The budget conversation used to be relatively straightforward. A brand manager at a consumer goods company would sit down with their agency at the beginning of the year and divide their marketing investment between brand building and trade spending, which flowed to retailers as cooperative advertising allowances and promotional funding. These two buckets rarely overlapped. They were governed by different teams, measured by different metrics, and managed through entirely different organisational processes.
That separation has collapsed. US retail media advertising reached $69 billion in 2025, according to eMarketer’s full-year assessment, and the majority of that budget came not from digital marketing allocations but from trade spending that previously had no connection to programmatic advertising platforms, audience targeting, or digital measurement. The $69 billion figure represents a channel that is not simply growing within digital advertising — it is actively redrawing the boundary of what digital advertising is.
Understanding the mechanics of that $69 billion, and why the brands allocating it believe retail media is structurally different from every other digital advertising channel, is essential context for navigating the next phase of American advertising industry evolution.
Amazon Defines the Category It Created
Any discussion of US retail media advertising begins with Amazon, for the straightforward reason that Amazon accounts for approximately 72 per cent of total US retail media advertising revenue. Amazon’s advertising business crossed $50 billion in annual revenue in 2025, with the bulk of that figure generated through sponsored product placements within its e-commerce platform, the Amazon DSP for audience extension across third-party inventory, and video advertising across Prime Video’s advertising-supported tier.
Amazon built the retail media model by demonstrating something that no other advertising platform could offer at scale: closed-loop attribution connecting advertising exposure directly to purchase. When a brand buys sponsored product placement on Amazon, they can see not just impressions and clicks but the actual sales generated from the campaign, measured against a control group using Amazon’s own transaction data. This attribution model, which every other advertising platform approximates through probabilistic modelling, is definitive on Amazon because the platform controls both the advertising inventory and the point of sale.
The power of that closed-loop measurement is the foundation on which the entire retail media category has been built. As TechBullion’s analysis of retail media technology establishes, the replication of Amazon’s model by other retailers has been driven by the recognition that transaction data is the most valuable asset in digital advertising, and that retailers who possess it have the infrastructure to monetise it.
| Retail Media Network | 2025 US Revenue (est.) | Market Share | Key Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Advertising | ~$50 billion | ~72% | Scale + closed-loop attribution |
| Walmart Connect | ~$4.5 billion | ~6.5% | Grocery + general merchandise data |
| Kroger Precision Marketing | ~$2 billion | ~3% | Grocery loyalty data depth |
| Target Roundel | ~$2 billion | ~3% | Younger demographic reach |
| Instacart Ads | ~$1 billion | ~1.5% | High-intent grocery moments |
| All others | ~$9.5 billion | ~14% | Category-specific audiences |
The Non-Amazon Networks Are Growing Faster Than Amazon
The most significant structural development in US retail media in 2025 is not Amazon’s continued dominance but the accelerating growth of non-Amazon retail media networks. While Amazon’s advertising business grew at approximately 19 per cent in 2025, Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target’s Roundel, and Instacart Ads collectively grew at over 30 per cent, reflecting brands’ increasing willingness to allocate dedicated retail media budgets across multiple networks rather than concentrating investment with Amazon.
The driver of this diversification is strategic rather than tactical. Consumer goods brands that built their initial retail media capability on Amazon have found that the audiences they can reach on Amazon are, by definition, people who are already on Amazon and likely already familiar with their product. Reaching grocery shoppers through Kroger Precision Marketing, or general merchandise buyers through Walmart Connect, exposes brands to purchase-intent audiences that Amazon cannot replicate because those consumers are not shopping on Amazon at that moment.
As covered in TechBullion’s analysis of the US digital advertising forecast, the total addressable market for retail media beyond Amazon is projected to exceed $30 billion by 2026, driven by the continued investment of retailers in their advertising infrastructure and the willingness of brands to fund that investment with budgets that could not previously flow through digital channels.
Where the Budget Is Coming From
One of the most important and underappreciated aspects of the $69 billion retail media figure is its sourcing. A significant portion of retail media spend represents budget that was not previously counted as digital advertising at all.
Consumer goods brands have historically maintained separate budget lines for trade spending — the cooperative advertising allowances, slotting fees, promotional funding, and in-store marketing investments that flow to retail partners in exchange for shelf placement and promotional support. These budgets, which can represent 15 to 20 per cent of total revenue for major fast-moving consumer goods brands, were managed through trade promotion management systems that had no connection to digital advertising infrastructure.
Retail media networks have systematically targeted these trade budgets by demonstrating that sponsored product placements and retail media campaigns can deliver the same commercial outcomes as traditional trade spending, measured with greater precision. The result is that a portion of the $69 billion in US retail media spend represents a net expansion of the total digital advertising market rather than a reallocation from other digital channels.
| Budget Source | Share of RMN Spend | Previous Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Trade promotion budgets | ~35% | Cooperative advertising / slotting |
| Search engine marketing | ~25% | Google Shopping / SEM |
| Display / programmatic | ~20% | Open web programmatic |
| Net new incremental spend | ~20% | Net new to digital advertising |
The Technology Infrastructure Serving the $69 Billion
The scale of US retail media advertising has driven substantial investment in the technology infrastructure required to plan, execute, and measure campaigns across multiple retail media networks simultaneously. As brands move from single-network retail media experimentation to multi-network strategies, the operational complexity of managing campaigns across Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, Target, and Instacart simultaneously has created demand for unified buying platforms, cross-network measurement tools, and retail media planning capabilities that did not exist three years ago.
Companies including Criteo, CitrusAd, Epsilon, and Pacvue have built platforms specifically designed to address this operational complexity, allowing brands to manage retail media campaigns across multiple networks through a single interface. The investment flowing into this infrastructure reflects a consensus that the $69 billion market is not approaching maturity but is instead entering a phase of accelerated sophistication, where multi-network strategy execution becomes a standard component of brand marketing.
For the broader AdTech ecosystem, the growth of retail media represents both an opportunity and a structural shift. As explored in TechBullion’s overview of the AdTech investment outlook, the companies that successfully build the infrastructure connecting retail media networks to brand media planning workflows are positioned to capture a disproportionate share of the value being created in one of digital advertising’s fastest-growing categories.
Related reading: Retail Media Technology | US Digital Ad Forecast 2026 | US Digital Ad Market 2029 | AdTech Investment Outlook
