Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers to common questions about retail media platforms and how they support retail media networks.
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Definitions
What is a retail media platform?
A retail media platform is the technology that underpins and enables retail media networks and their offerings. It is typically focused on owned and operated media channels and provides tools for inventory management, audience targeting, campaign delivery, and measurement.
What is a retail media network (RMN)?
An RMN is the advertising business a retailer (or retail-like commerce environment) sells to brands - on-site, off-site, and/or in-store inventory powered by that retailer’s first-party shopper data. On this directory, those cards are tagged Type = RMN. Examples: Walmart Connect, Roundel, noon ads.
What is a retail media platform / tech provider (RMP / tech)?
RMP / tech is the software that underpins retail media: ad serving, sponsored products, in-store / DOOH stacks, clean rooms, or commerce-media management tools that brands and agencies use across retailers. It is not usually the retailer-facing media brand itself. On this directory, those cards are tagged Type = RMP / tech. Examples: CitrusAd, Moloco, Ritelo, Pacvue.
How is a retail media platform different from a retail media network?
The platform is the technology (the engine). The network is the advertising business operated by a retailer (the commercial product that brands buy into). One RMN can be powered by one or more tech platforms (for example, Costco Velocity onsite display, powered by Moloco). On this directory, use the Type filter: RMN for the commercial network, RMP / tech for the engine or multi-retailer tool. Source
What is an Alliance / sales house?
An Alliance / sales house sells retail media across multiple retailer partners through one commercial front door, rather than a single-banner network. On this directory, those cards are tagged Type = Alliance / sales house. Example: Unlimitail, which states 40 retail partners worldwide (company-stated). Source
What is commerce media, and how does it relate to retail media?
Commerce media is the broader category: advertising powered by commerce data across retail, travel, delivery, payments, and other buying environments. Retail media is the largest slice of that category. A grocery retail media network is retail media. A travel audience platform is commerce media. Industry glossaries from IAB Europe treat retail media networks as part of commerce media networks.
What is the difference between endemic and non-endemic advertisers?
Endemic brands sell products inside that retailer (a cereal brand advertising at a grocer). Non-endemic brands do not sell there (an insurer or travel brand on a grocery network). Many networks now sell both. Non-endemic campaigns more often use off-site, in-store, and connected TV rather than sponsored product search.
What is the difference between a technology platform and a commerce media management tool?
Ad-serving and on-site platforms run inventory, trafficking, and delivery for a retailer. Commerce media management tools sit across planning, activation, and reporting, often across several retailers. Examples in the directory include Plan-Apps, PlanHUB, Pacvue, Flywheel, and Zitcha.
Who uses retail media platforms?
Retailers use the platforms to power their media businesses. Brands and agencies buy media through the retail media networks that those platforms enable. Technology providers also sell the underlying platforms to retailers building or scaling their own networks.
How It Works
How does a retail media platform actually work?
A retail media platform connects the retailer’s inventory, first-party shopper data, and campaign tools. It allows the retailer to offer ad products (such as sponsored products or display), target audiences, deliver campaigns across channels, and measure results against real sales outcomes.
What types of inventory do retail media platforms typically offer?
Common inventory includes on-site placements (search, product pages, category pages), off-site / audience extension, in-store digital screens, app placements, email, and connected TV or video formats, depending on the retailer.
What is the difference between on-site, off-site, and in-store retail media?
- On-site - Ads that appear on the retailer’s own website or app
- Off-site - Ads that run on other websites or platforms using the retailer’s audience data
- In-store - Digital screens, kiosks, and other physical retail media inside stores
What is connected TV doing in retail media?
Retailers are extending first-party shopper audiences onto streaming TV inventory. Brands buy those audiences on CTV and try to close the loop back to site or store sales. Walmart Connect’s use of Vizio is the most visible US example. CTV is now a standard off-site format for large networks, not a side experiment.
How do sponsored products usually work?
Sponsored products are typically paid placements that appear in search results or on product/category pages. Brands bid or pay for visibility next to relevant organic results, using the retailer’s first-party data to reach shoppers who are actively browsing or searching.
How do brands buy retail media?
