Retail Media vs. Trade Marketing: Navigating the New Landscape

From Trade Marketing to Retail Media: A Brief Historical Evolution

Trade Marketing’s Origins: Trade marketing emerged as brands’ strategy to win over the “middlemen” – distributors, wholesalers, and retailers – to stock and promote their products. It’s inherently a B2B strategy focused on the supply chain. The goal was simple: secure shelf space and in-store visibility. Tactics included volume discounts, co-op advertising funds, in-store displays, and joint promotions. Trade marketing ensured retailers would list a brand’s products and give them prime placement (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI) (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider). Essentially, trade marketing is about marketing through the trade channel – incentivizing your retail partners so that your product ultimately sells to consumers.

Shopper Marketing and the Path to Purchase: As retail environments grew more sophisticated, shopper marketing emerged as a subset of trade marketing. This practice focused on influencing consumers at the point of purchase (in-store signage, sampling, loyalty programs, etc.), often funded by trade budgets. For years, shopper marketing and trade promotions were how brands influenced decisions inside a retailer’s walls. However, measurement was often crude – success was gauged by spikes in sales or market share, without detailed attribution. Creative control in these efforts often lay partly with retailers (e.g. a grocer’s weekly ad circular) and partly with brands supplying collateral, leading to blurry lines in brand messaging.

The Digital Disruption – Rise of Retail Media: Enter the e-commerce revolution and digital advertising. As shoppers shifted online and retailers built robust websites and apps, a new opportunity surfaced: retailers themselves selling advertising space. What started in the 2010s as simple banner ads or product search ads on retailer websites (often managed under trade/shopper teams) has exploded into Retail Media Networks (RMNs) – a full-fledged media business for retailers. Amazon was the trailblazer: by 2020, Amazon’s advertising business grew 52% in one year to $21.5 billion (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider), making it the third-largest digital advertising player after Google and Facebook. Seeing this success, nearly every major retailer – Walmart (Walmart Connect), Target (Roundel), Kroger, Tesco, and others – launched their own retail media platforms.

Today, retail media has “ballooned into an independent new media category” (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI) rather than just a line item in a trade marketing plan. In fact, 68% of advertisers are already working with one or more retail media networks (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI), and GroupM forecasts retail media to be the fastest-growing media channel, with an expected 17.5% growth in 2024 (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). Within the next two to three years, U.S. retail media ad spend is projected to top $100 billion (triple its 2021 size) (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG). This historical shift didn’t happen overnight – it’s the result of changing shopper behavior (online research, hybrid shopping), retailers realizing the goldmine of their first-party data, and brands chasing more measurable ROI.

Retail Media vs. Trade Marketing – Key Differences

While they both ultimately aim to drive product sales through retail channels, retail media and trade marketing differ in fundamental ways. Here are the key differences across budget, measurement, and strategic objectives:

