Retail Media Networks Explained: Why Amazon, Walmart & Uber Are Winning Ad Dollars

Retail media networks have quietly become one of the most important forces in advertising.

In this episode, Kelly and Sean break down what retail media actually is, why it’s growing, and where it may be heading next.

At its core, a retail media network allows retailers to sell advertising using their own customer data—whether that’s on their website, app, or even in-store screens. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Target are leading the way, using shopper behavior to deliver highly targeted ads.

But the real story is in the growth.

Retail media accounted for roughly 15% of total U.S. media growth last year, making it one of the most impactful drivers in the industry.

So why is it working?

Two major factors:

• High purchase intent – Ads reach consumers already in buying mode
• Closed-loop measurement – Platforms can directly connect ad exposure to purchases

From an advertiser perspective, that combination is hard to ignore.

The episode also explores how the space is evolving:

Key trends shaping retail media

• Amazon continues to dominate, driving about 40% of retail media ad revenue
• Traditional retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Target remain strong
• New entrants—like Uber, Instacart, and airlines—are entering the space
• Over 50 large-scale retail media networks now exist in the U.S.

At the same time, signs of maturity are starting to appear:

• Fewer new network launches in 2026
• Slowing user growth as adoption approaches saturation
• Increased competition for the same audiences

So where does growth come from next?

Sean outlines three emerging directions:

1. Offsite advertising – Using retail data to sell ads beyond owned platforms
2. Audience matching & data partnerships – Expanding targeting capabilities
3. Continued expansion from existing players – Rather than new entrants

The takeaway: retail media isn’t slowing—but it is changing.

Key Topics

• What retail media networks are (simple explanation)
• Why brands are shifting budgets into retail media
• Amazon’s dominance and growth outlook
• The rise of Walmart, Kroger, and big-box players
• New entrants like Uber, Instacart, and airlines
• Why closed-loop attribution is driving adoption
• The rapid growth in retail media networks (50+ in the U.S.)
• Signs of market maturity and saturation
• What’s changing in 2026
• Future growth drivers: offsite, data partnerships, audience targeting

Chapters

00:00 Intro & Trader Joe’s story
03:10 What is a retail media network?
05:38 Why retail media is growing
08:01 Key advantages: targeting + attribution
09:49 Major players (Amazon, Walmart, grocery)
11:18 Growth of new entrants (Uber, Instacart, airlines)
12:22 Market saturation & slowing expansion
13:37 User growth limits
14:46 Future growth strategies
19:04 Key takeaways
19:29 Closing thoughts

If you’d like access to the benchmark report or want to suggest a topic for the next part of the programmatic series, reach out to press@guideline.ai.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations on advertising, media strategy, and cultural marketing moments.

And if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, a quick rating or review helps more people discover the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

You're listening to Media Monitor, where we break down what's happening in the media and the advertising industry and tell you what it actually means. Well, Sean, I don't know if you know this about me, but you are in the presence of a former Trader Joe's store artist.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

I am not gonna lie. Number one, I did not know that at you. Number two, kinda cool because every Trader Joe's super unique and fascinating to see like how they draw stuff on their store or like some of the murals or like the produce signs with like the hand colored bananas. It's a vibe. It's uh I'm I'm honored. I'm honored to be in your presence.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

And I'll I'll tell you how it happened. I submitted my job application in writing. And the captain it's a ship, right? So there's a captain who's the store manager. The captain ran out and said, Wait, your penmanship, do you draw?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

This this feels like a story out of like 1958 of like, here's how I started my career. I knocked on doors and I wrote this man a letter.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

The lore, I know. Um, turns out their uh artist artist in residence was taking the summer off to go to an art camp. This is a real story. And so more than needing a cashier and a stock shelfer, they needed someone to make those lines. And they gave me a budget to go buy chalk and go buy pens, and it was, I gotta tell you, the best time ever.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

