Over the past few years, retail media has become one of the fastest-growing channels in digital advertising, with over 250 retail media networks (RMNs) currently in operation, not to mention the countless travel platforms, food delivery apps and rideshare services that fall under the umbrella of commerce media.
Retailers, agencies and brands all benefit from retail media’s continued growth by unlocking new forms of revenue, improving targeting and delivering more relevant and personalized ads to customers, making them more likely to convert.
But the proliferation of retail media presents a double-edged sword. Although RMNs offer new opportunities to reach high-intent audiences closer to the point of purchase, agencies and brands are finding it increasingly difficult to compare performance across platforms and manage campaigns efficiently due to their lack of standardization and inconsistent measurement. This is especially true as retail media continues to move off-site and into other channels, such as connected TV (CTV) and digital out-of-home, making it harder for brands to execute cohesive cross-channel strategies at scale.
The promise of retail media is clear. But navigating its complexity and realizing its full potential can be daunting. Understanding how the landscape is shifting and what that means for advertisers is critical to staying ahead in an increasingly fragmented marketplace.
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What’s Causing RMNs’ Fragmentation Challenges
While retail media’s growth provides new opportunities for brands to reach consumers with increasing precision, it’s inadvertently fragmenting the landscape, with advertisers now having to manage campaigns across a variety of platforms — each with its own types of inventory, technology, measurement standards, attribution models and costs.
Further complicating matters, advertisers often define metrics in different ways, and platforms don’t always share common definitions or benchmarks, making it challenging to accurately compare campaign performance across platforms.
On top of that, as advertisers continue to move away from on-site search and traditional display ads due to increased competition and toward RMNs that are expanding into upper-funnel channels like CTV, measuring the impact of brand-building efforts on lower-funnel campaign performance is becoming increasingly complex.
This not only hinders advertisers’ ability to execute, measure, and plan campaigns efficiently, but makes some brands hesitant to scale their ad spend, with 55% of U.S. advertisers saying that a lack of standardization across retail media platforms is the top challenge RMNs face.
Despite Difficulties, RMNs Continue to Thrive
Although advertisers say the lack of standardization and siloed reporting across RMNs is preventing them from fully scaling their ad spend, the numbers prove otherwise: According to a 2024 study, three-quarters of advertisers planned to increase their retail media ad spending in 2025, with a third of them eyeing double-digit increases this year.
The reason for this is twofold: While fragmentation remains a challenge, the ongoing proliferation of specialized RMNs — along with the expansion of off-site advertising opportunities — is enabling endemic and non-endemic brands to scale their campaigns across multiple touch points and reach high-value, niche audiences with even greater precision.
For example, a skincare brand could leverage specialty RMNs from Ulta or Sephora to engage customers actively browsing beauty products online, while also tapping into RMNs like Target’s Roundel or Walmart Connect to reach a broader set of shoppers at scale as part of the same campaign.
Equally as important, with the increasing need for privacy-first data due to stricter regulations and the possible reduction of 3rd-party cookies, RMNs have become a safe haven of sorts for advertisers. Their rich, proprietary first-party data enables brands to target specific audience segments and leverage closed-loop measurement, reaching the right customers and tying media exposure to consumer purchases with greater accuracy. This helps them measure campaign ROI and optimize media spend more effectively.
How RMNs Will Evolve to Combat Fragmentation Challenges
Fragmentation in retail media remains a complex issue and is unlikely to be solved overnight, especially as more RMNs enter the fray.
Fortunately, RMNs are actively collaborating with industry bodies and technology partners to address these challenges through initiatives focused on standardization and interoperability.
For example, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council’s Retail Media Measurement Guidelines provide standardized recommendations around the collection and disclosure of key metrics and attribution methodologies, helping advertisers compare performance across platforms and make more informed media buying decisions. Although the IAB’s guidelines aren’t universally adopted, they’re a step in the right direction and provide a framework for more consistent measurement that will ideally help brands understand their return on investment more clearly.
Meanwhile, RMNs increasingly provide access to APIs, enabling deeper integrations with adtech platforms and marketing systems advertisers already rely on. These connections are not only necessary to retail media’s continued growth but also essential to scaling campaign execution, cross-channel coordination and advertising spend, allowing advertisers to manage, measure and optimize campaigns across multiple RMNs through a single interface.
By doing so, these integrations reduce operational complexity and bring retail media closer to the centralized workflows that define today’s programmatic advertising landscape. Adtech is playing a critical role here — bridging the gap between fragmented, siloed RMNs and the interoperable digital media ecosystem brands need to execute and measure full-funnel strategies at scale.
Looking Ahead
Retail media is evolving, and it’s not without its growing pains. But through unified strategies, increased standardization, and strategic partnerships with adtech companies and integrated marketing platforms, brands will be better equipped to deliver stronger returns on investment and drive more efficient, targeted and measurable results over the long haul.
Renee Caceres is Head of Retail Media at StackAdapt. As a strategic leader with 15+ years of experience, Caceres played a pivotal role in operationalizing Walmart’s retail media business and developing Firework’s inaugural retail media network sales strategy. Recognized with the Retail Media Award (2023), her customer-centric approach and innovative mindset have made her a standout in agency, retail media and startups.