• Audience & Focus: Trade marketing is B2B-focused – its “audience” is the retailer or distributor. Success in trade marketing means your product is stocked, visible, and promoted by the retailer (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider). Retail media, on the other hand, is B2C-focused (through a B2B2C lens). It targets end consumers within a retailer’s ecosystem (online or in-store) with advertising messages. In simple terms, trade marketing influences the retailer, while retail media influences the shopper (often at the point of purchase). This shift in focus means retail media is effectively a form of shopper-facing advertising, powered by the retailer’s data and channels.
• Budget Allocation: Traditionally, trade marketing budgets have been part of sales expenditure – often a separate bucket from brand advertising budgets. Companies allocate a percentage of revenue for trade spend (e.g., trade promotions, slotting fees, etc.), managed by sales or shopper marketing teams. Retail media spend, however, blurs the lines. Initially, brands funded retail media campaigns largely out of those same shopper marketing/trade budgets – in fact, 56% of companies say their retail media spend comes from shopper marketing budgets (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute). This made sense as early retail media buys were seen as “digital end-caps” or online promos. But as retail media matures into a strategic advertising channel, we’re seeing a shift: brand marketing is now overtaking shopper marketing as the source of retail media funding (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). In other words, CMOs are starting to carve out portions of the media budget (traditionally meant for Google, Facebook, TV, etc.) for retail media networks. This difference in budget sources is critical – it influences who “owns” the strategy (more on that conflict later).
• Measurement & Data: One of the biggest divides between trade marketing and retail media is the measurement capability. Trade marketing has historically been hard to measure precisely – you might see an uplift in sales during a promotion or increased orders from a retailer, but attributing that to specific trade activities can be murky. It’s often measured in broad strokes (e.g., quarterly sales volume, market share gains, or meeting a retailer’s sell-in targets). Retail media, by contrast, is highly data-driven and measurable. Because it operates like digital advertising, it offers verifiable audience data and campaign metrics in real time (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI) (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI). Brands can track impressions, clicks, and conversions on retailer sites, and even link exposures to in-store sales in some cases (through loyalty programs or in-store digital tracking). Closed-loop attribution – connecting an ad view to an actual purchase in the same retailer’s store or site – is the holy grail, and retail media is delivering on it (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG). For example, retail media networks enable brands to see how an online ad influenced in-store buying via loyalty account data, something traditional trade spend could only guess at. This superior measurement appeals to any data-driven CMO: it’s no surprise one study found 34% of advertisers now say retail media networks are more effective than other digital media (versus just 15% a year prior) (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute). The ability to target and optimize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) with retailer data (and even calculate incremental ROAS or iROAS) gives retail media an edge over blunt trade promotions.
• Strategic Objectives: Trade marketing’s objective is to “seal the deal” in the distribution channel ([PDF] Trade Marketing in Transition. | Criteo). That means securing retailer buy-in, negotiating shelf space, running joint promotions – all to ensure your product is available and pushed by the retailer. It’s very much about driving volume through retailer relationships and often short-term sales boosts (think: “sell-in” volume and trade deal efficiency). Retail media’s objective is to influence the consumer’s purchase decision at the critical moment and drive sell-through. It operates across the marketing funnel: initially, retail media was seen as lower-funnel (sponsored product ads that drive immediate conversion). Now, many retail media networks are expanding to upper-funnel offerings like video, CTV, and off-site ads for awareness (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week) (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). So the strategy for retail media can span from building brand awareness (top of funnel, via a retailer’s audience data on external channels) to closing the sale (bottom funnel, via sponsored search on the retailer’s site). Brands use retail media not just to get the sale but also to glean insights (since retailers share rich data) and even to build loyalty (through personalized offers in retailer apps (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG)). In summary, trade marketing is about getting your product in the store, while retail media is about making it jump off the shelf (physical or digital) into the customer’s cart, with precision targeting along the way.
• Creative Control & Format: In traditional trade marketing, creative executions are often retailer-centric. For example, a brand might co-fund a retailer’s print ad or in-store signage – the retailer’s marketing team often designs the creative to fit their store theme or flyer format, with the brand’s input being indirect. With retail media, the brand typically supplies the ads (banners, sponsored product content, etc.), so there is more direct creative control but within the retailer’s ad platform constraints. Advertisers do voice concerns about creative freedom on retail media networks, asking questions like “How much creative control do I have over the ads served, and will it align with my brand identity?” (Pentaleap Blog: RMNs: This is What Your Advertisers Want from You). The reality is that retail media ads must conform to retailer guidelines (size, style, context relevance), and sometimes brands feel the formats (e.g., a sponsored product listing) limit their storytelling. On the flip side, new retail media offerings (like custom brand pages on retailer sites or in-store digital displays) are giving brands canvases to express their identity – albeit in collaboration with the retailer. The key difference is co-creation: in retail media, brands and retailers often co-create ad content that balances brand messaging with retailer context, whereas in trade marketing, a lot of the consumer-facing creative (like a price promo tag or endcap sign) was controlled by the retailer with less focus on brand storytelling.

