TL;DR — Retail media is now the third major digital advertising channel after search and social. In 2026 it is worth over $200 billion, accounting for 15.4% of global digital ad spend and growing at 17.6% year-over-year. It offers the best combination of purchase intent and conversion trackability of any channel. Yet most markets — including much of Europe — are dramatically underinvesting. In this guide we explain what retail media is, how it works, who is winning, and how to start investing before everyone else does.
There is a $200-billion-plus phenomenon reshaping the digital advertising landscape that most marketers outside the US and UK are not taking seriously enough. It is not the latest generative AI hype. It is not a new social platform. It is something far more concrete, measurable, and — for those who understand it — extremely profitable.
It is called retail media. And if you work in digital marketing without understanding it deeply, you are ignoring the fastest-growing channel in the entire advertising ecosystem. This is not our opinion: it is the conclusion of GroupM, eMarketer, Kantar, and virtually every serious industry analyst.
At Deep Marketing we have been working with retail media for our e-commerce and retail clients for years. In this guide we will tell you everything you need to know, without the breathless uncritical enthusiasm that pervades the sector. As always, we start from the numbers and work our way to strategy.
What retail media actually is: a no-nonsense definition
Retail media is advertising that happens within the ecosystems of retailers. Think Amazon, Walmart, Carrefour, Instacart, Mercado Libre: every time a brand pays to appear in Amazon search results, sponsors a product on Instacart, or buys a banner on the Carrefour homepage, that is retail media.
The fundamental difference from traditional advertising is this: in retail media you reach people at the exact moment they are buying. Not while they scroll Instagram. Not while they research on Google. But while they already have their wallet out — physically or digitally — inside a transactional environment.
The concept is not new. Retailers have sold promotional space for decades: end-cap displays, flyers, premium shelf placement. What has changed is the digitisation of all this, which has brought three enormous advantages: targeting based on real purchase data, closed-loop measurability (you see exactly how many sales each dollar generates), and programmatic scalability.
In practical terms, retail media includes:
- Sponsored Products — ads within the retailer's search results (the dominant format)
- Sponsored Brands — banners and premium placements on category pages
- On-site display — banners and video within the retailer's site or app
- Off-site media — the retailer uses its own first-party data to target users across the open web (retailer DSP)
- In-store digital — screens, digital signage, and personalised promotions in physical stores
It is a complex ecosystem, and it is becoming increasingly sophisticated. But the core concept is simple: retailers have become media companies. And brands pay for visibility where transactions happen.
The numbers that matter: why retail media is the channel of the decade
Let us talk numbers, because that is where retail media becomes impossible to ignore.
Read these numbers carefully. Retail media is already worth more than global television advertising. It is growing nearly three times faster than the digital ad market as a whole. And companies are increasing the number of Retail Media Networks they work with: from a current average of 6 to a projected 11 within the next two years.
This means it is not an Amazon-only phenomenon. It is a structural transformation. Every retailer with a significant digital presence is launching — or has already launched — its own advertising platform. And brands are shifting real budgets, not experimental scraps, to these channels.
Perhaps the most striking data point is the margin for retailers. The margins on selling ad space are enormous — we are talking 50-80% — compared to the compressed margins of traditional retail (2-5%). Amazon generates more profit from Amazon Ads than from its entire e-commerce business. Think about that for a moment. This is why every retailer on the planet wants in on the game.
Why it works: the structural advantage of retail media
Retail media is not just big. It is structurally superior to other channels for a number of reasons that no marketer should underestimate.
1. First-party purchase data. While Google and Meta offer you browsing, search, and social interaction data, retailers have purchase data. They know what you buy, how often, at what price, in what combination. This makes targeting incomparably more precise for anyone selling consumer products. You are not inferring intent: you are reaching a proven buyer.
