We expect US retail media ad spend to jump 31.4% to $40.81 billion this year, more than tripling from its 2019 total of $13.23 billion. Even as growth rates taper from their pandemic highs—57.3% in 2020 and 49.3% in 2021—it’s clear that retail media is still in its early days.
Retail media has barely scratched the surface of its potential. To date, most retail media ad spend comes from the low-hanging fruit of sponsored search. Retail media networks (RMNs) were able to adapt the Google playbook to ecommerce contexts to capture brand spend.
Though search is already large and well-established, it still has plenty of runway as RMNs proliferate and mature. And yet, other retail media ad formats remain largely untapped.