In essence, retail media merges the mindset of digital advertising with the context of retail, whereas trade marketing has been a more behind-the-scenes deal-making practice. These differences set the stage for both exciting opportunities and inevitable conflicts as the two worlds collide.

Conflicts and Overlaps: When Trade Marketing Meets Retail Media

As retail media rises, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it directly affects traditional trade marketing activities. This can create tensions, overlaps, and growing pains for both brands and retailers. Let’s unpack a few:

• Budget Battles and Reallocation: Perhaps the biggest conflict is the tug-of-war over budgets. Retail media has to be funded from somewhere, and as noted, many companies initially dipped into trade or shopper marketing funds. This shift can pit Sales/Trade teams against Marketing teams internally. For example, if a brand historically gave a retailer $1 million for in-store promotions, that retailer might now also ask for a $1 million retail media commitment. Does the brand double the spend, or cut the trade promo budget to fund the new retail media program? Many brands have chosen to reallocate – a recent ANA survey found brands are indeed shifting money from shopper marketing and brand marketing into retail media (Marketers Spending Significantly More on Retail Media Networks ...). The same survey noted this spending is often not incremental but a reallocation from existing buckets (Marketers Spending Significantly More on Retail Media Networks ...), confirming the internal budget cannibalization. No wonder retailers themselves have been nervous – they welcome new ad dollars but fear that trade marketing funds might shrink to make room (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI). One BCG analysis observed that brands have “nearly tapped out” their shopper marketing and trade budgets to fuel retail media’s growth so far (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG), meaning further growth will require tapping brand advertising budgets or finding new money. This budget ballet can cause friction: sales teams worry that cutting trade spend will hurt their relationship with retailers, while marketing teams insist that retail media is a more efficient use of dollars due to its targeting and ROI.
• Ownership and Organizational Silos: With budgets in flux, another overlap/conflict arises: Who owns retail media – the trade marketing team or the brand marketing team? In many organizations, shopper marketing (trade) teams are still running the show on retail media execution – in fact, even as funding shifts, shopper marketing is still more likely than brand marketing to handle planning, buying, creative, and measurement of retail media campaigns (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). This can create internal tug-of-war. Imagine a CMO allocates budget for a Walmart Connect campaign, but the Sales-led shopper team wants to control how it’s spent because they manage the Walmart relationship. The brand team might be more concerned with upper-funnel metrics and brand consistency, while the shopper team is laser-focused on immediate sales lift and appeasing the retailer. Lack of coordination between these stakeholders can lead to sub-optimal outcomes (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week) (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week) – for example, misaligned campaigns or missed opportunities because insights aren’t shared. Progressive companies are addressing this by forming cross-functional “commerce” teams or holding joint planning sessions. Breaking down silos is key: “Many companies are breaking down silos between trade and retail marketing teams... a holistic approach can lead to more effective campaigns and better resource allocation.” (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider). In practice, that means aligning on common goals and KPIs. One best practice is to establish a “hierarchy of metrics” that maps trade and retail media objectives to an overarching goal (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week), so everyone – sales, shopper, digital, brand teams – are rowing in the same direction.
