Retail Media Networks in 2025: How Brands Are Winning the Future of Digital Advertising

Retail Media Networks in 2025 is the lifeblood marketers are clinging to as cookies die, CPMs soar, and customer attention fragments. If your campaigns feel more expensive and also, somehow, less effective, you are not by yourself. Measurement and attribution problems are eating your ROAS, while your competitors quietly enter first-party retail data, closed-loop measurement, and cart-level targeting events that win the specific moment of purchase.

The opportunity is that retail media conceives shopper intent into shopper action, aligning rich loyalty data with shoppable experiences baked into the retailer’s site, app, email, CTV, and in-store displays. 

When retail media networks are leveraged effectively, you stop guessing and start proving, with analytics backing every penny spent, including scanned receipts and incrementality. When retail media networks are leveraged poorly, you are drowned in fragmented networks piled with opaque fees, redundant reach, and dashboards that will never be the same.

This guide addresses the real limitations you’re managing: scarcity of resources, aggressive targets, and pressure to grow without waste. We will share what’s new in 2025, how to select networks to work with, how to write a brief for creatives that actually converts, and the exact steps to measure incrementality, not vanity clicks. Expect frameworks you can use, playbooks you can pull from, and low-hanging fruit you can ship this week. 

If you want to shift to precision growth without exhausting your team, please join me. Over the next few minutes, we could shift from another status quo quarter to your most accountable channel. I’ll keep it real, practical, and no fluff. I promise. Join us, let’s go!

Retail Media Networks in 2025: Why They’re Reshaping Digital Advertising

When we talk about digital advertising in 2025, Retail Media Networks (RMNs) aren’t just another channel in the mix but are becoming the very foundations of how brands engage with shoppers. They are the new “prime real estate” in marketing. Not impressions across the web, but ads running at the moment when people are ready to purchase. 

So why are they changing the game?

1. The death of third-party cookies – With privacy laws tightening and Chrome phasing out 

cookies once and for all, the old way of tracking users is coming to an end. RMNs are prospering because they involve first-party retailer data, first-party data on things like purchase history, loyalty cards, browsing habits, etc.—data that can only be obtained at the retailer.

2. Closed-loop measurement – Imagine being able to see the specific ads that led to actual 

sales, with proof down to the product SKU.Retail Media is closed-loop, and we now have accountability for our advertising spend in ways that traditional display networks have not been able to provide. Just as quantum computing in business is redefining how industries solve complex problems, retail media is redefining how marketers prove and optimize ROI.

3. Scale and Trust – Companies such as Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and Target’s Roundel already pull in billions of dollars of ad spend. In 2025, regional players and niche retailers will also join the game; they will offer “micro-targeting” at scale. This will include more options—and competition—for brands.

When it comes to real world examples, the skincare brand advertising on Walgreens’ retail network has more options now. They can target women ages 35-40 who purchased sunscreen in the last three months and measure if their new moisturizer ended up in those same baskets. That kind of precision is unachievable with traditional digital display. 

The shift is undeniable: Retail Media Networks are no longer “experimental” in a budget; rather, they have evolved into critical parts of media planning. Any brands that are not participating will miss visibility where it really matters: right there at the digital shelf.

Retail Media Networks in 2025: How They Work Behind the Scenes

To truly capitalize on RMNs in 2025, it is critical to understand what is happening behind the curtain. RMNs may look like “just ads on retailer sites,” however, the machinery behind them is focused and has way more leverage over outcomes, and that is where the opportunity lies. 

Here’s a snapshot of how RMNs become a viable vehicle for low-funnel media:

1. The Data Core 

Every RMN draws on first-party data: purchases made, loyalty card activity, searches on products, and even in-store purchases. This is pure gold compared to social, where users mindlessly scroll through the feed. With RMNs, you are activating shoppers who are already in the primary consideration set for the purchase. 

2. Placement Opportunities Along The Journey

Retail media is more than banner ads on a website. Retail media lives in instances including:

On-site ads (sponsored products, search results, homepage takeovers) 

Off-site ads (retailers activating their data to reach users both on the open web or within the social channel)

CTV & streaming ads (Walmart+, Amazon Prime Video, Kroger streaming partnerships) 

In-store screens & kiosks (digital shelf ads, point-of-sale screens) 

With its cross-channel buys, retail media offers the ability to deliver a full-funnel strategy that can tier from awareness to conversion.

3. The Measurement Loop

Unlike social media or programmatic display, RMNs close the loop. A campaign doesn’t just end with impressions or clicks – it links to real sales data. You can now literally measure, “This $10k spend drove $55k in incremental sales.” With this kind of ROI visibility, it becomes easier to understand why budgets are flowing here so fast.

