Retail media is poised to reshape the advertising landscape in 2025, with projected global revenues of $176.9 billion, marking an impressive 18.6% growth year-over-year. This surge highlights the importance of retail media as a critical channel for marketers, offering opportunities to achieve precise audience targeting and drive significant ROI with first-party data. The growing adoption of these trends is fuelling the rapid expansion of the retail media space.
According to a 2024 study by the Association of National Advertisers, 58% of US marketers work with at least 5 retail media networks in a growing number of industries ranging from travel to entertainment and financial services. This is why retail media networks (RMNs) are so impactful:
- First-party data advantage: Retail media leverages retailers’ mass “buyer data” or first-party data, enabling brands to connect with high-intent shoppers using privacy-compliant methods.
- Precise audience targeting: Unlike broad digital advertising campaigns, RMNs allow for hyper-targeted approaches, ensuring brands reach shoppers most likely to convert.
- Proven ROI: With measurable performance metrics, retail media offers a clear pathway to demonstrating advertising success.
6 Key Trends Shaping Retail Media
1. Diversification in the Retail Media Ecosystem
While major players continue to dominate, the global retail media ecosystem is rapidly expanding, with strong competition from companies like Instacart, eBay, Etsy, Kroger, and Target. These emerging leaders attract advertisers with innovative ad formats, large customer bases, and valuable loyalty program data. But retail media is no longer confined to traditional e-commerce giants—a diverse range of industries, from marketplaces and financial services to travel, hospitality, and wellness brands, are monetising their audiences and offering valuable advertising opportunities to brands and marketers.
This trend is particularly evident in emerging markets like South Africa, where platforms like Hellopeter, PriceCheck and DigsConnect are unlocking entirely new revenue streams through retail media. According to research by World Wide Worx, South Africa’s online retail surged to R71 billion in 2023 and is forecast to reach R100 billion by 2026. “The strategic shift towards competitive e-commerce offerings and enhanced customer engagement, including sophisticated AI-driven tools, has fundamentally transformed the retail landscape in South Africa,” says Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx.
2. Data Over Demographics
The era of relying on demographics to predict intent is fading, giving way to a new focus of “you are what you buy.” By using their own buyer data, retail media networks are enabling personalised ads tailored to shoppers’ actual purchase behaviour. This directly represents consumers’ expectations of brands to meet them where they are in their shopping journey, not on demographic assumptions.
3. Expanding Media Formats
Early adopters of online and offline retail media have unlocked immense value by reaching consumers at every stage of the shopping journey. By combining the precision of hyper-targeted audience segmentation with insights from physical shopping behaviours, businesses are crafting comprehensive ad strategies that maximise engagement and impact. The result? A virtually limitless pool of inventory across digital platforms, in-store displays, and other touchpoints that continuously evolve as consumer behaviours shift.
Here are three key formats shaping the retail media landscape:
On-site media: Ads on a retailer’s website or app (e.g., sponsored listings, banners, carousels) target active shoppers, driving high engagement.
Off-site media: Ads on third-party platforms (e.g. social media, programmatic) reach shoppers outside the retailer’s ecosystem.
In-store media: Digital ads like shelf displays, kiosks, and screens connect online and offline shopping experiences.
4. Embracing AI Ad Personalisation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is enhancing personalised advertising by enabling retailers to deliver highly tailored shopping experiences to offer precise product recommendations both online and in-store. By analysing vast amounts of customer data, AI can deliver hyper-targeted ads based on shopping behaviour, preferences, and demographics for highly relevant ads that grow customer satisfaction, and engagement.
5. Expansion of Programmatic Ad Buying
A deeper integration of programmatic platforms with real-time bidding will unlock unlimited ad inventory monetisation for retailers in 2025. This will give brands greater flexibility in their targeting and allow them to adjust their campaigns in real time, reaching the right shoppers with precision. This trend will also enable more effective audience segmentation, maximising ROI on ad spend.
6. Transparency of Retail Media Campaigns
This year, advanced attribution models will continue to evolve and become more widely adopted to measure the effectiveness of campaigns using retailers’ buyer data. These models will provide advertisers and brands with deeper insights into their ROI, aligning with the industry’s push for more sophisticated attribution methods and standardised measurement metrics. By analysing metrics such as online conversion rates, in-store foot traffic, and customer lifetime value, advertisers will gain a clearer understanding of campaign optimisation and ROI.
How Flow Supports Retail Media Growth
Flow simplifies how retailers and marketplaces unlock new revenue streams by transforming first-party data into powerful advertising opportunities. Our off-site commerce media platform removes the complexity of audience monetisation, so you can focus on growing your business.
What Makes Flow Different?
- Effortless media monetisation: Build a thriving media business without the heavy lifting. Flow enables you to create unlimited ad inventory, generating revenue from your audience data quickly.
- Maximised profitability: Boost your bottom line with minimal setup. Our platform is built to deliver high-profit margins, helping you scale efficiently.
- Smart, targeted campaigns: Reach the right shoppers with precision. Flow empowers hyper-targeted campaigns across social media and programmatic channels, ensuring impactful results for your advertisers.
Join the Retail Media Revolution
Retail media is set to become an indispensable channel for brands and advertisers. With its unmatched ability to deliver personalised, data-driven advertising experiences, it’s no surprise that retail media is growing at such a rapid pace. At Flow, we’re proud to be at the forefront of this evolution, enabling our partners to thrive in this dynamic space.
Contact us today for a free demo on how Flow can help you stay ahead in 2025 and beyond.