• Control Over Advertising Creative: As mentioned, retail media introduces questions about creative control and brand consistency. This can be a point of friction: the brand marketing team is used to owning consumer-facing creative, but in a retail media context, the retailer has a say too (and the shopper marketing team might be executing). For example, a brand might want to run a lifestyle image in an ad, but the retailer’s ad platform might only allow product-on-white images or might auto-generate the creative. Advertisers have started to demand more say here, pushing RMNs for flexibility: “How do you ensure that the creative units align with my brand, and not just look like every other product promo?” is a common concern (Pentaleap Blog: RMNs: This is What Your Advertisers Want from You). The overlap comes in collaboration – brands often need to provide assets and guidelines, and retailers provide the formats and sometimes even creative services. Tension can spark if an ad underperforms – was it the creative (brand’s fault) or the placement/targeting (retailer’s fault)? These discussions didn’t exist in simple trade promotions. To navigate this, some brands treat retail media creative as a specialization: making content that is both on-brand and optimized for the retailer’s environment (e.g. using the retailer’s keyword data to inform ad copy). Retailers, for their part, are improving their platforms to offer more creative customization and transparency (moving away from the old “black box” days where brands just handed over money and hoped for the best (Pentaleap Blog: RMNs: This is What Your Advertisers Want from You)).
• Measuring Impact and Attribution: Trade marketing vs. retail media also clash in how success is measured. A sales VP might ask, “We gave the retailer a 10% off trade promo and sold 5,000 extra units – great, job done.” Meanwhile, a retail media manager might say, “We spent $50K on on-site ads and got a 300% ROAS and 1,000 attributable orders.” These sound like different languages! The overlap is that both aim to drive sales, but retail media demands more granular attribution. This can make trade marketers uncomfortable – suddenly their budget spend is under a microscope of digital metrics. Conversely, it highlights shortcomings in trade spend: for years, brands poured millions into trade with relatively little insight into ROI. Now, with retail media, CFOs start asking pointed questions about the incremental impact of every dollar. A recent Forbes article noted that to keep capturing retail media spend, retailers must prove the value of their audience data and inventory through metrics like incremental ROAS (iROAS) (Retail Media's Next Challenge: Proving Real Results - Forbes). In other words, the accountability bar is rising. This is ultimately positive, but in the short term it creates pressure: brands will compare the ROI of a trade deal (which might be inferred) versus a retail media campaign (which is more directly measured). If the retail media campaign shows better returns, it could justify pulling funds from traditional trade deals – again causing conflict unless carefully managed.
• Overlap in Objectives – Driving Sales: Despite these conflicts, there’s a large area of overlap: both trade marketing and retail media ultimately aim to drive more product sales through the retailer. They just approach it from different angles. This means there’s opportunity for synergy. For instance, a trade promotion (say a discount or feature in-store) will perform even better if paired with a retail media campaign that drives awareness of that promo. Or insights from retail media (e.g. which keywords or audiences convert best for a product) can inform trade tactics (e.g. which products to put on endcaps). Leading brands are figuring out these synergies. Data sharing is a big overlap point – some retailers are beginning to share retail media performance data back to brands’ trade teams, enriching joint business planning discussions. A Path to Purchase Institute study indicated that brands value this, and many acknowledge that retail media, done right, can actually revitalize trade marketing rather than replace it (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI). By leveraging retail media insights, trade marketers can negotiate more effective promotions and vice versa (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI).