4. The Tech Stack

Underneath most RMNs, you have a DSP (Demand-Side Platform), data clean rooms, and retail APIs to drive real-time optimization. Brands can do A/B testing, bid adjustment, and full campaign scaling with generally programmatic-like precision, except with verified purchase outcomes and not soft metrics.

Retail Media Networks in 2025: Why Brands Are Investing More Than Ever

It’s not by coincidence spending is moving into Retail Media Networks in 2025. What began as a side hustle for Amazon, is now a $140+ billion market and opening up globally, and predictions are this category will overtake TV ad spend in the near future. So, for brands, it’s not a matter of if you should invest, but a matter of how much and how fast.

So why the hurry?

1. Point-of-Purchase

Retail media provides access to consumers at the digital shelf – when the consumer is engaged with browsing products with their credit card in hand. Think of it like billboard advertising inside a checkout line, but smarter! The greatest moment a brand can attempt to influence a shopper is at the point of purchase. 

2. Proof over Promises

CXOs have an affinity for retail media because brands can measure to the dollar. No long-winded KPI pitches from your media guru. Brand teams can quickly provide metric based outcomes for all stakeholders, and clear proof of how many units sold, total revenue, if it was incremental and whether you are simply shifting share. That accountability lightens any budget-based burden for CMOs and makes it easier for them to secure larger bucks.

3. Broadening Options Beyond Social Media & Search

With costs increasing and erosion of effectiveness, brands are tired of taking orders from Meta and Google. RMNs present a third way of digital advertising, less crowded, more controllable and closer to the sale. It is a hedge against the duopoly.

4. Retail Media Companies

From Walgreens to Best Buy to Instacart, retailers have took notice that they have data and customers (eyeballs) worth their weight in gold. When they opened their media arms, they did not just sell merchandise; they began to sell access to consumers. And brands are willing to pay CPMs for it.

One great example? PepsiCo has shifted millions of adspend into retail media across Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger, because they feel it has a better ROI than traditional digital. Smaller DTC brands are realizing they cannot afford to compete without being on retail media networks.

In summary: Retail Media Networks in 2025 are not simply a “nice-to-have.” They are the place where brands are moving significant spend because the results are far too good to ignore.

Winning Strategies for Brands in Retail Media Networks

Retail Media Network spending is exploding in 2025, but here’s the rub: not all brands are getting results. Some are blowing spend on fancy placements with no ROI. Others are using RMNs like regular display and not getting all they can from the platform. The real winners? Smart use of data, creative, and targeting.

Here are the strategies winning brands are using:

1. Own The Digital Shelf

Sponsored product ads and search placements are the first turf war. If you’re not showing up in a shopper’s search within your category (“Hydration Protein Powder”, “Sunscreen SPF-30”, “Dog Food”), you don’t exist. Winning brands bid wisely on both branded and unbranded keywords to entrap shoppers before they are caught by competitors.

2. Segment and Personalize

Retail media is not about playing the same ad everywhere. Effective marketers will segment loyalty and purchase behavior data to build campaigns—ex. upselling existing customers (“you bought shampoo – now try conditioner”) or using reactivation offers for past customers who are now lapsed.

3. Creatives that Drive Conversion

RMN ads sit right next to products, so clarity matters more than creativity. The highest performing RMN ads demonstrate value, benefits, and urgency: “Buy 2, Get 1 Free”, “First Time Clinically Tested”, “New Formula”. Short, product-first creative will win more.

4. Test, Track, Repeat

Because RMNs have closed-loop measurement could happen, winners are constantly A/B Testing their headlines, bids, formats, and targeting groups while losers will set up a campaign and “hope.”

5. Leverage Off-Site Media

Retailers like Amazon and Walmart will let you extend their campaigns off-site, targeting shoppers on social or the open web while still linking back to sales. Smart brands can connect on-site and off-site for maximum reach while keeping measurement consistent.

Key takeaway: In retail media, data-driven precision and relentless optimization separate winners from spenders. It’s not just about buying media, it’s about using it like a scalpel, not a hammer.

Creative Excellence: The Secret Weapon in Retail Media Networks

Here’s the ugly truth: even the best targeting and the largest budgets can fail if your creative does not convert. In Retail Media Networks in 2025, creative is a brand’s secret weapon. Why? Because there are tons of choices for shoppers and your ad is sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a competitor at the digital shelf.

Here is how the winners approach creative:

1. Product First Visuals 

Forget about abstract branding. Shoppers want to see what the product is—packaging, size, or type of use case. The best RMN ads are clean, large, bold, and all about the product. If shoppers must squint to figure out what you are selling, you have already lost.

