Executive Overview
The global advertising landscape is undergoing a structural transformation, shifting away from fragmented digital silos toward an interconnected, data-rich ecosystem anchored by retail media. Long viewed by brand marketers strictly as a tactical, lower-funnel performance channel reserved for sponsored product listings and immediate cart conversions, Retail Media Networks (RMNs) have matured into full-funnel marketing powerhouses.
According to proprietary findings from the Glossy+ Research CMO Strategies series—which analyzed marketing budgets, strategies, and industry shifts across leading sectors like creator marketing, Connected TV (CTV), and social media—marketers are rethinking how and where they deploy capital. Today, retail media encompasses off-site programmatic advertising, streaming video, social commerce partnerships, and immersive in-app experiences.
Fueling this evolution is the unmatched potency of first-party point-of-sale data. Armed with granular customer signals and closed-loop attribution, brands can map marketing expenditures directly to consumer purchases. Yet, this rapid expansion brings distinct operational hurdles. As the number of global RMNs surges past the 200 mark, marketers face mounting pressures regarding platform costs, fragmented KPIs, execution at scale, and the complex challenge of content creation for an expanding array of digital and physical environments.
This report examines how 125 surveyed marketing executives and industry leaders are navigating the dynamic 2026 retail media landscape, diversifying their network portfolios, aligning nuanced Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with specific funnel stages, and adopting emerging technological solutions—including Connected TV and AI-driven content generation—to future-proof their commerce strategies.
Detailed Chronology: The Maturation of Retail Media Networks
To understand where retail media stands today, it is essential to trace its rapid acceleration over recent years. What began as an experimental digital shelf-space play by e-commerce giants has transformed into a multi-billion-dollar media channel reshaping corporate marketing balance sheets.
The Foundation and Lower-Funnel Era (2021–2023)
In the immediate post-pandemic era, RMNs were primarily evaluated through a strict performance lens. Brands treated retail networks as digital equivalents of end-cap displays in physical grocery aisles. The primary objective was securing sponsored product rankings on search results pages to capture consumers who had already formed purchase intent. Amazon dominated this space uncontested, while early iterations of Walmart Connect and alternative grocery networks built out foundational infrastructure designed to monetize their digital traffic and loyalty card databases.
The Proliferation and Consolidation Phase (2024–2025)
By 2024 and 2025, the market experienced hyper-proliferation. Virtually every major brick-and-mortar retailer, fashion house, and delivery platform rushed to launch proprietary ad networks, seeking high-margin revenue streams to offset sluggish retail sales and margin compression. By mid-2025, data from retail media intelligence platforms like Mimbi registered over 200 distinct RMNs globally.
This sudden glut introduced friction into brand-retailer negotiations. Reports surfaced of retailers aggressively tying RMN spend to physical shelf-space negotiations, forcing brands to allocate budgets defensively. Consequently, 2025 saw minor dips in adoption rates for select secondary networks as marketers paused to evaluate ROI, test new waters, and determine which platforms genuinely moved the needle versus those merely demanding tribute.
The Full-Funnel and Omnichannel Reality (2026 and Beyond)
Entering 2026, the RMN market has pivoted decisively toward interoperability, off-site expansion, and full-funnel integration. Retailers are no longer just selling digital shelf space on their own websites; they are packaging their proprietary consumer data to power ad campaigns across social media feeds, programmatic display, and Connected TV streaming services. The acquisition of CTV platforms (such as Walmart’s acquisition of Vibe.co and integration with Vizio) highlights a new frontier where closed-loop commerce data validates awareness-stage video advertising, forever altering how brands measure the return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Supporting Context & Metrics: Navigating the 2026 RMN Ecosystem
Glossy+ Research’s recent comprehensive surveys of 125 marketing executives provide a clear statistical window into how brand priorities, platform preferences, and success metrics have evolved.
Platform Adoption: The Giants and the Challengers
Amazon and Walmart Connect retain their positions as the most widely utilized retail media networks for the fourth consecutive year.
