By Chelsea Clarke
Retail media isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, according to WARC Media’s Global Advertising Trends’ latest report. The quarterly report uses WARC’s dataset of advertising and media insight to gain perspective on industry developments as they happen.
This year, its forecast predicts that retail media ad spend will come in at $128.2 billion, and a 10.2% year-on-year increase will occur as we head into 2024. WARC predicts that global retail media ad investments will sit at $141.7 billion next year.
This growth puts retail media on track to become the third-largest channel by spend within just a few years’ time, snatching linear TV’s spot.
Amazon has come out on top as the world’s largest retail media owner by ad revenue this year, superseding Alibaba. Together, the companies are the main drivers for retail media’s growth, earning a estimated $80 billion combined in advertising revenue in 2022, which works out to 68.3% of global retail media investment.
WARC Media predicts that Amazon will earn $45.4 billion in ad revenue this year, occupying 87.8% of the marketing outside of China. Next year, Amazon’s ad revenue is forecasted to reach $52.7 billion, while Alibaba will likely come in at $42.1 billion.
WARC Media’s report shows that retail media is being used in new ways, but marketers surveyed indicated they still view retail media as a lower-funnel channel to drive sales conversion; only 30% said that they use it to build brand awareness.
But as part of its growth, retail media is beginning to expand beyond paid search formats into video, audio, and OOH through cross-channel partnerships. The report cites Walmart’s partnership with Roku in the United States is an example of brands that are capitalizing on upper-funnel ad dollars to not only build brands, but to increase campaign effectiveness.