That's that is pretty cool, honestly. And I know we frequently talk about uh our Venn diagram of interests. This is actually one area where there is also slight overlap, not because of the art stuff. I'm a terrible artist, and no one has ever commented anything positive about my penmanship. But one of the first places early on in my career was Wake Fern Food Corporation, which is kind of the co-op wholesaler, parent, however you want to kind of frame it, of uh Shopright supermarkets and fresh grocers and price rights in the Northeast. And I actually uh worked there for many years doing their insights and analytics, would store walk. To this day, one of my favorite things on the planet, which I cannot stop myself from doing, is any new place I go to, I find the closest supermarket and I walk, I literally walk it for like an hour. I love looking at the merchandising, I love seeing how end caps are done. I love to see like how they're managing their cold chains. It legitimately is still to this day something that super fascinates me of like what kind of skews do they have, what type of product is on shelf. I cannot get enough of grocery stores. I miss it to this day. I I absolutely loved it there and I love I love grocery stores.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I feel like we could do a whole episode on this because I you're now making me recall a time when uh there would I could redo the code on the little label that would tell you what the employee discount price was for everything in a drugstore where I worked. But to your point, it's like I don't think people realize the art and the science that goes into figuring out what is on the shelf at eye level versus that bottom row. And there's a lot behind the scenes there. So getting back to our topic for today, maybe and getting behind the scenes of a grocery store. Yeah, thought maybe we'd spend some time talking about retail media networks, the the modern day equivalent of our early career experiences and trends that are there. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, the kids love it. It's all the rage.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

The kids love it. Well, before we dive into it, let's define it, right? I think some of our listeners will know what a retail media network is, others will not.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

