Retail media dealmaking (and Prime Video’s introduction of ads) has reshaped our CTV expectations

Article by Max Willens | Nov 20, 2023

The retail media CTV landscape has changed dramatically. Since spring 2023, retail media CTV partnerships have multiplied. Most crucially, Amazon Prime Video reported it will introduce ads in 2024, Walmart and NBCU announced a partnership, Roku inked a deal with Best Buy, and Kroger linked up with Disney.
CTV ad spending will be nearly twice what we expected for 2025. While CTV will constitute a single-digit percentage of overall retail media ad spending, we now expect it to comprise a high single-digit percentage, 7.9%, at the end of our forecast period in 2027.
What does it mean for advertisers? The coordination required to leverage retail media networks for CTV ad buying is not insignificant. But for non-endemic brands, this could provide a huge opportunity to leverage retailers’ first-party data in environments that are better suited to upper-funnel ads.