The 10th edition of the industry’s most informative cross-network assessment guide evaluates 84 capabilities at 20 leading platforms.
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Retail media advertisers seem to be pumping the brakes a little bit — but only to give themselves more time to kick the tires.
To be clear: retail media remains on an impressive growth trajectory, with eMarketer expecting U.S. advertisers to increase allocations by 20% to $62.4 billion in 2025. That’s a whopping $10 billion more than they spent in 2024.
Yet last month, in what’s believed to be a first since retail media became the darling of the advertising world during the pandemic, eMarketer revised its estimate for the second half of 2025 downward, reducing the forecast for compound annual growth through 2028 from 24% to 17%.
To be clear again, that still leaves retail media as “one of the fastest-growing segments of the media ecosystem” (if not the fastest), according to eMarketer. And it means that U.S. retail media advertisers will be doling out $97.9 billion in 2028. And it’s happening in spite of the fact that 75% of advertisers told Ebiquity last November that they planned to increase spending this year.
And to clarify things even further, the expected slowdown in growth most assuredly does not indicate any waning support of retail media as a uniquely effective advertising vehicle that can deliver truly targeted audiences and directly measurable results.
In fact, according to Skai’s annual survey, retail media results are meeting (57%) or exceeding (25%) KPI expectations for most brand advertisers — despite the ongoing clamor for more impactful metrics, more granular results, and more transparent reporting.
Retail media has become a critical element not only of commerce marketing but of brand marketing as well. And as it continues moving into the physical store environment and nearly every available digital engagement platform, it’s becoming nearly unrivaled as a media channel in terms of reach.
And it was only natural for growth levels to begin slowing. Although 49% of respondents to Path to Purchase Institute’s annual trends survey claim that their retail media investments contain some incremental funding, marketing budgets are tight (as they usually are), and most recent growth reflects the reallocation of dollars from other marketing budgets.
This makes it ever more critical for brands — faced with an array of choices about where and how to spend their money — to scrutinize their options. That’s why retail media networks are now working more closely with brands to earn those dollars by improving their capabilities and developing unique points of differentiation.
To help our clients efficiently evaluate spending opportunities, Mars United created a retail media health scorecard to track the capabilities of leading networks across the key criteria advertisers need to optimally plan, execute, and measure their activity. This general framework for network scorecarding is customized for each client to reflect its unique business objectives, budget, performance expectations, and retail partnership priorities. Internally, we continuously update the information to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving capabilities of existing networks and the ongoing launch of new platforms.
To help the industry at large gain a better understanding of the opportunities available, and to encourage the development of evaluation standards that might ultimately improve both the collaborative process and overall network effectiveness, Mars United publicly shares this Retail Media Report Card on a regular basis. This report presents the foundational scorecarding elements of our evaluation process for clients.
We hope you enjoy the 10th edition of Mars United Commerce’s Retail Media Report Card. If you’d like to learn more about how Mars United can help you help excel in retail media, contact Ethan Goodman at [email protected].
