Retail media networks (RMNs) have transitioned into comprehensive, full-funnel marketing ecosystems
When something grows fast and reshapes industries at scale, it’s usually worth paying attention to. Retail media is no exception. What started as a simple tool for pushing product listings and driving impulse purchases has quickly become one of the most sophisticated pillars in modern marketing.
Why? Because the mechanics are logical. RMNs combine three essential ingredients: meaningful reach, real behavioral data, and direct access to the point of sale. Brands don’t get this kind of clarity on consumer behavior from traditional digital publishers. They don’t get this much control either.
Today, retail media is no longer tethered to just the “buy now” moment. Brands now engage audiences through top-tier connected TV ad slots, branded video content, and native placements inside mobile shopping apps. Whether it’s a streaming ad on Prime Video or a product reel embedded in Target’s app, retail media now stretches across the full customer journey, before purchase, during browsing, and even after check-out.
This shift isn’t accidental. Amazon leads the charge here, mainly because of its scale. They reach 130 million Prime Video viewers monthly. Of those, 88% also shop on Amazon. That creates a tight feedback loop, engagement, then transaction, one few platforms can match.
For C-suite leaders, this means retail media no longer lives in the margins. It sits at the center of where performance and brand equity are built. Frankly, it’s now a strategic channel you can’t afford to ignore, not if you care about clarity, control, and outcomes.
RMNs are actively expanding into upper-funnel marketing strategies to enhance brand awareness and engagement
The line between content and commerce is fading fast, and that’s intentional. Retailers understand that growth comes from extending their ad offerings beyond transactions. They’re moving into the upper funnel for a simple reason: brand dollars travel further than trade budget scraps.
Walmart Connect, for example, now runs connected TV campaigns through Roku and other partners. These aren’t just awareness plays. They’re tied to actual outcomes across online and in-store environments. Amazon is doing something similar. Think of their Prime Video ad units and branded posts, those are full ecosystem plays. They’re redefining advertising by embedding it into platforms where consumers already spend time.
Formats are expanding, too. We’re seeing everything from shoppable content, native in-app storytelling, and interactive displays. Not gimmicks, just smarter, more contextual placements that align with customer expectations.
Legacy ad channels struggle with this kind of reach and precision simultaneously. RMNs don’t. Because they know what people buy, how often, and through which touchpoints. That gives brands confidence to push into awareness-building efforts without sacrificing accountability on the back end.
For executives, here’s the call to action: start seeing retail media not as a bolt-on sales tool but as an integrated marketing platform. If you’re still treating it like a digital endcap or seasonal promotion slot, that approach is dated. Think bigger. The format’s already doing that, with or without your participation.
Retailers are using RMNs to unlock higher revenue margins and profitable business models
Retail is a tight-margin business. Overheads are high, and competitive pressure is constant. Advertising, on the other hand, delivers significantly higher margins. It’s no surprise that major retailers are shifting focus and energy into retail media, not just as a side venture, but as a core growth driver.
Walmart’s recent earnings show how serious this has become. In Q3 2024, their CFO stated that advertising through Walmart Connect now represents one-third of the company’s total operating income. That’s not marketing support, that’s operational value. Retailers are realizing they don’t need to own all consumer attention to capitalize on it. What they need is access to their shopper data, media inventory, and relationships with millions of high-intent consumers.
The ceiling for traditional placements, homepage banners, internal search ads, promotional tiles, is already in sight. The next phase is about real scale. Programmatic display, connected TV (CTV), digital audio, and sponsored video are all areas where RMNs are expanding. This transforms retailers into full-fledged media companies, with inventory stretching far beyond their owned platforms.
Executives evaluating this shift should pay attention to more than just ad revenue. What’s really happening is a reallocation of influence. RMNs let retailers monetize digital shelf space and off-platform attention. That’s a more resilient business model, less dependent on price wars or in-store traffic.
RMNs are capturing larger, more strategic brand budgets
Retail media started in the back office. Trade and shopper marketing teams funded short-term activations, promotion pushes tied to specific SKUs, end-of-aisle displays, or digital coupons. It worked because it was measurable. But it was never built for long-term brand building.
That’s changing quickly. Brand marketers, those with larger budgets and broader metrics, are shifting spend toward retail media, and they’re changing how that media is used. The focus is not only on sales but also on metrics like awareness lift, brand consideration, and favorability scores. It’s no longer acceptable to measure ROI just through units sold or category uplift. Modern retail media campaigns incorporate lifetime value, aided recall, and incrementality testing to get a more complete picture of performance.
This evolution is a net gain. Bigger budgets bring more strategic thinking. They also demand better creative, improved measurement standards, and more complete customer journey integration. Formats are evolving accordingly. You can’t run upper-funnel video on the same assets developed for digital shelf tiles. So brand teams are collaborating with creative and media agencies to build scalable narratives that work across channels, CTV, mobile, social, and commerce sites.
What this means for executives: the funding shift is also a functional shift. Ownership is moving up the organization chart. Strategic media planning teams are now involved in retail media decisions. This positions RMNs not as a cost center, but as a competitive advantage. Treat it accordingly.
The competitive edge of RMNs is enhanced by the use of first-party data
First-party data is the most reliable resource in the current digital environment. Retailers have direct access to consumer behavior, real purchase history, frequency, basket size, brand preferences, and on-platform engagement. Few platforms outside retail media can offer this level of factual, transaction-based insight.