2. Closed-loop attribution. Every marketer's dream: knowing exactly how many sales each dollar generated. In retail media this is the norm, not the exception. The retailer sees the impression, the click, and the purchase — all within the same ecosystem. No probabilistic attribution models, no last-click vs multi-touch debate. The data is deterministic.
3. Maximum intent. When someone searches "hydrating face cream" on Amazon, they are not doing academic research. They are buying. Purchase intent within a retailer context is radically different from that of a general search engine, and light-years ahead of a social feed. This translates into significantly higher conversion rates.
4. Brand-safe context. Unlike social media, where your ad can end up next to controversial content, in retail media the context is always commercial, always brand-safe, always relevant to a consumer in purchase mode.
5. The digital shelf effect. Not doing retail media does not simply mean "not advertising." It means being invisible on the digital shelf. If your competitors are sponsoring their positions and you are not, you are actively losing sales. It is the digital equivalent of being relegated to the back aisle of the supermarket, behind the freezer section.
The players: who dominates and who is entering
The retail media landscape is dominated by a few giants but is rapidly becoming a fragmented and competitive ecosystem. Here is who actually matters.
Amazon Ads is the gorilla in the room. With over $50 billion in ad revenue, it represents roughly 75% of the global retail media market. The combination of massive traffic, deep purchase data, and a mature self-service platform makes it the natural entry point for any brand. If you sell online and you are not running Amazon Ads, you are literally handing sales to competitors.
Walmart Connect is the second player, well behind but growing rapidly. Walmart's advantage is the combination of online and offline: it can track the impact of digital advertising on in-store purchases, thanks to 240 million weekly store visits. For CPG brands with wide distribution, it is an essential channel.
Instacart has built a powerful ad platform leveraging grocery delivery. Their advantage is proximity to the daily purchase moment: you do not buy a vacuum cleaner once a year, you buy groceries every week. The frequency of contact is incomparable.
Carrefour Links (Europe), Tesco Media (UK), and Mercado Libre Ads (LATAM) are the main regional players. Carrefour Links is particularly interesting for the European market because it integrates loyalty card data from millions of consumers with advanced programmatic capabilities. If you operate in the European FMCG market, this is a channel you should know.
But the most interesting development of 2026 is the entry of non-retail players into retail media. Uber has launched its ad platform. DoorDash is monetising delivery data. Hotel chains are selling promotional space in booking apps. The concept of "commerce media" is expanding well beyond traditional retail, encompassing anyone with first-party transactional data and a consumer touchpoint.
Retail media vs traditional channels: the comparison nobody makes
To truly understand where retail media sits, you need to compare it against other channels. Not theoretically, but practically.
The table speaks for itself. Retail media is not the best at everything — search remains unbeatable for capturing generic explicit demand — but it is the channel with the best combination of intent, data, and attribution for anyone selling products through retailers. And this is not opinion: it is arithmetic.
The critical point is deterministic attribution. In an era where iOS has decimated cross-app tracking, where third-party cookies are dying, where every marketer complains about the difficulty of measuring campaign impact, retail media offers something no other channel can: certainty. You see the user exposed, you see the purchase. Full stop. No estimates, no models, no approximations.
Why Italy — and most of Europe — is behind (and why that is an opportunity)
Now for the uncomfortable truth. Italy is behind on retail media. Not by a little: by years. And the reasons are both structural and cultural. Much of this applies to southern and central Europe more broadly.
Fragmented retail landscape. Italy does not have a Walmart or a Tesco dominating the market. The retail landscape is fragmented across Coop, Conad, Esselunga, Eurospin, Lidl, and dozens of regional chains. None of these has built an advertising platform comparable to the major international players. Esselunga has experimented, but maturity is a long way off.
Late e-commerce adoption. E-commerce penetration in Italy is significantly lower than in the UK, US, or China. And digital retail media needs online traffic volume to function. When most purchases still happen in physical stores — especially in grocery — the digital side of retail media struggles to reach critical mass.
