The retail media landscape is on the rise, both in terms of impact and sophistication. What was once a reserve of a chosen few is now a budding hunting ground for millions of proactive brands the world over, each itching to make their advertising dollars count.
Successful advertisers constantly stay abreast of ad tech innovations disrupting the industry. And they strike when the iron is still hot — right before everyone else is privy to the newest, most impactful retail media trends.
Now that 2025 is inching closer, it’s the perfect time to put the future of retail media in the spotlight.
The Role of Tech and Consumer Behavior in Shaping Trends
Without robust enabling technology, the retail media ecosystem wouldn’t be as effective as it is today. Think, for example, of how tedious it would be to manually aggregate the amount and variety of customer data needed to drive a successful ad campaign. Or how difficult it is to try to lure a Gen Z customer without some form of immersive advertising.
Unquestionably, tech, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a crucial role here.
Consumer behavior is also positively shaping media trends. Modern savvy customers want ads that are both customized and non-intrusive. Switching between channels while shopping is something customers value. They want to move between search and social without swapping devices. This explains why mobile advertising trends and evolutions, such as omnichannel campaigns are consistently gaining traction among brands.
Top Trends That Are Shaping the Future of Retail Media
As these key trends will show, the retail media realm is at a tipping point. Publishers are upping their game with every tech breakthrough, while customers continue to be highly expectant and uncompromising. This only means one thing: It’s now or never for advertisers keen to expand their bottom lines.
Trend #1: Expansion of Retail Media Networks (RMNs)
The days of Amazon and Walmart monopolizing the market are long gone. New players are quickly entering the field, and their offerings are just as effective, from more precise targeting to top-tier machine learning integration.
Deloitte recently surveyed 450 C-level executives from across top U.S.-based retailers that have ad tech stacks at the heart of their operations. The results were eye-opening: At least two-thirds of retailers plan to have an in-house retail media network up and running by the end of 2024.
While we don’t envision any contender toppling Amazon or Walmart anytime soon, we expect a few new large players to give them a run for their money by launching highly custom platforms. At the very least, these platforms will likely offer exclusive audience segments and ad formats.
Smaller players won’t be left behind either. They will likely merge with bigger RMNs to consolidate their operations or cut down on their ad offerings altogether.
One thing is common across both large older contenders and small emerging players, a focus on offering the full-funnel experience. RMNs that will win in 2025 are those capable of offering advertisers a way to merge ad performance with brand awareness for a more seamless, integrated view of the customer journey.
Trend #2: The Rise of AI Enhanced Advertising
AI advertising trends aren’t new. We’ve seen the rise and rise of predictive analytics for customer behavior, sentiment analysis, and programmatic creative tools over the past year or so. Yet, as data show, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Of marketers, 52% expect AI to facilitate super-customized shopper experiences in the coming months, paving the way for tools such as:
- Generative AI: Contextual data like location can be a treasure trove for advertisers looking to adjust retail media campaigns on the fly.
- ML-powered recommendation engines: Available customer data — from purchase history to previous interaction — can be leveraged to serve customers offers that speak to their exact needs, anytime, on any channel.
- A/B testing automation: By automatically pushing different versions of the same ad through multiple pipelines, you get time to focus on what truly matters, converting hot leads.
Speaking of conversion, some customer segments are obviously more likely to convert than others. With AI, you can now leverage custom audience modeling — a feature of predictive analytics — to build out segments that get you closer to the customer. AUDIENCEX’s own AI suite, AUDIENCEX Intelligence (AXi), offers this game-changing capability.
Trend #3: Hyper-Personalization: Tailoring Messages to Customers
A hyper-personalized shopper experience is baked in and driven by highly custom messages. Unlike traditional audience targeting — which relied heavily on generic messaging and a sit-and-wait strategy — personalization guarantees a more solid and predictable outcome. That’s because you take time to communicate to your customers at a more granular level and offer them the products they need.
So what can you do to take your messaging to the next level? The use of AI will ensure your messaging is personal and relevant.
AI-powered social listening, for instance, gives you a front-row seat to your target customers’ comments and mentions across YouTube and Facebook respectively. That way, you can swiftly respond to messages in a way that feels intimate and personal.
Similarly, dynamic content — which changes based on the user’s activity and profile — can help advertisers rake in more engagement and conversions when placed strategically on a landing page.
Trend #4: Shoppable Video Content: Merging Media Formats
In 2024 alone, the percentage of viewers who fancy watching any kind of video hit an all-time high of 91.8%, according to Oberlo. A different survey by HubSpot asserts that 89% of consumers questioned want to see brands putting out more videos. This presents a prime opportunity for advertisers.
