The retail media landscape is exploding. Few topics in retail have garnered as much attention in recent years, and the growth shows no signs of slowing.

EMarketer predicts digital retail advertising spending will reach a staggering US$166 billion in 2025, a dramatic leap from the $46.4 billion spent in 2023, according to Statista. This surge has prompted a wave of retailers, from giants like Walmart and Amazon to more specialised players like Saks Fifth Avenue, to launch their own retail media networks (RMNs). Mimbi, a retail media intelligence platform, estimates that over 200 RMNs are currently operating in the US alone.

This rapid expansion is fuelled by several key factors. The rise of e-commerce has provided fertile ground for retailers to monetise their digital platforms and, crucially, their first-party data. Simultaneously, the decline of third-party cookies, driven by increasing privacy regulations and browser updates, has made this first-party data even more valuable to advertisers seeking effective targeting solutions. Retail media offers the promise of highly personalised product recommendations, promotions, and content, leading to increased customer engagement and conversion rates.

However, this proliferation of RMNs has also created a fragmented and complex media landscape. Brands now face the challenge of managing campaigns across numerous platforms, navigating evolving privacy concerns, and accurately measuring the impact of their data. This complexity raises a key question: is launching an individual RMN the best strategy for every retailer?

Industry expert Adam Skinner, MD of global product management at Epsilon Retail Media, believes collaboration is the key. He envisions a future where mid- and long-tail retailers aggregate their resources to compete with the dominant players like Walmart and Amazon. Skinner shared five key predictions for the future of retail media in 2025 with Inside Retail, outlining the trends that retailers need to be aware of. 

“As a trend, I think there’s going to be an aggregation of the mid- and long-tail retailers coming together to be able to really drive competition against those tier-one retailers like Walmart and Amazon and Target,” Skinner told Inside Retail.

In addition to explaining the benefits of this convergence of RMNs, Skinner broke down four other intriguing predictions retailers need to keep in mind about the state of retail media in 2025. 

1. The rise of the collective, aggregation, and syndication:

“In the retail media world, size matters,” emphasises Skinner. Advertisers and agencies are struggling with the logistical complexities of managing campaigns across a multitude of platforms, ensuring consistent brand messaging, achieving desired audience reach, and analysing performance effectively. Aggregation and syndication offer a solution. By pooling their data and resources, retailers can streamline campaign setup, optimisation, and reporting. This collaborative approach allows smaller and regional retailers to expand their reach, attract more advertisers, and boost their competitiveness in the retail media market. For brands, this means simplified campaign management and potentially broader reach through a single point of contact.

2. Self-service RMNs become the ‘new norm’:

Self-service RMN platforms, empowering advertisers to directly create, manage, and optimise their campaigns on a retailer’s digital properties without third-party intervention, are poised to become the standard in 2025. This shift towards self-sufficiency gives retailers, agencies, and advertisers greater control and efficiency. Skinner highlights the importance of integrated platforms: “Being able to have an on-site and an off-site campaign booked, or even a search campaign booked in one platform is going to make it easier for brands to be able to activate across multiple retail media networks in one buy.”

Self-service platforms will offer a range of benefits, including:

• Simplified campaign creation with user-friendly interfaces that make it easy for advertisers to set up and launch campaigns, even without specialised expertise.
• Increased transparency for advertisers to access campaign performance data in real time, allowing them to track results and make adjustments on the fly. This real-time feedback loop allows for agile campaign optimisation, ensuring maximum impact and efficiency.
• Improved efficiency with automated tools that streamline campaign management, freeing up time and resources for both retailers and advertisers. This automation allows smaller teams to manage multiple campaigns effectively, maximising their reach and impact.

This shift towards self-service will democratise access to retail media, making it easier for businesses of all sizes to participate and benefit from this growing channel. 

However, several challenges will remain in the year ahead, such as ensuring brand safety and maintaining ad quality on these platforms.

Retailers will need to implement robust safeguards and moderation processes to address these concerns, Skinner stated. 

3. Retail media growth will come from offsite

The longtime retail expert observed that retail media is no longer confined to the digital aisles of a retailer’s website or app. 

In 2025, offsite advertising will continue to become a key growth driver, allowing retailers to extend their reach and engage shoppers across the web.

By leveraging their valuable first-party data, Skinner explained that retailers can target shoppers on other websites and platforms, delivering personalised ads that drive new shoppers back to their own online and physical stores. 

For example, a sporting goods retailer can use their RMN to target outdoor enthusiasts on travel blogs and adventure websites with ads for hiking gear and camping equipment. 

This strategy offers several advantages such as increased brand awareness and improved targeting, which in turn can reduce ad spend and increase the likelihood of conversions and enhanced customer journey. 

The growth of offsite retail media is also being driven by “non-retail” retail media platforms, such as United Airlines and Marriott, Skinner noted.

These platforms primarily deliver ads offsite as they don’t have a significant online retail presence. They leverage their customer data and partnerships to offer targeted advertising opportunities in various channels.

Benefits for brands in using these “non-retail” platforms include increased brand awareness through exposure on various platforms and channels, full-funnel coverage, allowing retailers to reach consumers at different stages of the customer journey and maximising campaign effectiveness and access to new inventory. By exploring new ad formats and placements on different platforms, retailers can diversify their media mix and reach new audiences.  

Offsite advertising will be a game-changer for retail media, unlocking new revenue streams and solidifying the role of retailers as key players in the digital advertising ecosystem, the Epilson executive theorised.  

4. Clean rooms will drive the future of collaboration in retail media

As retailers collect large amounts of customer data in the year, concerns about privacy and data security will continue to grow.

As a result, more retailers will start operating ‘data clean rooms’, secure environments where retailers can share anonymised and aggregated customer data with advertisers without compromising individual privacy, to facilitate secure data collaboration with brand partners.   

These rooms will allow brands to access valuable insights for campaign planning and measurement while adhering to strict data privacy regulations.

The rise of data clean rooms will also foster greater trust and transparency between retailers and advertisers, enabling more effective collaborations and driving innovation in the retail media space.

5. Measuring the true impact of retail media will go beyond ROAS

Last but not least, while return on ad spend (ROAS) will remain a key metric in 2025, brands are increasingly looking beyond current ROAS to measure the true impact of retail media. 

This will require retailers to consider a broader range of metrics that assess brand perception, customer engagement, and repeat purchase behaviour. 

For example, metrics such as “new to brand”, a measure of the number of new customers acquired through a campaign or “share of sales”, the percentage of sales that can be attributed to a specific brand within a category, will offer retailers a more comprehensive view of campaign performance and brand growth.  

Thankfully, today’s advanced data and analytic capabilities enable retailers to capture more granular measurement and attribution and better understand the specific impact of different campaigns and channels.