Retail media is advertising sold by a retailer or marketplace on its own platform — search results, product pages, apps, and increasingly its own off-site and in-store channels — targeted using the retailer's first-party shopper and purchase data. Amazon Ads, on Seller Central and Vendor Central alike, is the largest and most mature retail media network; Walmart Connect, other marketplace ad programs, and retailer-run networks follow the same model.
What makes retail media distinct from traditional digital advertising is proximity to purchase: the ad, the product, and the "buy" button sit in the same interface, often the same screen — and the targeting is built on what people actually bought, not just what they clicked.
What are the main retail media formats?
- Sponsored search placements. Paid listings in search results and category pages — the format most shoppers recognize, sold on a cost-per-click basis.
- Sponsored display and product-page placements. Ads on competitor or complementary product pages, capturing shoppers already deep in purchase intent.
- On-site brand placements. Storefront takeovers, brand stores, and featured carousels that build brand presence beyond a single search term.
- Off-site retail media networks. Retailers increasingly sell targeting built on their own shopper data across external publishers and social platforms — extending the retailer's data advantage beyond its own site.
- In-store and connected formats. In-store screens, audio, and connected-TV placements sold by retailers with a physical or streaming footprint, layering onto the same shopper-data targeting.
Retail media vs. traditional digital advertising
| Aspect |
Retail media |
Traditional digital advertising (social, search) |
| Targeting data |
The retailer's own purchase and shopper behavior data |
Platform behavior data (clicks, follows, interests) — rarely actual purchase data |
| Distance to purchase |
Often one click from checkout |
Usually requires leaving the platform to buy |
| Attribution clarity |
Directly tied to on-platform sales |
Relies on pixels, modeled conversions, and cross-platform assumptions |
| Who can buy it |
Sellers and vendors on that specific retailer's platform |
Any advertiser, regardless of where they sell |
Which metrics matter in retail media?
- ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) — ad spend as a percentage of the sales that ad directly generated, the campaign-level efficiency metric.
- TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) — ad spend as a percentage of total sales, including organic; the metric that shows whether advertising is actually growing the business or just harvesting demand that would have converted anyway.
- Share of search / share of voice — visibility against competitors on the terms that matter most, increasingly tracked as its own KPI separate from direct ROI.
- Halo effect — the lift retail media gives to related or bundled products beyond the one advertised, notoriously hard to measure but real in category-level sales data.
What do brands get wrong with retail media?
- Optimizing ACoS while TACoS quietly rises. A campaign can hit an excellent ACoS while simply cannibalizing organic sales that would have happened anyway — TACoS is the check that catches this.
- Treating retail media as separate from the listing itself. Ads driving traffic to a weak product page — thin A+ Content, poor reviews, missing Buy Box — burn spend converting nothing; fix the destination before scaling the budget.
- Running the same strategy across every marketplace. Auction dynamics, available formats, and typical costs differ by retailer and by country — a campaign structure tuned for US Amazon rarely transfers directly to a European marketplace.
- Ignoring off-platform retail media reach. Retailers increasingly sell their own shopper-data targeting on external channels; brands that only think "on-site ads" miss a growing share of the retail media budget's available reach.
FAQ
What is the difference between ACoS and TACoS?
ACoS measures ad spend against the sales that specific ad generated — a campaign-level efficiency number. TACoS measures ad spend against total sales, organic included, showing whether advertising is genuinely growing the business or mostly capturing demand that existed regardless.
Is retail media only for Amazon?
No. Amazon Ads is the largest and most mature network, but most major marketplaces and large retailers now run their own retail media programs, sold on the same first-party shopper-data model.
Why do brands invest in retail media if organic listings are free?
Because visibility on competitive search terms is increasingly paid: category leaders and well-funded competitors buy the top placements, and strong organic rankings alone often aren't enough to be seen. Retail media also lets brands target shoppers actively searching for or viewing competing products.
Running retail media well means the right campaign structure per marketplace, per country, tied to a listing that's actually ready to convert. eBrands manages advertising as part of operating brands end to end across Amazon and other channels — see how we run Amazon for brands.
