The State of Retail Media in 2026: How the Shelf Became an Ad Network
Updated: 6 days ago
Retail media — ads sold by retailers using their shopper data — is advertising's fastest-growing channel, with US spend nearing $70bn in 2026 and global spend forecast to pass $300bn by 2030.
Advertising's Fastest-Growing Channel
Retail media has gone from a curiosity to a cornerstone. In the US alone, retail media ad spend is nearing $70bn in 2026, and eMarketer forecasts the worldwide market will surpass $300bn by 2030. No other major ad channel is growing this fast.
The idea is simple but powerful: retailers — from Amazon and Walmart to Tesco and Asda — sell advertising using their own first-party shopper data, placing brand messages right at the point of purchase. The shelf, digital and physical, has become an ad network.
Why It's Booming
Three forces are driving the surge. First, the decline of the third-party cookie made retailers' logged-in, purchase-based data extraordinarily valuable. Second, retail media closes the loop between ad and sale, offering the measurability marketers crave. Third, it is enormously profitable for retailers — high-margin revenue that funds price investment elsewhere.
Marketing Minute's read: retail media is where brand money is migrating because it answers the question every CMO is asked — did it sell anything? When you can tie a specific ad to a specific basket, the budget conversation gets a lot easier.
The Risks Hiding in the Hype
It isn't a free lunch. Retail media can become a tax on brands — pay to play for shelf visibility — and an over-reliance on lower-funnel, in-store conversion can starve the brand-building that creates demand in the first place. Measurement is also inconsistent across the dozens of competing networks.
Our teardown of Asda plugging into Amazon's ad engine showed how even mid-size retailers are now entering the game, which means more networks, more fragmentation and more need for discipline about where the money actually works.
How to Use It Well
Treat retail media as one layer, not the whole plan. Use it to capture existing demand efficiently, but keep investing in the brand work that creates demand upstream. Demand measurement parity across networks, and don't let available inventory dictate strategy.
A simple framework: brand to create demand, retail media to harvest it, and a single view of incrementality to judge both. The brands that keep that balance win; the ones that pour everything into the shelf quietly erode their own pricing power.
Quick FAQ
What is retail media?
Advertising sold by retailers using their own first-party shopper data, placing brand messages at or near the point of purchase, online and in store.
How big is retail media in 2026?
US retail media ad spend is nearing $70bn in 2026, and eMarketer forecasts global spend will surpass $300bn by 2030.
What is the main risk of retail media?
Over-relying on it can turn into a pay-to-play tax and starve brand-building, and measurement varies widely across competing networks.
Retail media is irresistible because it answers the only question that scares every CMO: did it actually sell anything? But the brands that pour everything into the shelf quietly erode the demand that made them worth stocking. Harvest with retail media; keep building the brand that fills the basket in the first place. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Retail media harvests demand brilliantly, but it can't create it — pour everything into the shelf and you slowly tax away the brand power that put you there.
Is retail media delivering real incremental sales for you, or just shifting budget around? We'd love your experience.
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: eMarketer, WARC, Marketing Week.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
