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More 2025 Retail Media Predictions

1/29/2025
Diaz Nesamoney, founder, president & CEO of Jivox

Betting on retail media was a smart move two years ago. But as advertisers are embracing the new marketing channel at an impressive rate, key decisions need to be made. 

We're no longer just negotiating on-site retail media ad space, but also having to consider off-site and in-store. Brands will have to consider whether they stick with lower-funnel retail media strategies or expand into mid- to upper-funnel use. 

Retail media networks (RMNs) will have to decide on the level of curation they apply to DSPs looking to use their data and ad inventory. Brands and advertisers will have to weigh their options in light of the nuances of their industry and what is ultimately going to be worth the investment. 

At Jivox, we're heavily invested in accurately predicting where retail media is headed. Our technology is built to meet the needs of brands and advertisers — that includes looking months and years ahead to predict where those needs are headed. 

Working closely with our partners, I listen to industry leaders and analyze trends. I have the privilege to gain direct insight into where growth will come from and where new opportunities might require too much capital to be worthwhile.

With this unique industry access, I want to share where I think the industry will shift. It may make the difference between brands wasting months on a misbegotten venture or being ahead of the curve. But before diving into my predictions, I want to address a big Google-sized elephant in the room. 

How Does Google Canceling Third-Party Cookie Depreciation Impact Retail Media Growth?

One of the key tailwinds for retail media starting out was the need for a reliable source of first-party data. Google was following the likes of Apple and planning to remove third-party cookies from its browser, creating a large demand for first-party data solutions. 

As is widely known now, Google has delayed its plans to remove the cookie outright, leaving advertisers with questions about the future of first-party data solutions such as retail media.

The reality is that this move by Google doesn't change all that much. Google is giving users the option to disable third-party cookies, which will in itself have a large impact on its viability for advertisers. And with Apple removing the cookie and privacy laws becoming more commonplace, the third-party cookie is dwindling fast regardless. 

Given that cookies going away eventually is inevitable, this has not really slowed down retail media adoption. In 2024, omnichannel retail media still managed to grow a staggering 20.4% in the United States.

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2025 Predictions

In 2024, I had the opportunity to speak with many different brands and agencies as well as retail media and commerce media networks. It was clear from our conversations that several big changes were afoot. Retail media isn't very old as a marketing channel, so it comes as no surprise that things are changing quickly, especially when you consider its rapid growth. 

Here's what I've learned from the industry, our partners and our own operations in the retail media space. 

Off-Site Retail Media Expands, On-Site Hits Limits

2025 will be the year of off-site retail media. On-site proximity to the point of purchase is very valuable for advertisers, but it's also limited to sponsored search placements or product recommendation ads on a product detail page. Outside of Amazon, most retailers don't get a lot of traffic on their websites, which limits the number of ads they can sell. Large brands often want much more scale and also want richer formats like video that are not readily available onsite.

With off-site retail media, you have many more ad formats available to you — including banner, video and CTV ads — along with access to product purchase data from retailers. The data you have to work with is much richer, which is a big advantage.

While there has been progress made with in-store retail media, retailers will find that it is far more capital intensive than off-site. In-store is currently sitting at 0.7% of retail ad spend. While that number will probably increase, it probably won't be significant. Setting up and maintaining these on-site programmatically connected displays is a large endeavor for physical retail stores. It's not nearly as scalable or as precise.    

Mergers and Acquisitions

Ad-tech companies that have been slow to introduce retail media tech are going to start acquiring or merging with existing tech stacks. As retail media continues its explosive pace of growth, large platform providers will want to get in on the action. Amazon's recent announcement at CES about providing retailers with a retail media tech stack will only serve to add fuel to the fire.

Similarly, agencies will be building up their tech stacks trying to capitalize on the quickly growing retail media market. Some agencies have already made moves, such as Publicis acquiring Epsilon and CitrusAds or Omnicom acquiring Flywheel. In the year to come, expect more agencies to follow suit in acquiring retail media businesses for their tech stack.

Demand Side Curation

Data privacy is an essential feature of retail and commerce media. After all, retail and commerce media grew quickly primarily because they are reliable sources of consented first-party data as third-party cookies dwindle in support. 

