How Sam’s Club, Kroger, Albertsons, and Instacart are evolving their retail media networks

Amazon is the biggest retail media network in the US, accounting for three-quarters of retail media revenue share, per our forecast. But its limited grocery footprint leaves an opportunity for competition. Here are recent updates in grocery retail media, and a prediction on the future of in-store retail media.

Sam’s Club

The Walmart Inc.-owned company will earn $5.80 billion in US grocery ecommerce sales this year, according to our forecast. Sam’s Club just updated its Member Access Platform (MAP) retail media network.

• Advertisers can view what revenues are generated by which ads.
• Sam’s Club members can add items to their carts directly from retail media ads.
• Advertisers can target “browse pages,” rather than just search pages.
• MAP advertisers can attribute in-store purchases to search ads.

The Kroger Co.

Kroger will see $15.85 billion in US grocery ecommerce sales this year, according to our forecast.

• Kroger announced it would bring its Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) retail media network in-house in June, part of a growing trend of retailers maturing past partnership-based retail media networks.
• The self-service platform enhances ad automation and curation for advertisers.
• KPM boasted the same sales impact across 51% fewer impressions than third-party ad buys, according to senior vice president Cara Pratt.

Albertsons Companies

Albertsons’ US grocery ecommerce sales will total $5.47 billion this year, according to our forecast.

• The Albertsons-Kroger merger is still up in the air, but if the merger does go through, Albertsons and Kroger could combine retail media capabilities over their 5,000-store footprint.
• In the meantime, Albertsons is beefing up its measurement capabilities with an aim toward standardization.
• Albertsons is also focusing on connected TV (CTV) via a partnership with Omnicom Media Group.

Instacart

Instacart will account for $35.19 billion in US grocery sales this year, according to our forecast.

• Instacart’s retail media business grew 30% last year to $740 million, per The Information.
• We project Instacart’s ad revenues will grow another 43.8% this year to $1.14 billion.
• Instacart partnered with Roku to deliver CTV ads earlier this year.

Stores are the next frontier

Insider insight: In-store retail media ad spend will account for just 0.5% of US omnichannel retail media ad spending, according to our forecast.

• But come 2027, one-fifth of all US digital out-of-home ad spend will come from retail media.
• Brand displays on shelves, video ads on TV screens, digital screens at checkout, in-store audio, and displays in parking lots are all budding ad channels for grocery ad buyers.
• It’s still difficult to attribute in-store purchases to in-store ads. This ad channel won’t explode until retailers can access closed-loop data on who is seeing what ad and how that informs purchases.