Niche reach · high intent
High-intent specialists
High-intent specialists
The shelf moved online. The tax came with it.
Retail Media & Marketplace Ads
Retail media is the fastest-growing line in advertising and the easiest to overpay for. Ninety cents of every dollar flows to Amazon and Walmart, the platforms grade their own ROAS, and most of what the dashboard calls a win was demand that was already coming to your shelf. We run the digital shelf the only honest way — matched to where your shopper actually buys, and measured by the lift it caused, not the conversions it claimed.
A $71B channel that grades its own homework.
Retail media networks turned every major retailer into an ad business overnight. The money is real and so is the intent — shoppers on a retailer’s site are closer to a purchase than anywhere else online. But the reporting flatters the channel: a sponsored-product placement happily takes credit for the sale of a product the shopper was already walking toward. Spend without an incrementality discipline, and retail media becomes a tax on demand you already owned.
$71B
US retail media ad spend, 2026
eMarketer
~90%
Concentrated in Amazon & Walmart
industry estimate
6.1×
Average reported ROAS — before the incrementality haircut
Skai
The concentration is the trap, not the headline. Because nine in ten dollars sit with two platforms, brands default to the giants and judge success by a scorecard the giants keep — and the smaller, often more incremental networks go untested. Meanwhile the giants’ auctions get more crowded every quarter, so the same placement costs more and converts a shopper who was already heading to your shelf. The growth in this channel is real, but capturing it takes more discipline than writing a bigger Amazon check; it takes matching the network to the shopper and refusing to pay full price for demand you already owned.
US retail media ~$71B in 2026, ~90% Amazon+Walmart; cross-platform reported ROAS ~6.1x — eMarketer; Skai 2026.1
Reported ROAS is a vanity ceiling.
The shift has already happened in how serious advertisers measure: 71% now rank incrementality above reported ROAS as their primary KPI. The reason is simple math — incremental ROAS, the lift you actually caused, typically lands at just 30–60% of the last-click number. The other 40–70% is demand that would have converted anyway. That gap is the difference between buying growth and buying credit for it.
We design every retail media program around that gap. Attribution steers the day-to-day; a geo or audience holdout proves what the spend caused; and budget follows the proven incremental dollar, not the platform’s self-scored report. It is the same discipline we bring to every channel — the dashboard is a claim to verify, never a fact to bank — and on retail media, where the platform sells both the ad and the scorecard, it matters more than anywhere.
Run your own incrementality math
See your true ROAS, the net after margin, and the breakeven that the reported number hides — on your spend, in seconds.
71% of advertisers rank incrementality #1; incremental ROAS typically 30–60% of last-click — Skai 2026 measurement research.2
One shelf, two names.
“Retail media” and “marketplace advertising” describe the same job from two angles. Retail media is the broad discipline — advertising on a retailer’s owned properties and the offsite network it sells. Marketplace advertising is the transactional subset on Amazon, Walmart and the like. A sponsored-product ad on Amazon is, at once, both. We do not split them into competing workstreams; we run one practice that wins the point of purchase wherever your shopper reaches for the shelf.
What unites them is the moment: the buyer is already in a store, already in a buying mindset, already comparing the options on the shelf. That is what makes retail media so efficient and so easy to over-credit at the same time. The craft is not in picking “retail media” or “marketplace ads” as a category — it is in matching the network to the shopper and proving the lift, which is exactly what the tool below is built to do.
RGM taxonomy: retail media & marketplace ads as one digital-shelf practice — RGM analysis.3
Find the network that fits your shopper.
There is no single best retail media network — there is the best one for your category and your goal. Tell the matchmaker what you sell and what you need most, and the major networks sort into strategic quadrants and rank by fit, anchored on incrementality rather than reported ROAS.
What do you sell?
What do you need most?
Browse ← Purchase intent → Buy
Mass reach · high intent
Demand-capture giants
Demand-capture giants
Niche reach · browse
Focused / emerging
Focused / emerging
Mass reach · browse
Reach & retargeting
Reach & retargeting
Niche ← Reach / scale → Mass
Start here
—
Network positions and fit scoring are directional — RGM analysis on sourced bases (Skai, Osmos 2026). Validate the winner with a holdout.2
Four jobs on the shelf.
Every network sits in one of four archetypes by reach and purchase intent. Knowing which is which is how you sequence spend instead of spraying it.
Demand-capture giants
Amazon · Walmart
Mass reach, high intent — where you harvest shoppers already in your category. The catch: paying premium rates for sales that were already coming. Harvest efficiently, prove the incremental slice.
High-intent specialists
Instacart · Kroger · Target
Narrower reach, but the shopper is closest to the buy button. Often the most incremental dollar in the plan for grocery, CPG and beauty — less saturated than the giants.
Reach & retargeting
Criteo
Commerce-media tech, not a marketplace — extends reach offsite and retargets across many retailers. Use it to get past the walled gardens; insist on placement-level transparency.
