Retail Media Reality Check: Perceptions, Challenges & Factors Driving Investment

This proprietary research shares insights on how commerce marketers are approaching future investments, their retail media mix, measurement and much more.

Cyndi Loza

8/6/2024

In collaboration with Goodway Group/G-Comm.

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The rise of retail media and retailer media networks (RMNs) has impacted a lot — from the relationships between consumer product goods (CPG) manufacturers and their retailer partners, to where commerce marketers are spending their ad dollars. Its significance in the space will only continue to grow considering U.S. omnichannel retail media ad spend will increase from $54.85 billion this year to $129.93 billion in 2028, according to Emarketer, and that RMNs are leveraging their first-party data to expand to other formats, such as connected TV.

Recognizing retail media’s continued influence and momentum in the commerce marketing world, digital marketing agency Goodway Group teamed with the Path to Purchase Institute to conduct an online survey that looked at retail media budget allocations, factors influencing RMN investments and partnerships, challenges in the space, key performance indicators (KPIs) used to measure campaign success and more.

Survey Participants’ Profiles

P2PI fielded an online survey of 88 professionals at CPG brand companies, retailers and agencies (with a focus on consumer packaged goods) from March 7 through April 1. A majority of respondents surveyed (60%) were CPG brand executives, followed by agency professionals (27%) and retailer executives (13%). Among the CPG brand participants, nearly 60% reported their company produced food and beverage items and a quarter indicated working within the health and beauty category. Other categories represented included household products (9%), consumer electronics (6%), apparel (2%) and alcoholic beverages (2%).

While CPG was a major focus for the agency professionals, they also reported other areas of interest, such as retail (29%), direct-to-consumer (25%), entertainment (13%) and hospitality (13%).

For the retailer participants, a majority (64%) indicated they worked within the supermarket/grocery channel, followed by other channels including apparel and accessories (9%), discount/mass merchants (9%) and drug (9%).

Nearly half of respondents surveyed were managers or senior managers, followed by directors (34%), senior management (8%), head of business (6%) and other (4%). When it came to their primary job functions, 46% of survey takers indicated shopper/customer marketing, while the rest varied, but included brand marketing (16%), insights and analytics (9%), e-commerce (9%), sales/business development (8%) and digital marketing (6%).