

On daily basis, we encounter widespread published commentary and reports celebrating retail media’s headlong growth, along with advice on tech, measurement, and monetization for retailers. Much of it comes from solution providers, consultancies and ad agencies vying to cash in on the burgeoning media sales opportunity. Wall Street analysts have been a megaphone for this side of the story too.

This article is part of a series. Republished here by permission from CPGmatters.

The bandwagon effect has been so powerful, the lure of “new” digital revenue so enticing, that critical thinking is too often abandoned by analysts and bloggers. Spending forecasts are frequently represented with “hockey stick” charts. With each new quarterly release, it seems as if proponents keep expanding the definition of “commerce media” to help drive the forecasts to new heights.

Meanwhile, for brand marketers (the lion’s share of all that juicy ad spending) pragmatic guidance about RMN strategy and practices seems relatively hard to come by.

Balancing the retail media story

As we have been documenting here in recent months, retail media is just now emerging from its nascent state. The digital network side has been dominated by early adopters who pioneered search and sponsored product advertising – Amazon Ads, Google Ads, Walmart Connect, Albertsons Media Collective, Kroger Precision Marketing, Instacart Carrot Ads, and a few others.

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Retail Media and CPGs: How do Brands Optimize Investments?

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Question marks at the table


AMID THE HYPE AND HYPERBOLE around Retail Media Networks, some fundamental issues about CPG marketing spending have barely been addressed. Brand marketers have an opportunity – perhaps an imperative – to elevate the dialog about how funds should be allocated, to maximize returns and sustain mutually profitable relationships with retail partners.

​Ad standards are yet to be established across the RMN universe. The allure of first-party data is compelling, but each network presents its own interfaces and definitions. Established norms around trade marketing spending – the lion’s share of marketing investment by brands – are under pressure. Beneath the surface lurk issues around fairness and proportionality, too.

THIS ARTICLE IS PART ONE of a series, originally published on CPGmatters.com

Experts contacted for this article spoke mostly on background. The consensus is that RMNs are not easy to master and that best practices are yet to emerge. They introduce a heightened degree of intricacy for brand marketers and retailers alike. Some standards may be on the horizon, but trading partner joint planning is not getting any easier.

Concentration at the Top

A relatively small handful of retailers with very broad geographies and high customer counts are sweeping up the lion’s share of retail media spending and decision-making capacity. This presents steep challenges for CPG brands. Their “brand-width” is not unlimited, after all.

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