2. Value Proposition in Seconds

A shopper browsing on Walmart or Instacart is not going to stop and decode the ad. You need to shout at the shopper in seconds:

“High Protein. Zero Sugar.”

“Buy 2, Get 1 Free.”

“Dermatologist Recommended.”

Clarity trumps cleverness here.

3. Match Creative to Shopper Intent

Someone searching “baby formula” isn’t looking for lifestyle glamour shots—they want trust, safety, and proof. Meanwhile, a search for “energy drink” responds better to lifestyle-driven creative showing vitality or performance.

4. Consistency Across Placements

Top brands keep messaging to be consistent across on-site banners, sponsored products, and off-site retargeting. When a shopper sees the same offer through multiple placements, it fosters trust and recall.

5. Test Creative Variants

Winning brands A/B test everything—colors, claims, CTA buttons. One CPG brand learned that just changing “Shop Now” to “Add to Cart” increased conversions by 17%.

Bottom line: In retail media, your creativity is not decoration—it’s the decision-maker at the point of purchase. If you get it wrong, your competitor’s cart gets filled, not yours.

Measurement and Attribution: Proving Every Dollar in Retail Media Networks 

One of Retail Media Networks’ biggest selling points in 2025 will be the ability to finally satisfy that age-old so-called question “did this ad actually sell anything” that every CMO asks all the time. In the ad ecosystem of social media or programmatic display, attribution often feels like smoke and mirrors, but RMNs provide the first option to include closed-loop measurement. 

Here’s what we mean:

1. From Impression to Transaction

When a shopper sees your ad on Walmart Connect or Amazon and then buys your product online or in-store, that purchase can be cleanly tied back to the ad exposure. You’re not guessing—you’re proving. 

2. Incrementality Over Vanity

Smart brands aren’t measuring clicks anymore. They are asking, did this campaign create sales or simply move share from a competitor? Incrementality testing is now commonplace in RMNs, which affords brands confidence that their dollars are invested into growth, not share-shifting.

3. Consolidated Dashboards

The downside? Each RMN is going to have its own system for reporting. Amazon has one, Target Roundel has one, Instacart has one. Great brands invest in data clean rooms and third-party dashboards to tie everything together to ensure apples-to-apples reporting comparability.

4. Key Performance Indicators That Matter

Metrics like ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), new-to-brand sales, and repeat purchase rate are more meaningful than clicks or impressions. These KPIs are directly linked to sales and long-term growth.

To give you a quick example, a snack brand that was running a Kroger Precision campaign was able to demonstrate $1.8M in incremental sales from a $350k investment—an outcome that no traditional digital channel could have so clearly validated as the Kulfi model does.

To sum up: In retail media measurement is not an afterthought, it is the reason why brands are shifting budgets in this direction. If you can demonstrate sales, you can keep getting bigger. 

Challenges in Retail Media Networks 2025 (and How to Overcome Them)

Despite all the enthusiasm, Retail Media Networks in 2025 are not a silver bullet. In fact, a lot of brands try it, waste their budgets, and walk away disappointed. Why? Retail media is very powerful – but it is also fragmented, complicated, and easy to mess up. 

Let us break down the major obstacles and how savvy marketers work around them: 

1. Fragmentation Among Retailers

Every RMN is operating on its own platform, has its own dashboards, targeting, and reporting. Managing campaigns across Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Instacart feels like juggling knives. 

Solution: Either pay for a retail media management tool or work with agencies that centralize performance data. Unified reporting is worth its weight in gold. 

2. Pricier Costs for Premium Placements

Sponsored products and homepage takeovers are crowded – and getting pricier. Smaller brands are often priced out. 

Solution: Prioritize long-tail keywords and category placements. You will often find lower CPMs and less competition while having qualified shoppers.

3. Limitations on data access 

Retailers are protective of their data. Brands often see no more than high level dashboards and sometimes have trouble getting below that surface level insight. 

Solution: Leverage data clean rooms and, when possible, negotiate data-sharing arrangements. Build trusted relationships with retailer partners. Trusted or valued partners often provide additional access to solid advertisers. 

4. Creative fatigue

Shoppers reach “banner blindness” very quickly. If you run the same creative for a couple of weeks, your performance will suffer.

Solution: Continuously rotate creatives, test variations, and refresh your messaging.