But an impossible task, by the way. Which we'll talk to by the end of defining what is a retail media network is like, I am waiting with bated breath. Please. Please tell me what your definition is.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I mean, I'll tell you to your point. It is fluid in the simplest definition. It's an advertising platform run by a retailer that lets brands promote their products directly on the retailer's own digital properties, like their website, their apps, or even in-apps or in-store screens, kind of getting to what we were talking about, you know, physical locations out-of-home advertising. So when a retailer like Amazon, Walmart, or Target, some of the most popular and biggest retail media networks that we know, sells ad space on their platforms to brands using shopper data to target ads very precisely. That's that's what we're talking about here. How do what does how does that land with you, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, I think I think it lands nicely for a retailer, which we'll get to uh later on, is uh there's been a lot of copycats that are lumping themselves into a retail media network that uh are are not anywhere near retail, which is which is always interesting. And also kind of then asks the questions of what happens to that kind of in-store component that you referenced as it relates to advertising and all that. But yeah, a lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Absolutely. So and why are we talking about this at all, right? I think it's important to just kind of turn the clock back. I say this a lot. We got to look at history, right? So when did these these retail media networks emerge? Well, they've been around for a long time and you know, homegrown efforts, but it was really kind of around 2018 that we started to see them sprouting up. Um, you know, Amazon's had one since 2012, but now they are a meaningful contribution to the US media market growth. We've talked about the decliners, but this is is growing. And so we wanted to unpack how it's growing, why it's growing, and what we think is going to happen. And um, I'd love for you to kind of give us, you know, what are the what are the trends that you're seeing around this space?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah. Happy to jump into it. So kind of right off the bat, you know, one of the things that we we obviously track, look pretty closely at, is is retail media spend because it is where a lot of dollars are flowing. You know, if we look at the overall US media market in terms of what we can see in our data for for last year, 24 to 25, you know, they were meaningfully about uh, let's call it for uh simple math here, uh maybe 15% of the overall growth uh came from retail media networks alone. So it's not chump change in terms of where the dollars are flowing. And you know, there's a couple of reasons for it. One, it's great for endemic media, what we might call something that is a naturally good fit. Endemic media is if you sell, uh I was gonna offer up a terrible like if you sell shin guards or maybe like you're Adidas and you sell you know soccer shorts, running in a stadium where the the Red Bulls play is endemic media, right? You're there, people you already know that the audience there is is there for that. Utail Media does a great job with that for companies within food, right? Uh personal care, shampoo, all of that. Because you already know that people are there and they're in the right mindset for your advertising. So it works really well for that. Another growth engine and kind of trends that we're seeing is it's this kind of closed loop attribution, meaning if I run an ad, I don't need an outside measurement company to tell me what happened. I know if I ran an ad within a retail media network, they can tell me, yes, my shopper saw your ad and yes, they bought something or they had it in their shopping cart, or right, they can get to that level of detail through loyalty card data. If you have a membership that you log in on a website, all of those things help them with attribution. So naturally, there's these kind of two things that are working for them that are helping them grow and also kind of like showcasing the value of a retail media network in today's age where you know, for a lot of brands, they're being pressured to try to figure out is this ad working? And it's really kind of a fast, quick route to say, yeah, it worked. Somebody bought it because they saw this ad, right? And we can get into the whole last click attribution versus actual funnel, all that, right? Like there's a uh a real honest debate about that. But like retail media networks have no, no concerns with making the claim that they saw the ad on the platform and they bought it because of them, right? And that's part of partly what is what made them that 15% of growth in the US for for last year.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, right? There's you're giving them so much information by making your purchases. They know who you are, they know what you want. So why wouldn't they serve you an ad with something that makes sense for you to buy? It's it's just logical, right? Yeah. So in in terms of like those trends, it's 15% of it. How do you see that evolving? Who are some of you know, who are some of the major players? Who are some of the surprising players? You you mentioned, you know, for retailers it made sense, but there are some others that are kind of inching their way in there. Let's talk a little bit about who's making up this group of companies.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Aaron Powell Sure. So I think the the obvious place to start is Amazon. Amazon is the retail media network. In our data alone, Amazon is probably around 40% of all of the ad revenue that we see associated with retail media networks, is specifically just coming from Amazon. Um, and they've been growing and they they're expected to continue to grow. In our data, we're showing them 20%. Uh for next year, we have them, or I guess this year, 2026, we have them forecasted to grow another 22%, right? They're massive and they continue to grow. It would be silly not to kind of call them out as the retail media network. But a close second is a lot of the grocery stores, right? The Krogers of the world, the Albertsons, also kind of the big box Walmart is clearly part of that, right? So if you would label all of them of like more of this, like the retail in retail media is a big part of that as well. Um, and they probably make up, let's call it like another 40% collectively, maybe 35% of our of our data. Um, and they're growing also at around 23% kind of forecasted for this year. So very healthy growth. Uh, and then to your question of like, okay, and a little bit of what I alluded to of like what is a retail media network? It's these like other players that are adjacent, that they have a captured audience, they have some sort of like way to track audiences and purchase behavior, but at the end of the day, aren't technically retailers. So Connective, which is United Airlines kind of media media network, Instacart, Uber, Lyft, um, even American Express, right, all have these media networks where they say, we have a unique subset of the population that we can advertise to. We know a lot about them. Come and spend your ad dollars with us. Um and they're they're small, right? They're kind of the the remaining 15% of our pool, but they are growing at 2x the rate of everyone else, you know, 44% forecasted for 26. So, in terms of some of the players in the space, those would be a few that I would call out. Obviously, there are a lot more, um, which I think is also worth noting. Uh, December of 2025, there are 51 kind of major-scaled retail media networks. You know, any any retail media network reaching over you know 2 million people in the US, there's 51 of them today in terms of scale, which is literally hockey stick growth. If you kind of go back to right around when the pandemic hit, there was about 22 of them. And so that has been kind of almost a 2x growth rate in just five years, which is which is fascinating. In actual 2024 alone, that was kind of the peak expansion. There were 13 kind of new retail media networks that kind of came on board in that year alone. 2025 was a little, little less. I think it was around 10-ish, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And what I mean, I've I'm assuming that you know these companies are gonna announce when something is coming to get to generate buzz. What are we hearing about launches in 2026?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Crickets. We're hearing crickets, nada. What we have heard, which I think we'll kind of talk to of like one of the growth pillars for this year, is we haven't heard any major launches by this time last year. Um, I think we heard about four so far. So it's not like, oh, it's only April. It's like, well, if you look back to April by April of the last couple of years, there were at least a few companies that had come out and said, hey, we're starting our own media network. And so part of the question is like, hey, a lot of retail media growth has really come just from like organic expansion of places to put your ads. Like as more media networks have opened up, right? It's easier to run ads on more places. But with no announcements coming, how much of this is then going to be reliant on existing platforms to grow? Right. That's that's one big question mark that I have for 26. But like, yes, it is a pretty stark kind of call out, right? Usually in CES, the last couple of years, you would have gotten one or two announcements, but but none this year.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

