Mars United compiles insights from all four regional Retail Media Report Cards to present a global perspective on the trends driving industry growth and the progress being made by 51 leading networks around the world.
To download the report, fill out the form below.
Industry forecasters might be running out of comparisons for retail media ad spending.
When spending first began to rise, growth was put into the context of digital media, where it will account for 25% of all ad dollars this year. Analysts then began comparing it to other media channels — most notably broadcast TV, which it’s expected to surpass in total dollars by 2025.
The next natural step was to assess retail media against all media spending, and even here the comparison is quite impressive: The $129.9 billion the U.S. market is forecast to generate in 2028 will command nearly one-fourth of all U.S. media dollars.
Retail media may never gain the same glorified status that broadcast TV once held in the advertising world. But it is certainly enjoying a few moments of glory — thanks primarily to the defining characteristics that broadcast TV could only dream of providing: truly targeted audiences and directly measurable results. (Had he bought retail media, John Wanamaker might actually have known which 50% of his advertising wasn’t working.)
But it does seem clear that, although current growth levels will ultimately slow at some point, retail media has become a critical element not just of commerce marketing but of brand marketing, too. And as it continues moving into the physical store environment and nearly every available digital engagement platform, it will also need to be viewed as a wholly unique — dare we say incomparable — media channel.
To be clear, though, most of the growth in retail media spending reflects the reallocation of dollars from other marketing budgets rather than incremental funding. That makes it even more critical for brands — faced with an array of choices about where and how to spend their money — to scrutinize their options. And 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.
Brand advertisers are tasked with developing a strategic understanding of how they can best leverage retail media to drive incremental growth, which retailers will provide the greatest opportunities for success, and what specific media investments will be most effective at achieving the desired impact.
They also must learn how to align their retail media activity with the rest of the commerce marketing plan, which can improve success not only through more seamless shopper engagement but by fostering greater internal efficiency across functions. This level of organizational understanding is critical to future success.
To help our clients efficiently evaluate their spending options across networks, Mars United developed a scorecard that assesses the capabilities of leading platforms against the key criteria required to optimally plan, execute, and measure effective retail media programs. We use this scorecard — alongside broader assessments of each network’s role in the overall brand-retailer partnership — to help clients begin identifying “best bet” investments for their retail media dollars.
In fall 2022, 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℠ Commerce began publicly sharing an abridged version of the scorecard that we named the Retail Media Report Card. The report presented the foundational elements of our evaluation process for clients.
Beginning in 2023, we started updating the Retail Media Report Card quarterly to track the ongoing enhancements made by the platforms being evaluated, to add more platforms to the assessment, and to modify our analysis as needed to continue reflecting best practices across the industry. (For instance, we significantly expanded our Media Opportunities in the second quarter of 2024 as networks began intensively broadening their offerings to include offsite digital and in-store options.)
Also in 2023, we began launching international versions of the Report Card: Europe that fall, followed by Australia-New Zealand and then Canada in early 2024. This inaugural Global Yearbook represents our first effort to combine the assessments from all four of these reports, which were updated in fall 2024.
Based on the feedback we’ve received over the past two years from clients, network partners, brands, retailers, industry vendors, and even a few competitors, we’re proud to note that our initial goal of helping guide the industry toward a greater collective understanding of best-in-class retail media activation has been achieved. We sincerely hope that you agree.
We also hope you enjoy this first edition of Mars United’s Retail Media Report Card Global Yearbook, as well as all the reports we’ll publish around the world in 2025.
To download the report, fill out the form below.
