The latest data shows organizations are happy with retail media, but there’s room for improvement

Retail media works. For 77% of US organizations, retail media has either met or exceeded KPI expectations, according to a December 2023 survey from Skai and the Path to Purchase Institute. Only 3% say it had little or no impact on desired objectives.

Organizations investing in retail media are prioritizing ads on retailer websites, paid search shopping ads on places like Google Shopping, and social commerce ads on places like TikTok Shop and Facebook Marketplace.

Retail media networks looking to capture those ad dollars should focus on what brands want to invest in. US consumer packaged goods manufacturers are looking for quality performance measurement, new ad formats and innovations, and placements that have performed well in the past, according to Skai and the Path to Purchase Institute.

For brands investing in retail media, incremental lift is the goal. But the definition of incrementality is not universal, according to Skai and the Path to Purchase Institute.

• 56% of organizations define incrementality as ad-attributed conversions of new-to-brand customers.
• For 48%, incrementality means showing a product ad to a customer that hasn’t purchased that product before.
• And for 47%, it means serving ads where products aren’t already showing up in organic results.

Make sure all stakeholders are talking about the same thing when it comes to incrementality or risk working toward different outcomes.

This was originally featured in the Retail Media Weekly newsletter. For more retail media insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.