Retail media networks (RMNs) are a rapidly growing segment in digital advertising
The advertising world is shifting fast, and Retail Media Networks are leading that shift. If you’re a retailer and you’re not thinking of your owned platforms, your website, app, store displays, as digital advertising opportunities, you’re behind.
Here’s what’s happening: RMNs let brands advertise directly to shoppers while they’re actively engaging with a retailer’s ecosystem. Unlike traditional media, TV, radio, or broad digital platforms like banner ads or YouTube, RMNs are tied to actual transactions. That’s a huge advantage. Thanks to first-party data, retailers now own a goldmine of actionable insights. In business language, it means highly targeted advertising that can convert at a lower cost and with greater efficiency.
Retailers are not just selling products, they’re also selling access to deep consumer intelligence. That’s the real leverage. And we’re not talking about a minor revenue stream. TechRadar projects the retail media market to reach nearly $180 billion globally by the end of 2025. In the UK, it’s even expected to overtake traditional TV ad spend. Amazon is the clear frontrunner here. It’s pulling $60 billion in retail media revenue this year alone. Walmart follows, but far behind, with roughly $4 billion. That massive gap underscores two things: Amazon’s dominance, and the open runway left for others willing to move quickly and smartly.
Why does this matter to you as a decision-maker? Because RMNs are not just another trend. They’re reshaping the economics of retail. Margins in traditional retail are tight. But margins on retail media? Over 70%. Think about that. More than 200 of these RMNs have already launched in recent years. This is where growth, and profit, is happening.
If your company has an audience, data, and digital real estate, you should be building a serious RMN strategy now.
RMNs are evolving from Bottom-of-Funnel tactics to Full-Funnel platforms
Retail Media Networks were initially built for lower-funnel activity. That means ads focused on sales, sponsored listings, digital shelf placements, product promos. Tactical, efficient, and near the point of purchase. But now the scope is expanding.
Retailers are moving up the funnel. They’re adding awareness and consideration to the mix, brand campaigns designed to shape buying decisions before purchase moments even occur. The strategy is practical: follow consumers throughout their journey. That journey is no longer linear, they research online, see ads while watching streaming content, walk into a physical store, and complete their purchase days later. Your RMN needs to reach them across all those touchpoints.
Retailers that scale their RMNs into full-funnel platforms can deliver far more value to advertisers, and extract a bigger share of advertising budgets. Look at what leading players are doing. Walmart is teaming with TikTok, embedding ads within a fast-growing channel that commands attention. Tesco has partnered with ITVX to enable brand storytelling that connects with their in-store and online audiences. This isn’t just diversification, it’s full-spectrum influence over consumer behavior.
If you’re running an RMN, or planning one, ask yourself this: Are you giving advertisers the tools to build lasting brand value, or just the tools for one-time sales boosts? Because where this is going is crystal clear. Brands want partners who drive results up and down the funnel, not just at the very end.
For your organization to compete against larger players, your RMN needs to offer the reach, the formats, and the data sophistication to compete at all levels, from awareness to conversion. If you’re not thinking full-funnel, you’re playing with half the board.
Success in RMNs depends on adopting an agency-like operating model
Retailers won’t unlock full value from Retail Media Networks by treating them as just another sales or marketing tool. It’s a different business model with different rules. To succeed, you need to think like a media agency, organized, data-driven, and performance-focused.
Leadership teams must structurally align retail and media functions. That means clear roles, shared goals, and operational systems that support campaign management at scale. This isn’t just about selling ad placements. It’s about delivering performance advertisers can measure and optimize in real time.
You also need infrastructure. Start with high-quality first-party data, segmented, accurate, and actionable. Then build the toolset around it: campaign planning interfaces, real-time reporting dashboards, integration capabilities with external platforms, and machine learning models that recommend actions based on performance. Platforms should support both managed services and self-service models. Advertisers want control and insight, and you need to be ready to provide both.
Measurement is a non-negotiable. Key metrics like ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), iROAS (incremental ROAS), brand lift, and total sales impact tell a clear story, and that’s what advertisers need. Add capabilities for A/B testing, custom reporting, and clean room environments to allow data sharing with brand partners in a secure and compliant way.