Focused / emerging
The long tail
Regional grocers, category specialists, new RMNs. Worth a test where you hold real shelf space and rich shopper data — but each is its own platform and measurement standard, so pick the one or two tied to your biggest partners.
Archetype framing — RGM analysis. Sequence: best-fit first, prove incremental, then layer a complement.3
Ads can’t fix a weak shelf.
The most common way retail media budget evaporates is paying to drive traffic to a product page that does not convert. Sponsored placements only pay when the underlying shelf is strong — the title, the images, the reviews, the price, the share of organic search. We work the shelf alongside the media, because the cheapest performance gain in retail media is usually not a higher bid; it is a product page that earns the click it just paid for.
That is the difference between an agency that buys retail media placements and one that runs the digital shelf. We instrument the whole path — impression to detail-page view to add-to-cart to purchase — so we can tell whether a soft result is a media problem or a shelf problem, and fix the right one. Optimizing bids while the detail page leaks is rearranging deck chairs.
The shelf itself is mostly content, and content is where most of the recoverable performance hides. A title that names the use case, images that answer the objection, reviews that clear the trust bar, a price that wins the Buy Box, and organic rank on the queries that convert — these decide whether a paid click turns into a sale or a bounce. We treat share-of-search as a leading indicator and the detail page as a conversion-rate problem, not a creative afterthought, because a one-point lift in detail-page conversion quietly raises the return on every sponsored click pointed at it. Media buys the visit; the shelf earns the order.
Digital-shelf discipline: content, share-of-search and conversion path managed with the media — RGM analysis.3
The holdout settles the budget.
Because the platform reports the result, the only neutral referee is a test it does not run. We withhold spend from a matched set of geographies or audiences, then measure the gap between exposed and held-out groups. That difference — not the dashboard’s number — is what retail media actually caused, and it is what we scale against.
Half of brands measure incrementality only at a basic level, and just one in five are good at both measuring it and acting on it. That capability gap is the opportunity: the advertiser who runs clean holdouts, reads them honestly, and reallocates accordingly compounds an advantage over competitors still optimizing to self-reported ROAS. Attribution to steer, incrementality to prove, media-mix modeling to plan — triangulated, never trusted alone.
Only ~20% of brands both measure and act on incrementality well — Skai 2026.2
Operations on a cadence, not a whim.
Retail media rewards a rhythm. We diagnose the shelf, build the structure, test small, and scale only what a holdout proves — on a fixed cadence, with kill criteria written before launch. Most accounts fail the opposite way: they scale on day one, pour budget into a structure that has proven nothing, and react to every daily swing as if it were signal.
The weekly loop is where the work lives. We read share-of-search to see whether the brand is winning the queries that matter, watch cost-per-reach and the incrementality dashboards rather than raw ROAS, govern bids and budgets against pacing rails, and keep the detail page sharp — title, imagery, reviews, price — because the cheapest win is usually a page that converts the click it already paid for. Monthly, we step back: holdout reads to confirm what the spend caused, media-mix modeling to set the split across networks, and a hard look at which networks earned their place. Quarterly, we renegotiate terms, retire what stalled, and test the next network the data points to.
Underneath it all is the same operating principle we bring to every channel: budget chases evidence, never enthusiasm. A network earns more only after it has proven incremental lift, and it loses budget the moment a holdout shows another does the job more cheaply. That discipline — small tests, proven winners, ruthless reallocation — is what turns a sprawling retail-media footprint into a system that compounds instead of one that simply spends.
And because retail media data is messy — lagged conversions, inconsistent taxonomies across networks, and store-level noise — we standardize it before we trust it. A blended view that reconciles each network’s reporting against your own banked sales is the only honest way to compare Amazon to Walmart to Instacart on equal terms, and the only way to catch the double-counting that makes every platform claim the hero’s share of the same order.
RGM operating cadence: diagnose, test small, scale on proven lift, reallocate; weekly/monthly/quarterly rhythm — RGM analysis.3
Every engagement is custom-tailored.
The work is calibrated to your categories, your retail partners, the maturity of your shelf, and the actual constraint on growth. We do not publish a price list because we do not run one. Pricing is custom — flat, project, or percentage, set by what fits the engagement and your preference. The media budget is a separate line item and belongs to you.
96%
Annual renewal
Clients stay because the work compounds.
100%
Have referred
Not all referrals are accepted.
Questions buyers ask.
What is the difference between retail media and marketplace advertising?
They are the same job seen from two angles: winning the digital shelf at the point of purchase. Retail media is the broad discipline of advertising on retailers’ networks (on-site sponsored placements plus their offsite networks); marketplace advertising is the subset on transactional marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart. A sponsored-product ad on Amazon is both. We run them as one practice.
Why measure by incrementality instead of ROAS?