Brands can typically buy through the retailer’s self-serve platform, via managed service teams, or through agencies that have access to multiple retail media networks. Access models vary by retailer (self-serve, hybrid, or fully managed).
What is the difference between self-serve, managed, and hybrid access?
Self-serve means the brand or agency traffics campaigns in the retailer’s own interface. Managed service means the network team runs planning and delivery. Hybrid is the most common pattern: self-serve for on-site products such as sponsored search, and managed service for in-store, CTV, or packaged buys.
Do all retailers use the same type of retail media platform?
No. Some large retailers build proprietary platforms. Many others use third-party technology platforms (such as CitrusAd, Criteo, Kevel, or others) to power their retail media networks. Hybrid approaches are also common.
How is retail media different from programmatic and search advertising?
Retail media sells ads on a retailer’s own site, app, stores, and partner channels. It targets shoppers using the retailer’s first-party purchase data and measures results against sales at that retailer. Programmatic advertising buys ads automatically across many publishers through a demand-side platform (DSP), usually for reach. Search advertising on engines like Google targets what people type, across the whole web. Many brands use all three: search and programmatic to create demand, and retail media close to the point of purchase. Source
What is a DSP in retail media?
A demand-side platform (DSP) is software that lets advertisers buy display, video, audio, and streaming TV ads automatically across many sites and apps in real time. In retail media, a retailer’s DSP uses its shopper data to reach audiences off the retailer’s own site, which is how most off-site retail media is bought. Examples include Walmart DSP (powered by The Trade Desk) and Amazon DSP. Source, Walmart Connect
Operations
What teams sit inside a retail media network?
A scaled RMN usually separates the commercial work from delivery and proof:
- Account executives - supplier relationships and opportunities
- RevOps - product catalog, rate cards, and yield rules
- Sales strategy and media planning - scoping, targeting, and the IO
- Sales operations and ad operations - assets, trafficking, go-live
- Insights and measurement - audiences and post-campaign reporting
- Finance - invoicing from actuals, not from the proposal
What is RevOps in retail media?
RevOps owns the commercial product the network sells: catalog mapping, rate cards, packaging, and discount rules. On many grocery RMNs that work still sits with an AE director or with Ad Ops. That creates two problems - rate cards drift, and Ad Ops is pulled off trafficking to maintain a price list. A dedicated RevOps seat keeps the catalog current so planners build IOs against approved products, not a spreadsheet.
What is a rate card in retail media?
A rate card is the approved price list for the products an RMN sells: formats, units (often CPM or fixed fees), packages, and documented discount rules. RevOps usually keeps it current. Insertion orders should be built against the live rate card, not a one-off spreadsheet, so yield and billing match what was sold.
What is an order management system for an RMN?
An order management system (OMS) is the revenue system of record: opportunity, approval, insertion order, delivery actuals, and invoice. A task tool (Asana or similar) is the execution layer: assets, trafficking checklists, comments. Mixing those jobs in email and Excel is how IOs, live campaigns, and invoices fall out of sync. Native connectors can push actuals from platforms such as Google Ad Manager or DV360. Everything else needs a scheduled pipeline.
Why do some channels need a custom actuals pipeline?
OMS tools often connect natively to a few demand or serving platforms. Grocery and specialty RMNs also sell on-site RMP inventory, in-store screens, email, circulars, radio, and other channels that do not push delivery automatically. Those need a daily or near-real-time pull of impressions, clicks, spend, and (where available) sales into the OMS. Without that feed, billing and forecasting sit on booked numbers instead of delivered ones.
Who should own rate cards and discounts?
RevOps maintains the rate card. Sales proposes a price inside documented thresholds. A sales lead or finance partner approves exceptions. The IO should not be built until that approval is recorded in the OMS. Exact discount thresholds are set by each network. The rule to copy is the sequence: catalog and rate card first, documented approval second, media plan third.
Pricing & Commercial Models
What pricing models can retail media platforms support?
Common models include:
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
- Sponsorship / fixed-fee placements
- Cost + margin (especially for third-party inventory)
- ROAS or iROAS-oriented models tied to sales outcomes
What is the difference between ROAS and iROAS?