Shoppable video content offers a way to bring together the entertainment perks of visual storytelling and the convenience of e-commerce. It involves attaching a linked or tagged product in a regular video. The video itself could be anything from pre-recorded influencer content to a live stream, as long as it pulls in the target customer. Once the customer is there, they’ll click on the link and complete a purchase.
One highly interactive video is all takes for your return on advertising spend (ROAS) to surge. And the features your customers can enjoy with this kind of merged media are limitless:
- View similar recommended products
- Add product to cart
- Read the descriptions on featured products
- Save products for a later purchase
- Create wishlists
- Receive real-time updates on product availability and promotions
Trend #5: The Shift Toward a Diverse E-commerce System
In 2025 retailers will shift towards a richly diverse e-commerce system. At the forefront of this shift lies several trends:
- Audio and voice search ads: Text-based ads are no longer the holy grail of advertising. Especially not when 90% of people find voice search faster and much more convenient than typing. Advertisers have to tailor their content to voice-enabled devices if they’re to capture this audience. That means optimizing their keywords and content to align with conversational search patterns and natural language queries.
- Retail media localization: Advertisers should also consider translating content so it’s more culturally relevant and fit for the target audience, similar to what Netflix does with dubbed series. Localization appeals to regional nuances and cultural preferences, ensuring more precise targeting.
- Social media platforms: Nowadays social media platforms make it possible to place ads that appear alongside shopping experiences directly on the customer’s feed. Even better, you can utilize behavioral data so the targeting is more accurate and powerful, just as in the conventional e-commerce behemoths.
- Diversification of RMNs: As earlier mentioned, it’s no longer Amazon’s jungle to rule. Other players want in on the piece of the cake too. This includes smaller contenders like pharmacies, grocery stores, and specialty retailers. For advertisers and brands, this translates to more opportunities to capture a wider audience across channels that have traditionally been deemed unprofitable.
- Proliferation of UGC (user-generated content): Brands can incorporate content crafted by actual users, in their copy for more “believable” ads. This includes material such as testimonials, user reviews, and videos.
Trend #6: Omnichannel Integration: Seamless Shopping Experience
Modern shoppers value a consistent brand experience, regardless of the channel they’re on at any given time — be it at a brand’s app, website, physical store, or social media page. Shoppers look forward to personalized notifications that can make their experience fluid, consistent, and unified.
It all starts with collecting rich behavior data. An incisive look into a customer’s shopping patterns and activity across different channels can help determine when and where are the best to place ads. Top retail media platforms have already integrated this capability into their offering. They ensure you get the full-funnel advertising experience, from discovery all the way to post-purchase.
Recent data shows that an omnichannel shopping experience boosts customer retention by 89%, whilst increasing purchase rates by 287%. Clearly, customers are taking this phenomenon seriously. And you should too.
Trend #7: Non-Endemic Partnerships: Expanding Brand Reach
Advertisers that are solely focusing on their typical category and industry are potentially missing out on massive untapped revenue. The secret lies in teaming up with retailers that align with your target audience, but don’t necessarily display your products.
Put differently, it’s all about seeking out retailers whose products are complimentary to your own in some way.
This is achieved through first-party data, which includes a customer purchase history, email subscriptions and open rates, browsing data, and so on. The data act as a powerful resource for creating highly targeted and relevant audiences. Retailers with first-party data can help advertisers reach customers with more precision since they understand shoppers’ preferences deeply.
A great example of non-endemic advertising is when a travel insurance company partners with a retailer in the travel realm, such as an airline. Or when a wellness brand teams up with a retailer specializing in groceries to target customers interested in pursuing a healthier lifestyle.
Slightly over 50% of brands in the U.S. are already forging non-endemic partnerships. Reaching niche audiences with content that highly resonates with their interests and preferences is what will truly put your brand on the map.
Trend #8: Sustainability and Ethical Sourcing in Retail Media
More and more customers are prioritizing ethically sourced and sustainable products, with a whopping 77% of millennials and 72% of Gen Z willing to pay more. It’s an industry-sweeping awakening. And the sooner your messaging aligns with this overarching expectation, the better for your ad strategy and bottom line.
At the very least, your ads have to promote products with near-zero or recyclable packaging as part of a broader sustainability initiative. This is especially true for products in household, beauty, and food categories.
Customers would also appreciate it if you would include certifications like B Corp and Fair Trade in your cross-channel content. In addition, your ethical sourcing messaging has to be categorical on issues of transparency and fair labor practices.