When RMNs onboard DSPs and demand partners, it exposes them to data-security risks and challenges, which threatens a core value of RMNs. The workflows required to onboard first-party data to each DSP or media platform are also very cumbersome and get in the way of scale. With these concerns in mind, retail media networks have already started to implement curation as a way of solving both these problems. Look for this trend to become mainstream in 2025. 

This all coincides with the rise of private marketplaces (PMPs), a trend further signaling that curation is gaining momentum in ad tech.  

Managed Services Won't Suffice for Retail Media Creative

With the sheer volume of different RMNs and their respective media requirements, brands and advertisers will quickly find that managed services will limit profitability and scale. If you add off-site retail and commerce media into the mix, brands will be hard pressed to prevent managed service costs from ballooning from creative generation and approval processes. 

Advertisers will seek out tech platforms that support self-service activation. This setup will keep costs low while allowing brands to maintain brand consistency in a much more efficient manner. 

Measurability Challenges Will Slowly Improve

Attribution remains an achilles heel for retail media. As with every new marketing channel, measurability is slow to get off the ground. There is currently no standard for attribution in retail media.

As a consequence, it's difficult for advertisers to compare retail media networks. Amazon and other large retail media networks don’t have a ton of incentive to standardize as this could hurt their current advantage. The smaller RMNs are pushing for standardization as this would help level the playing field, but I think a solution isn't happening anytime soon. 

Even the fact that brands are now asking about attribution means that retail media is tremendously successful. And unlike other marketing channels, retail media has the potential to close the loop. With access to product-purchase data, brands will be able to trace their marketing efforts directly to the purchase on a retailer's website. That will truly be a triumph for measurability.

While closing the loop is not currently a reality for a lot of retail media attribution in 2025, we're likely to see it happen in the future.

Mid- to Upper-Funnel Retail Media Use Will Grow

Up until recently, retail and commerce media has been primarily focused on lower-funnel marketing strategies. But with its expansion into off-site and the gradual improvement of measurability, advertisers will experiment more with mid- to upper-funnel marketing strategies.  

You'll start to see more awareness campaigns that target audiences rather than specific individuals. Retailers like Walmart will be able to use their product-purchase data to generate audiences that they can then share with advertisers. 

This will also be driven by non-endemic brands starting to see retail media as providing better and more precise audiences than search and social platforms, though this is likely to be a slower trend.

CTV and Shoppable Ads Begin to Scale

While TikTok, currently the biggest player in shoppable ads, faces an uncertain future in the U.S., shoppable ads will flourish on other streaming and social platforms. Shoppable CTV specifically will bring more mid-to-upper funnel ad spend to retail media. 

Influencer Content, Retail Media Start to Converge

Retailers have already started featuring influencers on product detail pages. Soon, influencer content will make its way to retail media ads, giving products the authenticity and validation that brands seek with influencer marketing in general.  

Influencer endorsements are already being viewed as more authentic than product reviews. Influencer content also serves to make retail media ads more engaging and differentiated.

Non-Endemic Advertising Slower to Adopt Retail Media Than Expected

Retail media started with endemic advertising, which are essentially ads featuring products that are available for purchase on a retailer's site. Ads featuring products that are not offered on the retailer site, known as non-endemic advertising, are not being adopted quickly.

The current ecosystem is hard to disrupt as it requires large numbers of agency and marketing teams to learn about retail media and get comfortable with the concept. Non-endemic advertising will be a big source of growth for retail media in the years to come, but 2025 won't reflect this. 

Retail Media Will Outperform AI Investments in ROI

While retail media and AI are not mutually exclusive, they still compete for investment dollars. Plenty of advertisers and ad tech vendors will invest heavily in AI, but will likely wish they focused on what seems to be a sure thing in terms of boosting profits and in growing retail media revenue.

Those are the trends you can expect from retail and commerce media in the year ahead. Brands, advertisers and RMNs have some tough choices ahead of them, but will be rewarded for choosing well. 

Retail media is growing rapidly and nothing will change that in the year ahead. Brands and retailers can take full advantage of this growing marketing channel by using a purpose-built retail and commerce media activation platform (such as Jivox IQ DiVinci) for scaling up their retail and commerce media efforts.  

About the Author
Diaz Nesamoney is an accomplished technology entrepreneur who founded three successful technology companies, all harnessing the power of data to power enterprise and consumer applications. He is currently founder, president and CEO of Jivox, a company that provides a technology platform for data-driven personalized advertising and marketing. 

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