3 tips for brands to optimize their 2025 retail media strategy

Retail media has grown exponentially over the past decade—and it’s still growing. eMarketer expects retail media ad spend to rise 23.5% in 2025, reaching $67.28 billion. Says eMarketer, “Retail media is moving beyond performance to become a tool that marketers can use to drive both sales and brand awareness.”

Given this rapid growth, brands today have many retail media investment choices—often an overwhelming amount. Brands may not know where to even begin in deciding how to invest their budgets in 2025.

The truth is that all retail media is not created equal—and there are important considerations to keep in mind that will help simplify the process. For brands, this blog will guide you on how to think about the right way to invest your advertising dollars in retail media for 2025.

1. Build your targeting strategies around purchase behavior and real shopper needs

You might be used to activating digital media nationally, leveraging highly detailed audience profiles built on psychographic, demographic or geographic data that aligns with your “target audience.” While that is perfect for national campaigns aimed at evoking an emotion or making a connection with an audience, you have the opportunity to complement national campaigns with retail media campaigns that can unlock richer, shopper-level interactions and more efficient campaign outcomes.

Unlike traditional digital advertising, retail media offers advertisers direct access to retailer shoppers at the individual level. This ability to tap into every shopper's past purchasing activity allows advertisers to more accurately predict what products they should feature in future campaign messaging. For example, if a shopper frequently purchases plant-based food items, your ads can highlight new vegan products or special offers on plant-based foods. This level of 1:1 personalization not only increases the likelihood of a purchase, but also shows the consumer that you truly understand them, enhancing their experience with your brand.

Additionally, leveraging this data means you can optimize your ad spend by focusing on high-intent shoppers who are most likely to convert. Instead of casting a wide net with your advertising efforts, you can use precise targeting to reach those most interested in your products, ensuring that every dollar spent has the potential for a high return on investment.

Take full advantage of retailer shopper data and start building your targeting strategies around purchase behavior and real shopper needs when building your retail media strategy. By aligning your advertising choices with the actual buying patterns and preferences of your audience, you can create the most impactful and relevant campaigns.

2. Coordinate your messaging seamlessly across all channels

When setting up your retail media campaigns, think about how you can maximize different channels to create full-funnel strategies that generate a more cohesive shopper experience. Consider how your social and offsite media strategies can guide shoppers to retailer sites, leveraging tactics like online video, CTV and display. Then, ensure your onsite strategy continues that shopper journey with ads tailored to the interests and needs of each shopper at every step of the onsite experience.

For instance, you can use online video and CTV to create awareness and interest, leading potential customers to retailer sites. Once they are on the retailer's website, you can use display ads and sponsored product placements to guide them through the consideration and purchase stages. This seamless integration of offsite and onsite messaging will create a more engaging and effective shopper journey.

Accomplishing all this means coordinating your messaging across all channels to ensure consistency and relevance. If a shopper sees an offsite display ad for your product on the open web, follows a link to the retailer’s website and then is met with an onsite display ad that is truly relevant to the conversation, they’re more likely to feel a cohesive and personalized experience. See an example of what a seamless customer journey looks like in action:

3. Find the retailers that can offer you access to shoppers you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach

As you consider which retailers to prioritize for 2025, it’s important to identify those that can offer you access to shoppers you otherwise wouldn’t reach. This can be done in two key ways:

1. The retailer’s audience itself is unique to a location, industry or demographic.
2. The retailer can offer access to all its shoppers, not just the select few who consistently self-identify online or who are already part of larger audience segments.

Which of those would you prefer? If it's the latter, then here are some questions to consider when evaluating retailer audiences:

1. Are they giving me access to in-store shoppers or are they limited to website visitors only?
2. How are they matching online engagements with offline actions?
3. What kind of shopper-level data am I getting from this retailer?

Choose retailers who can find you the perfect prospect for your product, not just their “good enough” option from a small selection of shoppers they can identify. This approach ensures you’re reaching the most relevant and potentially high-value shoppers, maximizing the impact of your advertising spend.

It’s also important to have the right mix of retailers to support your business goals. This means expanding beyond just the large retailers. Recent data from Placer.ai reveals that the 10-most visited grocery chains (e.g., Kroger) together only comprise 42.6% of total grocery visit share for 2023. As Grocery Dive puts it, regional and specialty stores show a “commanding” market share presence that should not be overlooked when determining retail media spend.

Get the most out of 2025

Intelligent retail media enables brands to meet their real shoppers with messages that matter to them, driving the most meaningful impact in the year to come. Investing in strategic retail media choices is not just about following trends—it’s about making informed decisions that align with your brand’s goals and the evolving needs of your shoppers.

Focusing on shopper data, creating a seamless shopper journey and tailoring your retailer priorities are essential steps in maximizing the effectiveness of your retail media campaigns. By doing so, you’ll not only enhance your brand’s visibility and reach, but also build stronger connections with your target audience in 2025 and beyond.