In summary, the rise of retail media has caused some internal clashes (budget ownership, team silos) and external negotiations (who controls creative, how dollars are spent). Yet it’s not a zero-sum game – brands and retailers who navigate these overlaps collaboratively are seeing the whole become greater than the sum of parts. As one executive put it, “the line between trade and retail marketing is getting blurry, but you must be good at both in an omnichannel world.” The next question is: given these dynamics, why is retail media still booming, and how should brands respond?

Why Retail Media Is Booming (and How Brands Should Adapt)

It’s clear that retail media is more than a buzzword – it’s a structural shift in the marketing landscape. But what’s driving its explosive growth, and why are brands pouring in? Several factors stand out:

• First-Party Data Goldmine: In an era of increasing privacy and the phasing out of third-party cookies, retailers’ first-party shopper data has become incredibly valuable. Retail media networks allow brands to leverage this data (purchase history, browse behavior, loyalty profiles) for precise targeting. It’s targeting based on real purchase intent signals, inside a buying environment – far more potent than generic demographics. This ability to reach the right shopper at the right moment is a huge draw. One study found that 58% of U.S. advertisers plan to make incremental investments in retail media in the next two years largely because it delivers real-time targeting, full-funnel reach, and proximity to purchase that other channels struggle to match (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI) (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI). In short, retail media checks the key boxes for modern marketers.
• “Closed-Loop” Measurement – Proving ROI: As touched on earlier, retail media’s promise of connecting ad spend directly to sales results is a game-changer. With retail media, a brand can often see the actual sales lift for every ad campaign (at least within that retailer’s ecosystem), thanks to point-of-sale integration. That closed-loop attribution is the “holy grail of marketing”, allowing companies to measure exactly how ads translate to revenue (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG). This addresses a longtime trade marketing challenge – finally, brands can justify spend with concrete data. Retail media’s growth is fueled by this accountability; CMOs can go to the CFO with confidence when they have solid ROI numbers. As retail media networks improve their reporting dashboards and even allow third-party verification, this will only increase trust and investment.
• High-Margin Revenue for Retailers (Everyone’s Doing It): On the retailer side, there’s a strong push to grow retail media because it’s a lucrative, high-margin revenue stream. Retail is traditionally low margin; advertising flips that script. Thus, retailers are heavily incentivized to pitch their media offerings to brands. We’ve seen an arms race: Amazon’s success prompted Walmart, Target, grocers, pharmacies, and even convenience chains to build ad platforms. As more retailers join in, brands feel pressure to allocate budget to each – which in aggregate boosts retail media spend across the board. In 2023, roughly 1 in 7 ad dollars in the U.S. is expected to go to retail media (Companies seem determined to make everything a retail media ...), an astonishing share that shows retail media is no longer niche. The proliferation of networks also means competition, which is spurring better products and innovation (e.g. retailers partnering with platforms like The Trade Desk for off-site ads (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week), or investing in better in-store digital media). This virtuous cycle attracts even more brand dollars.
• Shopper Behavior and the Omnichannel Reality: The growth of e-commerce (accelerated by the pandemic) habituated consumers to discover and buy in digital environments. Now even as store traffic stabilizes, shoppers often engage with digital touchpoints (mobile apps, online research) before or during store trips. Retail media is capitalizing on this omnichannel behavior – reaching consumers online and influencing them in-store. For example, a brand can use a retailer’s online ad to get a shopper’s attention, then have an in-store ad remind them via digital signage or mobile notification to purchase when they visit the store (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG). This ability to bridge online and offline is something classic trade marketing couldn’t do effectively. 80% of grocery shoppers still shop in-store, (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI) so the future of retail media growth lies in blending digital and physical – which is exactly what’s happening with innovations like in-store retail media (smart shelf displays, retail digital screens with programmatic content). Brands are eager to invest in these because it means reaching consumers at every step of the journey with a consistent message – an omnichannel retail media strategy.
• Evolving Ad Formats and Full-Funnel Solutions: Initially, retail media was heavily lower-funnel (sponsored search ads on e-commerce sites). Now, retail media networks are expanding up the funnel, offering video ads, sponsored brand content, and even external inventory (e.g. retailers selling their data for ads on social media or CTV). This means brands can use retail media for awareness and consideration, not just conversion (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). As a result, more brand marketing teams are getting involved, seeing retail media as a way to supplement traditional advertising. For instance, a brand might run a national TV campaign (broad reach) and complement it with retail media video ads on the retailer’s homepage or app (targeted to relevant shoppers), ensuring that awareness translates to shelf activity. The flexibility and expanding scope of retail media make it a strategic play, not just a tactical one.