- Amazon: Maintains a commanding lead, with 89% of marketer respondents stating they actively advertise on the platform. Amazon’s enduring dominance is heavily supported by its dual utility as both an e-commerce transactional marketplace and the second-largest product discovery search engine in the United States (utilized by 58% of U.S. online adults, trailing only Google at 69%, per Forrester data).
- Walmart Connect: Captured nearly half of all respondents (47%), buoyed by continuous expansions in ad types, third-party marketplace integration, and omnichannel retail offerings.
- Target’s Roundel: Reclaimed its bronze positioning with 32% adoption among surveyed marketers. Notably, weighted average budgets devoted to Roundel doubled year-over-year from 2025 to 2026. Despite broader economic headwinds and public debates surrounding Target’s adjustments to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, Roundel has remained insulated due to its robust, data-driven monetization of high-intent shopper behavior.
Fluctuations in adoption rates across Kroger Precision Marketing and other emerging networks throughout 2025 and 2026 reflect healthy brand experimentation rather than a systemic flight from retail media. Marketers are actively building multi-dimensional channel mixes that mirror real-world consumer shopping habits.
Evolving KPIs: Sales Supremacy vs. Platform-Specific Nuance
When measuring the success of retail media campaigns, sales remain the undisputed king for the third straight year. The vast majority of marketers rely on sales as their primary performance metric across nearly all RMNs:
- 100% of respondents prioritize sales metrics on Best Buy Ads and Albertsons Media Collective.
- 89% prioritize sales on Instacart.
- 88% prioritize sales on Target’s Roundel.
However, the industry has grown more sophisticated regarding secondary metrics, particularly engagement. While engagement served as a top success metric across multiple RMNs (including Best Buy, eBay, and Walmart Connect) in 2025, it has narrowed dramatically in 2026. Today, only 7% of marketers cite engagement as their primary success metric on Amazon. This concentration makes strategic sense: because consumers heavily utilize Amazon as an active search and product discovery engine, engagement metrics remain vital for upper- and mid-funnel brand health on that specific platform, whereas transactional networks are judged almost entirely on direct conversion.
The Operational Burden: Cost, Scale, and Measurement
Despite its vast revenue potential, retail media presents severe operational challenges. Survey data reveals that cost is cited as the primary obstacle across the majority of RMN platforms. These financial pressures stem from three interconnected friction points:
- Intense Competition: Over 200 networks vying for limited annual marketing budgets.
- Leverage and Negotiations: Retailer pressure demanding that brands maintain mandatory RMN spend thresholds to secure or protect physical in-store shelf space.
- Attribution Complexity: Inconsistent measurement frameworks that complicate multi-touch attribution.
Furthermore, niche networks present unique hurdles. For instance, 33% of marketers identifying challenges on the Nordstrom Media Network point directly to a lack of scale, proving that audience reach remains a vital bottleneck for luxury and specialty RMNs attempting to compete with mass-market giants.
Official Statements & Industry Insights
To capture the executive mindset guiding these shifts, industry leaders shared their perspectives on the strategic integration of retail media.
Mandy Hunsicker Adams, Senior Director of Orange Apron Media (The Home Depot):
"We’re seeing demand grow across the funnel, and retail media networks are continuing to advance. The power of retail, customer, audience signal and point-of-sale data, and being that close to the purchase and having the ability to close the loop, is all too powerful when every marketer is trying to be as productive and efficient with their marketing budget as possible."
Addressing the perennial debate over measurement standardization, Hunsicker Adams emphasizes flexibility over rigid uniformity:
"Having standardization in a way that makes sense for the different ways customers are shopping has opportunities. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It really is, how do we make sure we’re educating and informing and putting as much of the data in the hands of the folks that need to analyze and assess it based on the needs of their specific business. We’re not gatekeeping information, but we’re putting the power in the hands of that advertiser."
Jeremy Lowenstein, Chief Marketing Officer at Milani Cosmetics:
"Amazon is the must play and is usually a reflection of our growth and spend as a percent of sales. We started on the Criteo side with Target and Ulta and have expanded to Walmart and our drugstore accounts. We’re piloting on Costco, so we are playing across the spectrum."