ROAS is attributed sales (or revenue) divided by ad spend. iROAS tries to isolate incremental sales: purchases that would not have happened without the ads. Buyers ask for incrementality when closed-loop ROAS looks strong but may include sales that would have occurred anyway.
What is the difference between trade spend and retail media spend?
Trade spend is supplier money for promotions, slotting, and shopper marketing inside the retailer relationship. Retail media is paid media against retailer inventory and data. The two budgets often sit in different teams and get measured differently. IAB has published work on how trade and media now overlap in retail.
Who decides which pricing models brands can buy?
The retail media network decides which pricing models to offer. The underlying platform enables the commercial models, but the retailer (or the operator of the network) chooses what is available to brands.
How do retailers typically earn revenue from retail media?
Retailers earn revenue by selling advertising inventory on their digital and physical properties to brands. This can include on-site sponsored products, display, in-store media, off-site audience extension, and other formats, often with high margins relative to traditional retail operations.
Data & Measurement
What data do retail media platforms typically use?
They primarily use the retailer’s first-party data: purchase history, browsing behaviour, loyalty data, search queries, and other shopper signals collected on the retailer’s own properties.
How do retail media platforms use first-party data?
First-party data is used for audience targeting, personalisation, frequency control, and closed-loop measurement. Because the data comes directly from the retailer, it supports more precise targeting and attribution than many traditional digital channels.
How is success measured in retail media?
Success is often measured through sales lift, ROAS / iROAS, new-to-brand purchasers, incremental sales, and other outcomes tied to actual transactions. This is one of the key advantages of retail media compared with many other digital channels.
What is closed-loop measurement?
Closed-loop measurement connects ad exposure to actual purchase outcomes using the retailer’s own transaction data. It allows brands to see whether campaigns drove real sales rather than relying only on clicks or view-through metrics.
How should retail media impressions be counted?
For digital on-site and off-site inventory, IAB/MRC retail media measurement guidelines cover impressions, viewability, and invalid traffic. In-store is different: IAB and IAB Europe use opportunity-to-see and defined store zones rather than a desktop viewability rule. Ask the network which standard they follow before comparing numbers across retailers.
Why is measurement still difficult if retail media is closed-loop?
Each network reports in its own interface. Off-site and CTV are harder to tie to a basket than on-site search. Incrementality is not the same as attributed ROAS. Digiday’s 2026 marketer survey still lists sales as the main KPI and measurement and cost as the main friction. That is why clean rooms and independent tools exist: brands do not want the retailer’s number as the only number.
What is incrementality in retail media?
Incrementality asks how many sales happened because of the ads, not only how many were attributed to them. Attributed ROAS can look strong while including purchases that would have happened anyway. Lift tests and iROAS estimates try to isolate that slice. Buyers ask for incrementality when closed-loop ROAS alone is not enough to compare networks or justify spend.
What is a clean room in retail media?
A clean room is a privacy-safe environment where a retailer and a brand (or agency) can match and analyze data without exchanging raw customer files. In retail media it is used for audience overlap, attribution, and measurement when buyers want proof beyond the network’s own dashboard. Clean-room vendors are tagged Type = RMP / tech on Platforms. See Resources for industry primers.
How can Retail Media Networks enable data sharing in a privacy-compliant way?
Common approaches include:
- Clean rooms for secure multi-party analysis
- Hashed identifier syncing with platforms such as Google and Meta
- On-site / first-party activation that keeps data inside the retailer’s environment
- Aggregated and anonymised reporting
- Contractual and technical controls (purpose limitation, limited retention, privacy-enhancing technologies)
What are ACoS and TACoS?
ACoS (advertising cost of sales) is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales, as a percentage. Spending $50 to earn $100 in ad sales gives 50% ACoS. It is the inverse of ROAS, which would be 2.0 in that example. Amazon says ACoS has to stay below your profit margin for a campaign to be profitable. TACoS (total advertising cost of sales) divides the same ad spend by all sales, organic and paid. Amazon uses the term but publishes no formula. Ad spend divided by total sales is the convention sellers use. Source
Growth & Access
Why are retail media platforms growing so quickly?