How Brands Should Approach the Shift: Given why retail media is surging, what can brands and retailers do to ride this wave successfully? Here are some strategic approaches and best practices:

• Reassess and Reallocate Budgets Thoughtfully: Brands should take a hard look at their marketing mix and budget allocation. It’s clear that retail media needs a seat at the table alongside traditional trade spend and consumer advertising. This might mean shifting some budget from lower-yield trade promotions into retail media where ROI is clearer – but do so based on data. Conversely, don’t entirely rob trade funds that secure basic distribution; find the right balance. Some leading brands now plan “commerce marketing” budgets that encompass both trade marketing and retail media as one holistic bucket, which allows flexibility to invest in what works. The key is to fund retail media growth incrementally when possible (remember that much of retail media’s future growth is expected to be net new spend, not just re-shuffled dollars (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG)). Make the business case for those new dollars by highlighting the revenue attribution retail media can deliver.
• Align Internal Teams – Break the Silos: It’s time to tear down the wall between trade marketing teams and brand/digital marketing teams. Internal alignment is critical – consider forming cross-functional teams that jointly plan retail media campaigns as part of overall account strategy for key retailers. Bring sales, shopper marketing, brand marketing, and even e-commerce teams together to set common objectives. For example, set a unified goal like “increase category market share by X% at Retailer Y” and then determine what mix of trade promo and retail media tactics can achieve it. Ensure everyone speaks a common language of success (maybe a blend of ROI, sales lift, and share growth metrics). When stakeholders are aligned, you avoid duplicative efforts and internal conflicts. In practice, this might involve new processes: regular “retail media strategy” meetings that include both the sales account director and the digital media manager, or shared dashboards that show both trade promotion results and retail media performance side by side.
• Develop a Coherent Retail Media Strategy (per Retailer): Rather than treating retail media as ad-hoc banner buys, brands should craft a retail media strategy for each key retail partner. This means understanding that retailer’s audience, the tools of its RMN, and how your target consumers shop there. For instance, your Retail Media Strategy for Walmart might include a year-round always-on presence in sponsored search, quarterly brand takeovers on Walmart’s app, and a plan to amplify every in-store feature with digital ads. In contrast, your strategy for a specialty retailer might focus on their email and website display ads. Integrate these plans with your trade plans – if you know you have a big fall promotion in-store, coordinate a surge in retail media around that period. Essentially, marry the old and new: use retail media to “digitally escort” the shopper to the shelf where your trade promotion awaits. Also, experiment with new ad formats the retailer offers (e.g. shoppable video, livestreams, in-store audio ads) to stay ahead of the curve. A data-driven strategy means setting clear KPIs for each retail media campaign (ROAS, new customer acquisition, incremental sales, etc.) and measuring diligently.
• Invest in Creative and Content for Retail Media: Brands should treat retail media as a premium advertising channel and invest in quality creative specifically for it. That could mean optimized product content (images, videos, reviews) for on-site ads, or custom display creatives that align with the retailer’s look and feel. Ensure your brand messaging is consistent but also adapted to the retailer’s context – what works on Instagram may not resonate on a grocery website. Some brands are creating dedicated “retail media playbooks” that outline the tone, style, and best practices for each retailer’s ad platform. Also, don’t ignore SEO within retailer sites – retail media often works hand-in-hand with good product content and organic search rank on the retailer’s site. By improving product titles and descriptions (a classic e-commerce trade activity), your paid ads will perform better. Essentially, success in retail media requires a blend of great creative and great product data.
• Leverage Data and Insights – and Demand More: One promise of retail media is rich insights. Brands should fully leverage the data retailers provide – from campaign reports to category benchmarks. Use these insights to refine not only future retail media buys but also other marketing efforts. For example, if you learn that shoppers who buy your product often also buy a certain complementary product, maybe co-market with that other brand or inform your targeting on other channels. Close the feedback loop with retailers: share your insights from non-retail media campaigns (like a demographic segment that responds well to your brand) which might help the retailer target better – in exchange, ask for more granular data from them. Retailers that share “customer and business insights” from retail media will earn more of your budget (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG). And if a retailer’s reporting isn’t up to snuff, push them – the industry is moving toward more transparency and standardization, and as a client you have a voice. Remember, retailers need to prove their media delivers results to keep your dollars flowing.
• Test, Learn, and Innovate: The retail media space is evolving quickly. Brands should adopt a test-and-learn mindset. Try out emerging retail media networks (maybe a regional grocer’s new platform) in small doses and measure results. Pilot new ad formats (like interactive QR-code linked ads in store) to see if they drive engagement. Some experiments will flop, but others could give you a competitive edge or early mover advantage. Case in point: one CPG brand that jumped early onto Walmart Connect’s platform saw a 7% lift in in-store sales and 12% boost in online sales for promoted products (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider) – a clear payoff for innovating in retail media. By treating these efforts as integral to your marketing innovation budget, you’ll stay ahead of the curve. And don’t forget to collaborate on innovation – many retailers are open to co-developing new retail media solutions or sharing beta opportunities with key brand partners. If you’re a major advertiser, ask your retail partners how you can participate in their retail media roadmap.