Retail media ROAS averages about 6.1x, but 71% of advertisers now rank incrementality above reported ROAS. Incremental ROAS is typically only 30 to 60% of last-click, because sponsored placements often capture sales that were already coming to your shelf. The honest read comes from a holdout, not the dashboard.
Which retail media network should we start with?
It depends on your category and goal. Amazon is the default for scale and intent; Walmart Connect is the efficient complement for grocery and CPG; Instacart and Kroger own the highest purchase intent for food and CPG; Target indexes high for beauty and home; and Criteo extends reach offsite. Use the matchmaker above to rank them for your brand, then prove the winner with a holdout.
How much does retail media management cost?
It is custom to scope, the networks in play, and the constraint on growth — set as flat, project, or percentage by what fits the engagement and your preference. The media budget is separate and stays in your accounts.
Do you manage the full digital shelf or just the ads?
Both, because they are connected. Sponsored placements only pay when the underlying shelf converts, so we work content, share-of-search, and the conversion path alongside the media. Paying to send traffic to a weak product page is the most common way retail media budget leaks.
Is Criteo a marketplace?
No. Criteo is commerce-media technology that powers many retailers’ on-site networks and provides offsite reach and retargeting. It is the way to extend retail media beyond the Amazon and Walmart walled gardens, not a destination shoppers buy on.
Your next step.
RMN Matchmaker
Rank the networks by fit for your category and goal.
Retail media profit calculator
True ROAS and breakeven after the incrementality haircut.
Programmatic media
The placement and transparency discipline, off the shelf.
Marketing analytics
The incrementality and measurement layer underneath.
No juniors. Ever.
Every engagement is reviewed by hand — twelve a year. We don’t chase logos; the work chooses us.
Apply for an engagementMarket pulse · Retail media & marketplaces
The market moved again. Here’s the read.
Q3 2026 · refreshed quarterly · multi-source
TL;DRUS retail media climbs to $69B this year. Amazon and Walmart take about nine of every ten new dollars. Amazon Ads grew 24% last quarter; Walmart Connect grew 44%. Commerce media still outpaces the total ad market. Buy the duopoly first, then make every added network prove lift.
Retail media · 2026 spend
$69.33B ▲
Up from $58.79B in 2025 — Amazon and Walmart take 89% of the new dollars.
Amazon Ads · Q1 revenue
$17.24B ▲
Grew 24% year over year — the last four quarters add up to $72B.
Walmart Connect · Q1 ads
+44% ▲
Walmart US advertising rose 36% overall; Connect grew 44% excluding VIZIO.
Commerce media · 2026 pace
+12.1% vs +9.5%
IAB buyers expect commerce media to beat total US ad growth again this year.
Desk note: the duopoly keeps compounding — Amazon and Walmart both grew faster than the channel itself. Our response: fund Amazon and Walmart to proven incremental ROAS first, and cap long-tail networks until a holdout shows they add sales.
Context, not a pitch. Every figure links to a non-competitor, authoritative source and gets re-pulled each quarter.
- Market size & concentration: US retail media ad spend projected ~$71B in 2026, ~90% concentrated in Amazon and Walmart (eMarketer); cross-platform reported retail media ROAS ~6.1x, on-site sponsored search ~6.5x (Skai Retail Media Trends).
- Incrementality: 71% of advertisers rank incrementality above reported ROAS; incremental ROAS typically 30–60% of last-click; vendor-reported iROAS spans 253–1,609%; only ~20% of brands both measure and act on incrementality well (Skai, 2026 State of Retail Media Measurement & Incrementality; Osmos RMN ROAS benchmarks 2026). Measure with geo/audience holdouts, triangulated with attribution and MMM.
- RGM method & taxonomy: retail media and marketplace advertising run as one digital-shelf practice; network archetypes, sequencing, and shelf-plus-media discipline — RGM analysis. Criteo is commerce-media technology, not a marketplace. Custom pricing. Directional; calibrate with your own data and tests.
- eMarketer. “US retail media ad spending forecast H1 2026” (2026). US retail media ad spend $69.33B in 2026, up from $58.79B in 2025; Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect capture over 89% of the incremental dollars. emarketer.com (accessed 6 Jul 2026).
- Amazon.com, Inc. “Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Results” (29 Apr 2026). Advertising services revenue of $17.24B in Q1 2026, up 24% year over year. ir.aboutamazon.com (accessed 6 Jul 2026).
- Walmart Inc. “Walmart reports first quarter results” (21 May 2026). Global advertising business up 37%; Walmart U.S. advertising up 36%, including a 44% increase in Walmart Connect (ex-VIZIO). stock.walmart.com (accessed 6 Jul 2026).
- IAB. “2026 Outlook Study Forecasts 9.5% Growth in U.S. Ad Spend” (28 Jan 2026). Commerce media forecast to grow 12.1% in 2026 vs 9.5% for total US ad spend. iab.com (accessed 6 Jul 2026).