Retail media is already a cornerstone of modern marketing strategies for retailers—but as we heard time and time again this past week at Shoptalk 2025, it’s evolving. Fast.
Simply put, the convergence of media and commerce is fundamentally transforming how retailers and brands engage with their shoppers. The “new” retail media market comes with opportunities and, of course, challenges with data and identity, in-store experiences and loyalty programs taking center stage.
Here are four emerging trends and takeaways from Shoptalk that marketers should know about as retail media becomes an increasingly larger role for brands and retailers:
In his session Retail is the New Media, Andrew Lipsman, Founder & Chief Analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce emphasized that “Retail media is the future of all media.” The technology has been a staple in retailers’ toolkits for quite some time—but it’s clear from Shoptalk there’s an unprecedented amount of growth that is happening within the space. Retail media is now synonymous with all media.
Placing high-quality media alongside commerce has been an unlock for brands and retailers to reach customers in a more meaningful and effective way. The combination of media and commerce is not just smoke and mirrors, but a tool that is redefining the way we engage customers: “that’s when marketing effectiveness happens,” Lipsman said.
And this doesn’t just apply to advertising on the retailer's site. An interesting nugget presented during Sarah Marzano, Principal Analyst at eMarketer’s session Retail Media Unfiltered, was the rising popularity of expanding advertising across the open web: “We’re headed to a near future where 1 in every 4 dollars spent on retail media will be allocated off-site,” said Marzano. “This presents so much opportunity to retailers across the retail media spectrum to better capitalize on their first-party data.”
Marketers that continue to take advantage of this convergence—on-site, off-site and in-store—with the right retail media partner will find themselves ahead in the race for consumer attention and engagement.
Customer centricity was a hot theme this year. Retailers are always striving to put the shopper at the center of what they do—but you can’t do this effectively unless you know what they want. “Everything about retail is about being customer centric. It’s about knowing who your customers are,” Alexis Hoopes, VP Global Fashion at eBay echoed. And that’s where data and identity become a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have.
Lisa Valentino, President of Ads at Best Buy, gave a perfect example of using data to understand customer preferences in her session How Best Buy Ads Unlocks Insights, Audience, and Results. She noted that because Best Buy has strong identity resolution and robust first-party data, their customer tells them what they want—no guessing games needed. “We use Epsilon as a strategic data partner,” Valentino noted. "When you can reverse engineer the [identity] graph to understand the consumer through their passions and habits, that tells you where to go next.”
Valentino shared that Best Buy sees over 200M+ consumers across their identity graph, which gives them the opportunity to expand into rather uncharted territory. That’s true customer centricity: letting the shopper guide the content that resonates with their passions and habits.
The role of physical stores in the retail media ecosystem is evolving. Going back to Marzano’s session, Retail Media Unfiltered, over 80% of transactions are still happening in physical stores, “which paints and increasingly clear picture that in order to unlock the full potential of retail media, we have to start thinking beyond the confines of retailers' websites.” By viewing physical spaces as integral parts of the retail media ecosystem, retailers can enhance customer engagement beyond digital confines to continue to engage shoppers.
Thinking beyond your website means thinking about stores as dynamic media channels through activations like digital signage, endcap displays, in-store audio advertising and interactive kiosks, to name a few. While in-store is surely not “new,” taking a data-driven approach to in-store retail media is a new way for retailers to reach shoppers across digital and physical channels—and tie those interactions back to each other—in a way they haven’t before.
Loyalty continues to evolve from simple transactions and deals to building real emotional connections with shoppers. As Sarah Crockett, Chief Marketing Officer at DSW put it in the session Defining and Earning Loyalty in a Crowded Retail Environment, loyalty programs are all about “the combination of emotional benefit and transactional benefit.” They need to be more than just price and points; they should reflect the brand's essence. And to no surprise, data plays a pivotal role here: “I think of data as a fast track to personalization. It’s the personality of the consumer…it tells us what conversation we should be having,” explained Crockett.
And now with generative and predictive AI on the scene, we're moving towards a truly personalized 1:1 loyalty experience. Ultimately, “it’s no longer just a loyalty program—it’s a whole ecosystem of experience,” said Amanda Bailey, VP Loyalty & Customer Marketing at Lowe’s.
As Crockett noted, loyalty is about the transactions, sure, but it’s also about connection. Top brands focused on this sentiment repeatedly at Shoptalk: using storytelling to tap into authenticity and, in turn, build a community of brand fans. Sapna Parikh, Chief Digital Officer at Kendo Brands (LVMH), shared in the session Inspiration and Discovery in Digital Shopping, “What’s really important is developing a true brand, building a community and being authentic with that messaging.” Alexis Hoopes, VP Global Fashion at eBay echoed, “It’s very much about these community-based interactions at retailers where you’re having that active conversation."
It doesn’t have to stop there, either. “The insights you glean from your loyalty programs can and should be used to inform all other areas of your marketing,” says to Allison Royster, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Loyalty at Epsilon. “For example, Epsilon helped a leading pharmacy retailer harness the power of their loyalty program and use that rich first-party data to reach shoppers across the open web with co-branded ads that drove people to purchase—which was a huge unlock,” Royster explains. “That connection between their loyalty program and retail media network enabled one-to-one communication with all customers based on their unique preferences."
As the retail media landscape continues to grow and become even more complex and persuasive, it’s important for marketers to incorporate the most effective strategies and technologies to reach its full potential.
Epsilon Retail Media is bringing people-based intelligence to retail media with a next-generation platform unlocking opportunities to drive stronger outcomes for advertisers and increase sales and shopper loyalty for retailers. Learn more about the first retail media platform to couple AI with person-first identity.