"There’s still a consumer journey. It just happens at different places. It’s about finding what’s the right way to work synergistically to ultimately get to the consumer. Are people on Amazon all the time? We’re not. We’re all multi-dimensional."
"Not all retail channels and parts of the funnel are born equal. They all have different roles to play. If you’re looking for CPM efficiency, that’s not going to be about conversion. So, know what measurement looks like, and be honest with yourself if you’re hitting it or not. Then, lean in or pivot. We’re all just testing and learning at this point and to see where we can scale."
Elizabeth Marsten, VP of Commerce Media at Tinuiti:
Highlighting how leading retailers are aggressively expanding their product offerings, Marsten notes:
"Walmart has increased its emphasis on participation in Walmart Connect across their book of brands, expanded ad types, measurement capabilities and added inventory online through their third-party marketplace and fulfillment services. Target has a similar story in increasing participation in Roundel — adding offsite inventory and social partnerships, expanded their merchandising to place more emphasis on unique and challenger brands. Both also launched in-store modes in their mobile apps, which include unique interaction points with the shopper while in-store."
Addressing the persistent friction of attribution and content creation, Marsten adds:
"Measurement will always be the number one challenge, since consumers will continue to interact whenever and wherever they want, as often as they want or not. That makes measuring exposure and assigning attribution and credit more difficult, but at the same time easier as digital fingerprints continue to guide us on the consumer’s journey… Additionally, content creation at scale for the sheer volume of unique environments that consumers interact in [is a challenge]. Some platforms and content types will be scalable, but finding and reviewing content that AI may take and categorize as ‘correct’ will be a continual battle."
Adam Solomon, VP of Product Solutions at LiveRamp:
"It reflects the next stage of retail media’s evolution: from isolated retailer inventory to a broader commerce media model where first-party data can power media activation and measurable outcomes across more channels and touchpoints."
Future Outlook: The Next Frontier of Commerce Media
As the retail media industry progresses through the back half of the decade, several defining trends will dictate which brands succeed and which networks retain long-term advertiser commitment.
1. The Convergence of Retail Media and Connected TV (CTV)
Streaming video is rapidly becoming the primary engine for RMN growth and measurement innovation. Major acquisitions—such as Walmart’s acquisition of self-service CTV ad platform Vibe.co and its integration with Vizio—signal a permanent blurring of lines between brand-building television advertising and performance-driven commerce data. By leveraging closed-loop retail data to prove that an ad streamed on a living-room television directly influenced a subsequent in-store or online grocery purchase, retailers are unlocking massive upper-funnel budgets that previously bypassed retail media entirely.
2. Interoperability and Off-Site Activation
The era of walled-garden isolation is giving way to interoperable commerce media ecosystems. Through strategic partnerships—such as the integration of Kroger and Albertsons data systems with digital powerhouses like YouTube, facilitated by platforms like LiveRamp—first-party retail data is increasingly activated off-site. Brands can now deploy retailer audience insights across social media channels, programmatic display networks, and open web environments, maximizing reach without losing the ability to track ultimate conversion outcomes.
3. AI, Automation, and Content Generation at Scale
As RMN inventories expand into in-app mobile environments, physical in-store digital screens, and off-site programmatic placements, the demand for creative asset variation has skyrocketed. Marketers face the daunting task of generating thousands of distinct visual and textual assets tailored to unique channel specifications. While artificial intelligence and agentic AI workflows offer solutions for automated execution, they introduce new risks regarding oversight, hallucination errors, and brand safety. Navigating the delicate balance between algorithmic efficiency and human strategic governance will be a defining operational challenge for marketing teams moving forward.
Conclusion
Retail media has successfully graduated from an auxiliary tactical experiment to the central pillar of modern digital marketing strategy. For brand marketers, success in 2026 requires abandoning a monolithic approach in favor of a nuanced, multi-dimensional RMN playbook. By diversifying network investments to match real consumer shopping habits, aligning KPIs with specific funnel roles, and capitalizing on emerging off-site and streaming capabilities, forward-thinking brands can transform data fragmentation into a distinct competitive advantage.
