Commerce Media vs Retail Media: What's the Difference? | Particular Audience
What commerce media is, how it differs from retail media, and how marketplaces, publishers, delivery apps and AI assistants sell ads using shopping data.
Commerce media vs retail media
Commerce media is advertising sold by any business with shopping data and shopping moments — retailers, marketplaces, delivery and travel apps, payment providers, publishers and AI assistants. Retail media is the retailer-run part of it. Both use first-party purchase signals to place relevant ads and measure sales, but commerce media includes sellers that don't hold stock.
Two terms, one idea
Retail media began with retailers selling ads on their own sites. As marketplaces, delivery apps, travel sites, payment companies and publishers started doing the same, "commerce media" became the wider term: advertising that uses shopping data and shopping moments, wherever they happen.
Retail media is commerce media run by a retailer, using its own shelves, sites and shoppers. Commerce media includes retail media plus anyone else with commerce signals: marketplaces, quick commerce and delivery apps, travel, financial services, publishers with shoppable content, and AI shopping assistants.
Who sells commerce media
- Marketplaces sell sponsored listings to sellers, and can open audiences to non-endemic brands. See marketplaces.
- Quick commerce and delivery apps sell placements inside a fast shopping mission. See Quick Commerce.
- Publishers add shoppable product placements to content. See publisher commerce media.
- AI assistants place sponsored products and answers inside conversations. See Sponsored Prompts.
Endemic and non-endemic
Endemic advertisers sell products through the platform — a cereal brand on a grocer. Non-endemic advertisers don't — a bank, an insurer, a car brand. Commerce media opens shopping audiences to both. The better the ad fits the shopping context, the better it works; a home insurer near a furniture purchase is more useful than a random banner. See Up-Funnel Non-Endemic and non-endemic media.
What stays the same
Whoever sells it, commerce media works when ads are relevant to the shopper, governed by the seller's rules, backed by live product and price data where products are involved, and measured on incremental outcomes. Outside demand should follow the same ranking and rules as direct campaigns. See External Demand Governance.
Related guides
- Retail media: the complete guide
- Agentic retail media for marketplaces
- How retailers monetise AI shopping assistants
Sources
- Up-Funnel Non-Endemic, checked 2026-11-13
- Publisher commerce media, checked 2026-11-13
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Frequently asked questions
Is commerce media the same as retail media?
Retail media is one part of commerce media. Commerce media also includes marketplaces, delivery apps, publishers, payment and travel companies, and AI assistants.
What is non-endemic advertising in commerce media?
Ads from brands that don't sell through the platform, such as banks or insurers, placed in relevant shopping context.
Related guides
- Retail media: the complete guide for retailers and brands: Retail media explained: what it is, onsite vs offsite, ad formats, how the money flows, how to measure it and how retailers start. A practical guide.
- Agentic retail media for marketplaces: Marketplaces can run agentic retail media by letting sellers pick products that surface, labelled, in the marketplace's AI assistant when requests are.
- What are sponsored prompts?: Sponsored prompts are a retail media format for AI conversations. When a shopper asks a retailer's assistant, voice service or AI search for something,.