Put simply, RMNs must deliver the same level of clarity and agility that brands expect from top-tier digital media platforms. Otherwise, those brand dollars will go elsewhere.
Organizational and technical challenges hinder retailers from maximizing RMN revenue
Most retailers entering the RMN space are doing it with a retail mindset, and that’s the core problem. They operate as buyers, not media sellers. Advertising is a different game. If leadership doesn’t grasp that distinction, RMN growth stalls.
A strong RMN demands specialized talent. You need media-savvy teams that understand campaign strategy, performance reporting, and advertiser expectations. Many retailers don’t have this in place yet. Without it, there’s a gap in execution, sloppy media operations, weak sales enablement, and poor reporting mechanics.
Technical gaps often run in parallel. A lot of retailers lack scalable ad formats, self-service campaign capabilities, or clean integrations with third-party platforms. Data quality is often an issue, too. If the audiences you’re offering are poorly segmented or stale, targeting suffers and performance declines. Worse, if you can’t measure what matters, you can’t justify results, or pricing.
Brands aren’t passive in this process. They’re looking for real collaboration. If there’s no joint business planning, no alignment on objectives or value, advertisers will deprioritize your platform. That shows up in ad spend contraction, short-termism, and reduced renewal rates.
For RMNs to become real revenue engines, they need to operate at enterprise-grade levels, operationally, technically, and strategically. That can’t happen without actively addressing these friction points. Businesses that fail to solve them will continue to miss out on the billions now flowing into this fast-growing category.
Competing with established digital ad giants requires retailers to treat RMNs as true media businesses
If retailers want to compete with Amazon, Google, or Meta in the advertising space, they need to stop treating RMNs as extensions of product sales. RMNs are not about pushing inventory, they’re about capturing advertising budgets through measurable media performance. Advertising is the product.
This requires a mindset shift at the executive level. Leadership must recognize RMNs as separate business units that operate under different economics, customer expectations, and success metrics than retail. That reframe enables sharper strategic focus, better talent allocation, and more credible value propositions to advertisers.
It also demands a new level of operational maturity. Advertisers expect transparency, collaboration, and results. Retailers must offer guidance, not just media space. They should be advising on budget allocation, helping optimize creative formats, and providing access to real-time campaign performance directly aligned to tangible business outcomes. That means adopting the tools and behaviors of experienced media platforms, reporting dashboards, attribution modeling, automated optimization, and secure data environments.
Machine learning can enhance this by identifying patterns from campaign data and improving performance over time. But none of that matters if brands don’t see ROI, and ROI starts with treating advertisers as partners, not buyers of shelf space. The goal is to be trusted, scalable, and repeatable. In a crowded and high-stakes sector, only RMNs with the discipline to act like full-scale media organizations will capture the attention, and budgets, of global brands.
Amazon commands roughly $60 billion in retail media revenue this year not because it sells more ads, but because it delivers provable outcomes at scale. Other retailers who take the same disciplined, media-first approach have room to grow. Those who don’t will simply remain line items, not line leaders, in the advertising strategy of major brands.
Key highlights
- Retail media is accelerating fast: RMNs are unlocking high-margin, data-rich ad opportunities for retailers, projected to grow to $179.5B globally by 2025. Leaders should invest now to monetize owned platforms and capture a growing share of digital ad budgets.
- The funnel is expanding: Retailers must evolve RMNs beyond sponsored listings by enabling full-funnel engagement, including awareness and consideration ads, across digital, in-store, and partner platforms to strengthen brand relationships and boost ad spend.
- Infrastructure defines success: To scale RMNs, companies must operate like media businesses, build integrated teams, offer self-service tools, and deliver real-time, outcome-based metrics that match advertiser expectations.
- Execution barriers must be addressed: Many RMNs underperform due to fragmented teams, poor data quality, and limited advertiser collaboration. Executives should prioritize refining internal talent, unifying retail and media operations, and improving tech stacks.
- Long-term growth needs a mindset shift: Competing with Amazon and Google requires framing RMNs as independent media businesses, not retail extensions. Leaders should reorient strategy around ad revenue, not product sales, to win greater brand investment.