Trend #9: Impact of Mobile Shopping on Retail Media Strategies
As mobile usage continues to grow and evolve, advertisers are exploring advancements that will make the mobile shopper experience all the more richer. There’s already significant headway into the adoption of mobile-specific features like push notifications and location-based targeting.
One key development in mobile-first advertising is the ability to leverage mobile apps to meet the customers where they are and when they are ready to purchase. This includes optimizing designs to better suit smaller screens and fast interactions.
Moreover, advertisers can now reach customers through native ads seamlessly blended into mobile apps and websites.
Trend #10: Leveraging Influencer Marketing in Retail Media
In 2025, we foresee an increase in the uptake and utilization of social commerce in particular. This is where advertisers leverage influencers to promote products and directly facilitate purchases via their social channels.
Apart from the aforementioned shoppable content, influencers will likely host live shopping experiences in conjunction with retailers. While at it, they will offer exclusive deals, immersive Q&A sessions, as well as real-time product launches to help make customers’ purchasing journeys a lot less complicated.
We are also likely to witness an upsurge in the adoption of predictive analysis as a driver of data-powered personalization. Brands will leverage AI to match influencers with the product categories they’re likely to have the biggest impact on.
Trend #11: Innovations in Digital Advertising Platforms (DAP)
An emerging trend in DAP is the adoption of connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) ecosystems. These platforms go beyond the largest in-house screens to deliver richer, more dynamic user experiences across YouTube, Hulu, Disney, and Netflix, among other streaming platforms. For advertisers looking to leverage customer data for personalized, cross-device ad targeting, these platforms offer immense opportunity.
Another brilliant addition to the DAP arsenal are augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) platforms. This combo is inherently a form of interactive advertising, allowing customers the opportunity to feel out products virtually before they buy them.
Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is another innovation in DAP that tailors creatives based on high-level data insights such as weather, location, and time of day, yielding incisive programmatic ads.
Trend #12: Future of Retail Media Analytics and Measurement
RMNs are evolving and so are the analytics and measurement strategies needed to make sense of ad performance. The outlook itself is three-pronged:
First Party Utilization: An Era of New Insights
RMNs use first-party data to better understand precisely who to target. Brands can leverage this transparent high-level data acquisition approach to only put out offers customers are likely to convert on.
Enhanced Attribution Models for Measurable Success
It’s one thing to adopt omnichannel advertising. But it’s an entirely different thing to accurately determine the efficacy of specific touchpoints and channels.
Advanced attribution models like probabilistic modeling and multi-touch attribution, offer surface insights about each touchpoint along the conversion journey. This way you can know which one is pulling its weight and which one isn’t.
Adapting to Regulatory Changes in Data Privacy
As GDPR, CPRA, and other data privacy frameworks continue to evolve, advertisers should adopt a more privacy-conscious approach. At its most basic, this requires striking a delicate balance between leveraging high-level consumer data and honoring user privacy while adhering to stringent quickly-changing regulations. That’s where full-on transparency comes in.
On top of seeking consent through clear opt-in strategies and privacy policies, brands should also be transparent about how they’re collecting and utilizing personal data. This transparency builds trust with users, and they’ll eventually feel at ease when interacting with your ads.
Get Ahead of Retail Media Trends With AUDIENCEX
Retail media trends are reshaping the industry as we know it. To keep winning, advertisers need a strategic approach that catapults them to the forefront of these changes.
Say hello to the best future-insured advertising partner you’ll ever find: AUDIENCEX. Our full-stack, AI-powered, data-safe omnichannel tech suite was built with agencies and brands like yours in mind.
Whether it’s our top-tier predictive audience modeling algorithms you want to utilize to fine-tune ad targeting. Or the ever-improving data science capabilities to push your most grueling campaigns. One thing is for sure: You won’t be disappointed.
Our approach is anything but subpar. We have the know-how and resources to apply the most nuanced strategies within individual channels, through touchpoints, and across the whole advertising ecosystem.
Reach out today to chat about how you can stay abreast of new emerging trends in your space. The future starts now, and AUDIENCEX is ready to hold your hand all the way.
FAQs About the Future of Retail Media
What Is the Future of Retail Media?
The future of retail media is no longer just about getting in front of customers. It’s about tailoring ads and messaging to cater to their specific interests, preferences, and wants. That means every experience a brand orchestrates must be deeply personal and resonant.
What Are the Projections for Retail Media?
Retail media, as a whole, is expected to keep growing exponentially in size, reach, sophistication, and impact. Knowing this, advertisers will build out complex, cross-channel campaigns that deliver high-impact, custom-first shopper experiences.
How Fast Is Retail Media Growing?
Maintaining a solid 20% per-year pace, retail media is the fastest-growing ad avenue across all media.