This is especially critical now. As third-party cookies continue to phase out and privacy regulations become stricter, traditional methods of audience targeting are losing precision. RMNs fill that gap. They allow brands to activate their ads across highly accurate customer segments drawn from loyalty programs, store behavior, and online activity, all within a privacy-compliant framework.
What this enables is more than just demographic targeting. For example, a brand can distinguish between a customer who buys cat food biweekly and one who shops premium dog treats occasionally. Messaging can shift: product suggestions, creative formats, even the cadence of impressions can all align with actual shopping behavior, not assumptions.
For executives, this is a direct path to performance efficiency. Data-targeted spend reduces waste, improves message relevancy, and lifts conversion rates. It also means brand managers are less exposed to performance volatility, since they market to verified, product-interested audiences rather than inferred intent.
Brands are using RMNs to achieve accountability and transparency
Retail media’s ability to measure impact at the transaction level is its most important differentiator. Every ad exposure, whether on-site, in-app, or across connected TV, can be traced to a sale, whether online or in-store. That’s closed-loop measurement, and it gives retail media a productivity edge that traditional brand channels can’t replicate.
For years, brand campaigns were evaluated using soft metrics, impressions, clicks, and estimates derived from probabilistic models. In contrast, RMNs show whether the exposure drove real purchases. It’s not hypothetical performance; it’s verified, dollar-connected, SKU-level output.
And this level of attribution doesn’t just support performance marketing. It’s transforming how brand advertising is evaluated. Major brands now use advanced measurement tools like media mix modeling, incrementality testing, and multi-touch attribution within RMNs. This lets them justify awareness-driving campaigns with sales outcomes, not proxies.
For decision-makers, transparency equals control. Spending decisions become evidence-based. Media teams can identify where campaigns break down, whether in audience match, creative effectiveness, or product readiness, and course correct fast. That reduces waste, aligns strategy and execution, and ultimately produces cleaner, faster insights into ROI.
Strategic partnerships and product innovations are driving the next wave of retail media expansion
Retail media is scaling because retailers are not building in isolation. They’re acquiring key assets, forming aggressive media partnerships, and expanding reach on and off platform. This signals ambition, not support. It’s a roadmap to becoming full-spectrum media businesses.
Walmart Connect provides a clear example. The company has established partnerships across premium streaming networks, Paramount, NBCUniversal, and Roku, to increase its presence in connected TV. These deals extend Walmart’s inventory into high-attention formats, far beyond its own digital real estate. Additionally, Walmart’s acquisition of Vizio gives it access to nearly 19 million connected TVs in U.S. households. That’s infrastructure-level growth.
Amazon has followed a similar path. Its ad business now includes sponsored ads, branded content, and access to Amazon audiences via display, audio, and video, on and off Amazon’s platforms. During this year’s upfronts, Amazon Ads introduced AI-powered contextual pause ads on Prime Video. These ads don’t interrupt viewer experience but embed strong brand signals in existing content flows. It’s subtle. Yet highly effective.
Instacart, meanwhile, introduced Smart Carts, digitally enabled grocery carts that surface product ads in-store. They allow brand marketers to reach customers at the point of decision, using behavior-based targeting in real time.
For executive teams, the takeaway is simple. RMNs are not static placements, they are dynamic platforms expanding their relevance and control across high-growth media formats. Investing in creative that fits these environments isn’t optional. It’s expected.
RMNs are emerging as a critical component of integrated, omnichannel marketing strategies
Retail media sits at the intersection of commerce, content, and consumer behavior. As brands consolidate fragmented media strategies, RMNs provide something essential: a unified thread connecting awareness, engagement, and conversion across devices and environments.
That’s why retail media isn’t just growing, it’s becoming foundational. eMarketer forecasts U.S. retail media spending to hit $62 billion by 2025. It’s projected to exceed $100 billion by 2029. Brands and agencies that once treated RMNs as supplementary channels are now integrating them directly into omnichannel planning.
This requires alignment. Messaging in a brand video shown on Prime Video needs to match what the shopper sees later on Amazon.com or Walmart’s digital shelf. Without synergy, brands create fragmented experiences that reduce trust and performance. Smart advertisers are coordinating assets, optimizing creative per channel, and working toward unified measurement frameworks.
Connected planning is now a requirement. Ensuring first-touch branding efforts link seamlessly into mid- and lower-funnel activations is what strengthens return and builds equity. That means brand and performance marketing teams must work from shared data, shared goals, and cross-functional metrics, like attention scores, brand lift, and lifetime value, rather than isolated KPIs.
Executives should evaluate their readiness to link RMN efforts with broader omnichannel investments. That includes working more closely with IT, analytics, and digital product teams to streamline workflows and ensure trackability across touchpoints. Retail media is not a standalone silo, it’s a central pillar in how modern brands operate across digital and physical retail.
The bottom line
Retail media is a strategic shift. It’s reshaping how brands allocate budgets, how retailers define growth, and how marketing teams build full-funnel plans tied directly to commerce.
The fundamentals are clear. RMNs offer unmatched first-party data, precision targeting, measurable performance, and growing access to off-platform formats. Retailers are reshaping themselves as media companies. Brands are no longer treating retail media as a line item under trade, they’re folding it into top-level strategy alongside TV, search, and social.
For executives, the opportunity is in integration. Coordinate performance and brand efforts. Align creative with media plans. Build internal capabilities that can support incremental measurement and consumer-ready personalization.
The market is moving. Fast. The infrastructure is in place. The data is real. And the returns are measurable.