Growth is driven by strong first-party data, the ability to measure sales outcomes, high shopper intent, and the shift of brand budgets toward channels with clearer attribution. Retailers also see retail media as a high-margin revenue stream.
How big is retail media, and is growth slowing?
WARC’s Future of Commerce Media 2026 puts global retail media ad spend at about $200.4 billion in 2026 and $223.4 billion in 2027. The pool is still growing. The rate of growth is slowing, especially when Amazon is excluded. Forrester still projects a path from about $184 billion in 2025 to more than $300 billion by 2030. See News & Studies for the source reports.
Who captures most retail media spend?
Amazon remains the default buy. Digiday’s 2026 marketer survey had Amazon at 89%, Walmart Connect at 47%, and Target Roundel at 32%. Incremental dollars still concentrate in a few large networks. That is why pharmacy, specialty, travel, and mall networks compete on category context and data, not on matching Amazon’s scale.
Is retail media only for large brands?
No. While large brands were early adopters, many retail media networks now offer self-serve options and lower entry points that make the channel accessible to mid-sized and smaller brands as well.
Do you have to sell at a retailer to advertise on its network?
Not always. Sponsored product ads promote items the retailer sells, so your products need to be listed there. Display, video, off-site, and some in-store ads are often open to brands that do not sell there (non-endemic advertisers). Walmart Connect, for example, sells off-site and in-store media to categories such as automotive, financial services, insurance, quick-service restaurants, and travel (company-stated). Rules differ by network and country, so check each network’s advertiser page on Platforms. Source
Directory & Submissions
What should brands ask before buying on an RMN?
Before you spend, confirm access (self-serve, managed, or hybrid), which formats are live (on-site, off-site, in-store, CTV), how they define success (ROAS vs incrementality), and whether there is a public advertiser page or media kit. On Platforms, use Type = RMN for the network you are buying. Do not use RMP / tech (the engine) or Alliance / sales house (a multi-retailer front door) as if they were the same thing.
How should brands compare two retail media networks?
Compare category fit, markets, access model, closed-loop measurement, and who powers the stack - not brand awareness alone. On Platforms, start with Category (grocery vs specialty vs delivery), then Type = RMN so you are not weighing a tech vendor against a retailer network. Use the Powered by filter to narrow by stack, then read Loyalty / ID, Closed-loop, and Scale on the card.
When should a brand buy through an Alliance / sales house vs a single RMN?
Buy a single RMN when you need one retailer’s shoppers and a direct relationship. Use an Alliance / sales house when you want one commercial path across several retailer partners instead of separate insertion orders. On Platforms, use Type = Alliance / sales house for the front door and Type = RMN for banner-level networks. Do not treat them as interchangeable.
What do the Type filters on the directory mean?
Type is a card-level label on Platforms:
- RMN - the retailer’s advertising business
- RMP / tech - the software or multi-retailer tool
- Alliance / sales house - one commercial front door across several retailer partners
What does the Powered by filter do?
Powered by is a filter on Platforms. It shows networks whose listing names that stack. Chips today: First-party, CitrusAd, Criteo, Epsilon, Moloco, Topsort, Kevel, Koddi, Pacvue, dunnhumby, Pentaleap, VTEX Ads, Zitcha, SMG, and Unknown. Select more than one to see cards that match any of them. A card can match more than one chip (for example First-party and Moloco). Technology vendors marked "n/a (is the platform)" are not included in First-party or Unknown. Koddi is the stack for Kohl’s on-site ads. Criteo is the stack for Albertsons Media Collective onsite sponsored ads.
Where can I find official definitions and standards?
See Resources for IAB and industry glossaries, associations, and research sites. Individual measurement papers and market reports live on News & Studies. This site summarises the ideas. Those documents are the industry source text.
What is the difference between Resources and News & Studies?
Resources is the short list of places to go: research firms, news sites, associations, glossaries, and directories. News & Studies is the selected reports and standards themselves.
How do I submit a platform or suggest an update?
Use the Submit a Platform form. You can suggest a new retail media platform, network, technology provider, a study for News & Studies, or a source for Resources.
Is Retail Media Platform an independent resource?
Yes. It is an independent educational directory and information resource. It is not affiliated with any specific retail media network or technology vendor.