Agencies not equipped. Most media agencies in Italy do not have specific retail media expertise. They continue to think in terms of Google Ads and Meta Ads. Retail media requires different competencies: knowledge of retailer-specific platforms, understanding of category dynamics, ability to negotiate co-op programmes. Few Italian agencies have developed these capabilities. The same is true across much of continental Europe.
Conservative corporate culture. Many Italian companies — especially in FMCG — have marketing structures that rigidly separate trade marketing (managed by the sales team) from digital marketing. Retail media falls exactly in the middle of this organisational divide, and often ends up being nobody's responsibility.
But here is why this is an opportunity, not just a problem. First movers in an immature market have a disproportionate advantage. Cost per click and cost per impression are lower when competition is scarce. Italian retailers are beginning to build their platforms and are hungry for pioneer brands willing to invest. Those who enter now can negotiate terms that will be impossible in two years.
How to start: 5 concrete steps for your first investment
Enough theory. Here is how to concretely begin investing in retail media, from strategy to execution.
Step 1: Audit your retail presence. Before spending a single dollar, map where your products are sold. Which online retailers? Which marketplaces? How do your product pages look? Retail media amplifies visibility, but if your product page is mediocre — poor images, empty descriptions, no reviews — you are amplifying a weakness. Fix your "retail content" first (images, A+ content, optimised descriptions), then invest in media.
Step 2: Start with Amazon Ads. Do not try to be everywhere from day one. Amazon is the natural entry point for most brands. It has the most mature platform, the highest traffic, and the most accessible self-service tools. Start with Sponsored Products (keyword targeting on your products and competitors'), then expand to Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Recommended starting budget: $3,000-5,000 per month for at least 3 months of structured testing.
Step 3: Negotiate co-op programmes with retailers. Co-marketing programmes with traditional retailers are often underutilised. Carrefour, Tesco, and others offer promotional packages that include digital visibility. These are often negotiated by the sales team without involving marketing, which is a strategic mistake. Bring digital marketing to the commercial negotiation table. Trade marketing budgets can and should fund digital retail media as well.
Step 4: Build a measurement framework. Do not measure retail media with the same metrics as search or social. The key metrics are: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale), Share of Voice in the category, New-to-Brand percentage (how many buyers are new to your brand), and incrementality (incremental sales vs organic). Amazon provides most of these natively. For other retailers, work with their analytics team to build custom reports.
Step 5: Scale to other RMNs. Once you have a working model on Amazon, export it to other Retail Media Networks relevant to your category. If you sell grocery, look at Instacart and Carrefour Links. If you sell electronics, look at vertical marketplaces. If you operate in LATAM, Mercado Libre is essential. The key is not to replicate blindly: every RMN has its own targeting, format, and bidding quirks. Adapt the strategy to the context.
The role of the agency: what to ask for and what to demand
Retail media is complex enough to require specialised support, at least in the initial phase. But not all agencies are equal, and few have genuine expertise in this area. Here is what you should look for.
Cross-RMN strategic planning. A competent agency will not just propose "let us do Amazon Ads." It will help you build a comprehensive retail media strategy that accounts for all relevant retail touchpoints for your brand, allocating budget intelligently across different RMNs based on sales data, margins, and category objectives.
Cross-platform optimisation. Every RMN has its own dynamics. The keywords that work on Amazon do not necessarily work on Instacart. The creative formats that perform on Walmart Connect might fail on Carrefour Links. The agency must have operational experience on multiple platforms and the ability to optimise specifically for each one.
Creative adaptation. Retail media is not just bidding and keywords. Product images, videos, A+ content, brand stores — all of this influences ad performance. The agency must have creative competencies specific to the retail context, which is different from social or search. An image that works on Instagram could be completely wrong for an Amazon product page.
Measurement unification. The biggest problem with multi-platform retail media is data fragmentation. Every RMN has its own dashboard, its own metrics, its own reports. The agency must be able to unify the data into a coherent measurement framework that lets you compare performance across channels and make informed budget allocation decisions. Without this unification, you are navigating blind.