So the feeling is those who who can did. And like we might be kind of hitting a little bit of a plateau in terms of that growth of new retail media networks emerging.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah. And and like on the plateau front, right, there's also the question of people. Think, I think the other the other big thing is like there hasn't been a massive change in Walmart, you know, uh shoppers or users, right? There hasn't been a massive change in Amazon subscribers. Yes, they continue to grow, but there's just only so many people that can be signed up for a retail media network, right? Like I might have Coles rewards, I might have uh, you know, be a Home Depot member, I might have uh a Walmart subscription, but there's only so many that I'm willing to sign up for. And if we look at the numbers, you know, basically earlier this year, we were at about 80% of the adult population had some sort of retail media subscription, or maybe like loyalty card or something like that. There's only so many more people that you can kind of squeeze out of the top of that. And so a lot of the growth in the past has also come from just like new signups or new users. And that's also something that's kind of maturing and plateauing. So you kind of have these two maturing forces between not a lot of organic growth coming from new platforms and also the existing customers are kind of now stretched over a lot of the retail media platforms to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, I guess and I'm wondering like, is another potential angle for growth? Because we were we were talking about this with some of our Canadian colleagues, and they said, What do you mean you have ads on Uber? And I said, I opened up my app and I said, like, but they don't they don't have them. So I I guess maybe there's a path for growth if regulation changes in some countries. But I don't I mean, like to your point, I think you're right. Like we're kind of maxing out, and there's you know, I for one do not belong to 51 retail media networks. I think it would be interesting to know the average like person. They probably pick like, you know, their main grocery store. They're not gonna be on 10 different ones. I mean, I guess I've had to expand because I, you know, I have family on the East Coast and they have a whole different chain of grocery stores. So I have to, you know, have that for my once a year when I'm in charge of the grocery order for this thing. But like, you know, it's uh there's a there's a ceiling here.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Okay, so if the the user growth is slowing, what are the other ways that retail media networks can grow?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, I mean, time will tell. My guess based on strategy is I think you're gonna see three ways retail media tries to drive new revenue in 2026. That's not the old school way of thinking about retail media networks where you're like, hey, you're on our site, would you like to buy my ice cream, right? Or promoted search. I think that those are still gonna be there, but those are part of the maturation that comes with the market. The three that I would highlight would be one, some sort of offsite inventory. So offsite being like if Amazon today owns and operates their Amazon.com website, they could partner with, say, like a streaming service and actually use the retail media um data and kind of resell some of that other kind of partnership inventory, with the idea being that like we'll give you some of our audience insight, some of their purchase behavior, if we can sell some of your inventory. So I would actually expect that to be to expand. When we look at our data, you know, I would estimate that probably about 5% of retail media's revenue in 2026 is gonna come from some sort of off-site inventory. And that's up, by the way, from like 1% just two, three years ago. Um so again, 5%, you're like, why are you even talking about this in terms of growth? And you're like, yeah, but it is like a material change. And it's also fundamentally a different strategy, right? You have a different team, you have to sell it differently, there's different go-to-market strategies. It's more complex than just saying, here's our website, we run ads on it, yeah, you buy some stuff, you're done, right? Like, that's not how retail media has gone to market in the past. So it's gonna require a bit of like internal changes and strategy shifts. The second is kind of these audience solutions. Is so think of like an experience of the world or something like that, where I want to find the 15 people who are interested in buying my car. Hopefully I have more than 15 people in an addressable universe, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Because of the way Sean who told me about your cars. I don't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

