Accelerating Growth & Opportunity
Retail media has moved from pilot projects to core revenue lines for major retailers. By 2026 ad spend will shift further from walled gardens to retail-owned channels as brands chase closing the loop between exposure and purchase. That transition turns retailers into media platforms with commercial, data and measurement implications for brand teams and ad tech partners.
What to Expect: Top Predictions
Data Centrality & Personalization
First-party data will be the primary currency. Retailers that unify loyalty, transaction and online signals will deliver more accurate audience segments and lifetime value models. Expect wider adoption of identity solutions that respect privacy while enabling deterministic linkages between ad exposure and purchase. Brands that embed customer value into bidding and creative will win higher-margin placements.
AI-Driven Ad Innovation
Artificial intelligence will power both campaign operations and creative. Automated bidding, predictive forecasting and creative variants generated at scale will speed optimization cycles. Human oversight will shift toward strategy and guardrails, while routine tasks are delegated to models that optimize for incrementality and return on ad spend.
Omnichannel Expansion & Measurement
Retail media will extend beyond on-site placements into CTV, in-store digital screens, third-party marketplaces and delivery apps. This expansion makes unified measurement essential. Attribution will lean more on media-mix modeling and incrementality testing, supplemented by server-side signals, receipt-level tracking and loyalty tiebacks to prove incremental sales.
Staying Ahead in Retail Media
- Audit and centralize first-party data to create usable audiences.
- Run AI pilots focused on optimization and creative testing.
- Build a channel playbook that includes CTV and in-store formats.
- Invest in closed-loop measurement to demonstrate incremental impact.
- Align commercial, marketing and data teams around shared KPIs.
By treating retail media as a full-funnel discipline, retailers and brands can convert growth projections into measurable revenue by 2026.
