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Everyone Wants A Piece Of Retail Media

Mike Shields

eMarketer says that one fifth - 20% - of all ad spending (not just digital, all) will go to retail media by next year. Which is fairly insane, considering that the category barely existed a few years ago. Which explains why everyone in media wants in on the action - even if they are not in, or even close to the commerce business.

This week we saw Yahoo ink a deal with Kroger which will allow advertisers to use Yahoo's ad-tech to target shoppers all over the web. This follows similar deals between The Trade Desk and Instacart, as well as numerous retailers pumping data into tools built by Criteo, Microsoft and others. You'd think that this kind of activity is well timed, given the never ending cookie limbo - the open web needs all the help it can get. Unfortunately, to date, its been hard to tell whether targeting shoppers 'off platform' (meaning not on Walmart.com or Kroger.com) is gaining big traction.

Meanwhile, as we've discussed, the big TV players are all trying to push shoppability. As the Upfronts approach, many of the top presentations are expected to feature a healthy dose of retail partnership, per Business Insider. While Amazon has an obvious big play to make here, look for more tie ups such as NBCU and Walmart's recent pact. It's an open question just how big T-Commerce will be - and it's also quite possible that retail media in general has a natural ceiling. But for now, it's shop until you drop.

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