That's fair. So personally to my cars, yeah, there might be two people in the world that are interested in buying a 18-year-old car that has many miles on it and is practically falling apart. I get that. You know, it's and it's an acquired taste. But if we think about kind of those users, I know that profile, but no one's going to kind of give me that information outright because it it is a violation of privacy laws. So you do these things that are like data clean rooms where you can kind of like match up this is the person I'm talking about. And then the audience provider is gonna say, okay, well, we think it's this person in our data. Let's match them up. And now we have like a one-for-one match. And then they do that over time to try to build out, say, like an audience profile. My guess is you're gonna see a lot more announcements this year. And we've already seen multiple ones in terms of announcements in just Q 2026 that are gonna say, hey, I'm gonna partner with X clean room technology, or I'm gonna partner with Y Audience Solutions, where now my retail media data will be available to do this match, to find your right audiences in this space. And so, like, are they gonna use their proprietary data to kind of do more of that and act as like a third, third uh third-party data solution? My guess is yes, right, because it's yet another way that it's a high, high gross, you know, in terms of profitability for them. It drives a lot of volume and it doesn't require a lot of work on a retail media, you know, front to kind of do some of these announcements, right? It's a very minor lift, but it it brings back a lot of money without them having to do a ton of work, but it's very rich, very unique proprietary data. So like everyone wins in this space.

unknown 18:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

So like I see that as growth. And then, you know, that last pillar is really like some of the organic growth of like everyone who has done it has already launched a media network. That might be true for retailers. There are a few mid-sized players out there who aren't in the retail uh media or the retail space that that might have an opportunity to kind of jump in on kind of creating that media network. Um, and so that's also another area of growth of just kind of fueling that space there. So, like between those three pillars, I still expect growth to be coming from retail media for this year, but it it's probably gonna be a little bit of a different flavor than in years past of those like straight in-store promoted search type type uh you know, ad revenue.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Okay. Well, I for one feel enlightened. And um I think there's there's a lot to watch here as you know, we look to see the non-retailers who may enter the space. I think that point about you know pairing together your own data with other audience data to build an even stronger, you know, targeted campaign makes a ton of sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So lots to watch here. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah, it's it's been real. And it's also been great to find out that we have yet another thing that goes on the uh overlap of the Venn diagram. I'm sure there's a technical name for it, but wherever that middle part is, let's add now what we're up to. Two? Two things? Maybe three?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, we can call it safely call it two. So I mean, I just I'll be thinking about you when I when I walk the grocery store and and check the the shelves this week.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Please do. I I will be I will be traveling for spring break, and the the very first thing I will be doing is is heading to a sprouts to check out what is the the new merchandising because I don't have that where I live, and so that's always a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I'm sorry if you I love a sprouts.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

So it's good. It's good. It's good. I'm a little bit disappointed by their Italian meat section here in the Northeast. It's like even your most basic supermarkets have like wall-to-wall anything you want imported. Sprouts When I went was like, uh, we have salami, and just like, well, I don't I don't want that. That's like so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

That doesn't count.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, a little bit of a regional difference.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

All right. Well, enjoy your spring break and I will chat with you later.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Sounds good. Talk to you later. That's Media Monitor. Follow us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts every Wednesday for a new episode. And as always, thanks for listening.