Why should brands and retailers care so much? Because retail media isn’t just a shiny new object – it’s shaping the future of brand-retailer relationships. Those relationships used to revolve around buying cases and negotiating shelf space; now they also encompass data sharing, media planning, and even joint customer targeting. Brands that embrace retail media as a strategic pillar (and not just as “extra spend” to appease a retailer) are reaping rewards in both sales and insights. Retailers that balance both trade marketing and retail media stand to maximize revenue: they can still collect trade dollars and ad dollars without one cannibalizing the other, especially if they prove retail media drives incremental growth.

Data-Backed Insights and Case Studies

Let’s reinforce these points with a few data-backed insights and examples from the field:

• Adoption and Spend Trends: As noted, over two-thirds of advertisers are already in the retail media game (Trade Marketing | Retail Media | Advertima Audience AI). Amazon’s ad business skyrocketing to $21B+ demonstrates how quickly these budgets have scaled (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider). In 2023, roughly 14% of all U.S. ad spend is going into retail media (Companies seem determined to make everything a retail media ...), showing that brands have rapidly embraced this channel. Forecasts of $100B+ in the next couple of years (Driving Brand Success With Retail Media Innovation | BCG) illustrate that this isn’t plateauing anytime soon – there’s a strong growth trajectory, likely outpacing traditional media growth. For retailers, consider that retail media can contribute high-margin revenue; for example, analysts have suggested that for some retailers, advertising could become a double-digit percentage of total profit.
• Effectiveness and ROI: The Path to Purchase Institute found a huge jump in perceived effectiveness of retail media – 34% of marketers now say RMNs are more effective than other digital channels (up from 15%) (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute). Why the jump? Better data, better attribution, and results. Many brands report strong ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) from retail media – often in the range of $2 to $5 sales per $1 spent for on-site ads, depending on category. Incrementality studies (measuring iROAS) often show that a good chunk of those sales would not have occurred without the ad. However, not all is rosy – some skeptics remain, with about 21% calling retail media a “money grab” by retailers (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute). This highlights the need for transparent measurement, which is improving. The industry is well aware that proving real, incremental results is key to long-term investment.
• Case Study – Walmart Connect: One tangible example comes from Walmart’s retail media platform. In one case, a major CPG brand leveraged Walmart Connect for a campaign and saw a 7% lift in in-store sales and a 12% boost in online sales for the promoted products (Trade Marketing vs Retail Marketing: Key Differences Explained | trademarketinginsider). This case study demonstrates the power of combining in-store and online touchpoints via retail media – the campaign not only drove e-commerce sales (expected for a digital ad) but also had a measurable impact on brick-and-mortar performance. It’s a proof point that retail media can bridge online advertising to offline purchase in a way few channels can. It also underscores why retailers like Walmart are aggressively expanding their offerings – when brands see results like that, they’re inclined to invest more.
• Case Study – Omnichannel Synergy: Brands that integrate trade and retail media strategies can create omnichannel success stories. For instance, Colin Lewis (a marketing expert) notes that retail media is transforming brand-supplier relationships, enabling coordinated campaigns across social, online, and in-store channels (Navigating the Retail Media Revolution: Strategies for Success in ...). Consider a hypothetical but realistic scenario: a beverage brand partners with a grocery chain’s media network. They use the retailer’s data to target health-conscious shoppers on Instagram with ads for a new low-sugar drink (paid social via the RMN’s data partnership), then retarget those who engage with a coupon served through the retailer’s app. When shoppers enter the store, an in-aisle digital screen (part of the retailer’s in-store media) reminds them of the coupon. The result? A significant lift in trial and a bump in loyalty program sign-ups to redeem the coupon – all tracked and reported back to the brand. This kind of orchestrated, data-driven campaign was unimaginable in the old purely trade marketing days.
• Survey Insight – Funding Sources: An interesting insight from the ANA’s 2023 report is that brand marketing budgets have overtaken shopper marketing as the primary source of retail media funding (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). This signals a mindset shift among advertisers: retail media is no longer viewed as just a “shopper marketing tactic” but as an integral part of the broader marketing strategy that brand teams want in on. However, the same report cautions that responsibilities haven’t caught up – shopper teams still often handle the execution (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week), which can create disconnects if goals differ. This data point is a wake-up call for organizations to realign roles and responsibilities as mentioned earlier.
• Retailer Perspective: Retailers are working to ensure retail media dollars are truly incremental (additional). A Forrester definition encapsulates retail media networks as retailers monetizing their sites, data, and store traffic (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week). The best retailers are trying to deliver value on par with major ad platforms. For example, Walmart’s acquisition of a stake in ad tech (like the reported purchase of a stake in a CTV manufacturer) (Retail Media: Why Advertisers Need to Address How Different Teams Collaborate to Ensure Success – Advertising Week) shows retailers expanding capabilities to attract brand dollars beyond just search ads on their sites. The data also shows retailers competing on performance: Amazon’s DSP is rated highly for ROI by advertisers (93% gave it good or excellent) (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute), and other retail media networks like Target’s Roundel and Instacart are quickly improving their measurement and targeting to win favor (Trends 2023: Retailer Media Networks Ratings and Challenges | Path to Purchase Institute). In essence, retailers know they must deliver results if they want a sustained share of marketing budgets.