The Future of Retail Media Networks in 2025 and Beyond

If the past few years were about demonstrating and validating retail media’s value, 2025 is about scaling it into the leading position in digital advertising. And the pace of innovation is only going to increase. Here are the key trends we see shaping the future of retail media:

1. CTV + Retail Media Unification

We’ll see more shoppable ads on streaming platforms that take users directly to a retail cart. Amazon Prime Video is already doing this in certain contexts, and Walmart recently announced interactive shoppable ads on Roku. Picture this: you’re watching a cooking show and, with one click, you can add the ingredients you need to your Walmart cart. 

2. AI Optimization

Machine learning is changing how RMNs define audiences and bid. By 2026, we expect that AI will be able to predict which audiences are most likely to convert, something already explored in depth when discussing the future of AI in marketing and its impact on business growth. optimize bids based on predicted performance, and assist brands in finding creative opportunities to improve performance. For brands, this means less guesswork and more operational efficiency.

3. In-store Media Renaissance

Digital shelf tags, smart carts, and checkout screens are the new standard of performance in the RMN toolkit. Retailers are now matching online and in-store data, creating a unified ad ecosystem across all channels.

4. Smaller Retailers Starting RMNs

While Amazon and Walmart are the giants of the retail space, there are many regional grocers, pharmacy chains, and specialty stores that are building their own RMNs, which creates opportunities for niche targeting such as health-conscious shoppers on CVS’s RMN, actors on GameStop’s RMN and more.

5. Retail Media As An Engine for Profits

Retailers are now describing “media” not as an add-on, but as a key profit engine. Many retailers claim their media business makes more money than selling groceries or selling electronics. This means the RMN space will keep growing and innovating.

FAQ: Retail Media Networks in 2025

1. What is Retail Media Networks in 2025?

Retail Media Networks (RMNs) are advertising platforms built by retailers that allow brands to target shoppers right at the point of purchase on their brand, site, app… streaming platform and/or on in-store screens. It has become a multi-channel, full-funnel ecosystem built around first-party data which means your ad is being seen by people who are shopping, not browsing.

2. Why are brands moving their budgets into RMNs? 

Because RMNs close the loop on sales. Unlike social advertising where you look at likes or engagement, retail media encompasses closed loop measurement – did the shopper see your advertising, buy your product and create incremental sales? This level of accountability is exactly why CMOs have moved billions away from traditional digital into RBNs.

3. Are RMNs only for larger brands?

Not anymore. While they Amazon and Walmart are the primary players, now there are regional and niche retailers building their own networks. This means small and mid-sized brands who used to rely on trade marketing and promotions to spend all of their retail budgets now find retail media includes where they can spend smaller budgets targeting local or category-built shoppers without competing on the ad spend of the large players.

4. What is the biggest challenge with retail media?

Fragmentation. Each retailer has its unique platform, rules, and reporting. This is a source of data silos for brands that run across multiple RMNs. The smart solution is to hire retail media management tools or agencies to centralize the campaigns and reporting.

5. What key performance indicators do you use to measure success in Retail Media Networks?

The top KPI is:

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) – dollars earned versus dollars spent

Incremental sales – prove you grew the pie, not shifted share

New-to-brand sales – how many new buyers did your campaign bring to your brand?

Repeat purchase rates – measure long-term loyalty

6. What does the future of RMNs beyond 2025 look like?

The future is omnichannel and AI-driven. Expect it to be natural to link online and in-store media, to leverage AI optimization, and look out for shoppable CTV ads. Retail media is quickly becoming the next larger advertising pillar in addition to search and social.

Conclusion

Retail Media Networks in 2025: How Brands Are Winning the Future of Digital Advertising is our not-so-subtle way of saying that what started as a test has now become the third pillar of digital advertising, right alongside search and social. Uniquely, RMNs are qualified—they’re grounded in proof vs. promise, you can literally see how each and every dollar converts to sales.

For brands, this is huge. If executed correctly, RMNs put you in charge of the digital shelf, talking to shoppers at the point of sale, and measuring your success better than ever. On the other side, fragmentation, higher costs, and creative fatigue can confound campaigns with even the largest budgets. It all comes down to strategy: data-driven targeting, clean creative, continuous testing, and integration.

The simple truth is that retail media is not a side hustle anymore; it is quickly becoming the core growth engine for brands willing to master it. Ignore it, and you run the risk of being invisible at the exact moment purchase decisions are being made. Embrace it, and you will put your brand in front of shoppers at exactly the moment they choose what goes in their shopping carts.

Your next steps? 

Small starts, smart tests, and building a system to show incrementality. Retail Media Networks are about not spending more money, but spending it smart, and every dollar is tied to an action.

So here’s the question for you: Will your brand sit on the sidelines as retail media affects the future of advertising, or do you step on that digital shelf and take your place?