At Deep Marketing we have built specific retail media competencies because we believe it is the channel with the greatest untapped potential for brands in Europe. If you want to explore this territory with a partner who truly knows it, you know where to find us.
The future: what to expect in the next 2-3 years
Retail media is in a phase of accelerated maturation. Here are the trends we see consolidating and that you should monitor.
Measurement standardisation. The IAB is working on shared standards for retail media metrics. This is critical because today, comparing performance across Amazon, Walmart, and Carrefour is like comparing apples with oranges. With common standards, brands will finally be able to allocate budgets rationally across different RMNs.
Online-offline convergence. In-store retail media — digital screens, personalised promotions via app, geolocalised couponing — is growing rapidly. The real power will emerge when retailers manage to connect digital ad exposure with physical in-store purchases, creating a complete attribution loop that covers the entire customer journey.
AI and automation. Retail media networks are integrating machine learning models for automatic campaign optimisation, predictive bid management, and dynamic creative personalisation. Amazon has already introduced several AI-powered tools. Expect this trend to accelerate enormously in the coming months.
Commerce media expansion. The concept of retail media is broadening. Uber, DoorDash, Booking.com, airlines — anyone with first-party transactional data and a digital consumer touchpoint is building or planning an ad platform. The term "retail media" may soon be replaced by "commerce media" to reflect this expansion.
Clean rooms and data collaboration. Data clean rooms will enable brands to cross-reference their own CRM data with retailer data in a privacy-compliant way, creating even more precise audiences and deeper insights into the customer base. It is one of the most promising technological areas for the future of retail media.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Does retail media only work for big brands?
No. Amazon Ads is accessible even to small sellers with budgets of a few hundred dollars a month. In fact, for smaller brands, retail media is often more effective than traditional search because competition is lower on niche keywords and conversion rates are higher thanks to purchase intent.
How much budget do you need to start?
On Amazon Ads, you can start with $1,500-3,000 per month to obtain meaningful data. For a serious multi-RMN strategy, plan for at least $10,000 monthly. But the point is not the absolute budget: it is the discipline of continuous testing, measurement, and optimisation. A small budget managed well beats a large budget managed badly.
Will retail media cannibalise my organic sales?
This is a legitimate concern, and the honest answer is: partially, yes. A portion of sales generated by retail media ads would have occurred organically anyway. But incrementality studies show that, on average, 60-70% of retail media sales are genuinely incremental. Furthermore, not doing retail media when competitors do means losing organic positions over time, because retailer algorithms reward products with high sales regardless of the source.
How does retail media integrate with the rest of the media mix?
Retail media does not replace other channels: it complements them. Search captures generic demand, social builds awareness, retail media converts at the point of sale. The optimal strategy involves integrated planning where each channel has a specific role in the funnel. Retail media is typically the closing channel — the last mile before purchase.
Is retail media data reliable?
More reliable than most alternatives. Retailers have access to deterministic transactional data, not probabilistic estimates. The limitation is that each retailer only sees sales within its own ecosystem: Amazon does not know what you sell on Walmart. This is why it is important to build a measurement framework that aggregates data from all retail channels.
Does GDPR limit retail media in Europe?
GDPR regulates the processing of personal data, but retail media relies predominantly on first-party data collected with user consent (by accepting the retailer's terms of service). Moreover, many retail media platforms use aggregated and anonymised data for targeting, which further reduces compliance risk. Retail media is generally more GDPR-friendly than channels that depend on third-party cookies.
Fonti e Riferimenti
- Adtelligent — Retail Media Market Outlook
- The Drum — Top 10 Retail Media Predictions for 2026
- Marketing Dive — Marketing Trends Outlook 2026
- Kantar — Marketing Trends 2026
- AMA — 2026 Marketing Trends Report
- Gartner — Strategic Predictions for 2026