All these insights reinforce that retail media is not a fad – it’s a fundamental shift backed by data and real results. Brands that have jumped in are seeing benefits, but they’re also encountering challenges that need to be managed. The next section wraps up with what actions you should take moving forward.

Conclusion: Adapting to the New Era of Retail Media (CTA)

The retail media revolution is here, and it’s reshaping how brands and retailers partner in driving growth. The lines between traditional trade marketing and retail media are blurring, requiring a fresh mindset and new playbooks. For retailers and C-suite executives, this is a call to action: build out your retail media capabilities, but do it in harmony with your trade programs. Protecting legacy trade revenue while growing new media revenue isn’t easy, but with the right strategy, one can fuel the other. For brands and marketers, it’s time to reassess your marketing strategies and budget allocations. Are you still treating trade spend and retail media as separate silos? Are your teams aligned towards the same end goals? Now is the moment to break down those walls and create a unified retail media strategy that tackles modern trade marketing challenges and opportunities head-on.

The bottom line: Retail media is not just “another line item” – it’s a paradigm shift in how we drive and measure demand. Those who adapt will gain an edge with better data, closer customer connections, and stronger retailer relationships. Those who don’t risk being outmaneuvered by more agile competitors. It’s time to act. Bring your sales and marketing teams together, revisit your mix of trade vs. media spend, and craft a plan for this new landscape. The retailers are building the platforms and opening the gates – will your brand be there to capitalize?

Now is the time for retailers and brands to double-check their strategy and ask: Are we truly prepared for the new era of retail media? If not, the time to reassess and realign is now. Embrace the change, experiment boldly, and turn the retail media wave into your next growth engine. Don’t get left behind – adapt today to win tomorrow.