2025: A New Era for Retail Media
2024 was the year of the retail media boom, with seemingly everyone jumping on the bandwagon to establish their own retail media network or brand retail media strategy. The trend even got a slight rebrand as the "cool kids" started calling it commerce media. The buzz was palpable.
But 2025 will separate the frontrunners from the rest, as the top networks accelerate ahead—delivering superior performance and financial returns. From incrementality measurement to the rise of flexible tech stacks, brand leaders within the industry will embrace new tools this year that will redefine how their company operates within retail media. Here’s a look at the key moves that will define the year ahead.
Bye Bye RTM Boom
The current boom in Retail Media Network (RMN) launches will begin to slow as the market recalibrates. Instead, we’ll see the emergence of the first multi-retailer collaborations aimed at creating more appealing solutions for brands, especially in the face of dominant players like Amazon and Walmart. While retail media may never fully embrace a programmatic model, a hybrid solution could emerge—though executing this successfully will be an enormous challenge.
Hello Retail Media’s Third Wave
The Shift to Best-of-Breed Tech Stacks
Incrementality is positioned to become the third wave of growth in retail media, following the initial focus there will be scaled adoption. Industry analysts like Andrew Lipsman have pointed out that unlocking incrementality measurement will be critical for brands seeking a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace.
Unlike traditional metrics such as Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS), incrementality goes deeper, helping brands determine the true impact of shoppable media and retailer-powered campaigns on sales. This approach is especially valuable in complex ecosystems where it’s difficult to untangle which media or merchandising effort drives conversions.
By implementing Incremental Return on Ad Spend (IROAS) measurement, forward-thinking brands will gain a significant advantage. As 2025 unfolds, those who integrate robust incrementality measurement into their strategies will not only optimize their investments but also emerge as leaders in the space.
The commerce-tech landscape is set to mirror the evolution previously seen in adtech and martech, with a growing shift from all-in-one platforms to flexible, best-of-breed tech stacks. While comprehensive platforms initially attract advertisers by consolidating diverse capabilities, the maturing needs of businesses often push them toward building more tailored, integrated systems.
In 2025, brands will increasingly opt for tech stacks that allow them to select the best solutions for specific capabilities, fostering greater flexibility and inter-connective between platforms. For commerce-tech providers, this trend underscores the importance of identifying and doubling down on their unique strengths. Success in this space will also require an openness to collaboration and integration, creating an ecosystem where specialized tools can seamlessly work together.
In 2025, brands will increasingly opt for best-of-breed tech stacks, fostering greater flexibility and connectivity between retail media platforms to meet their evolving business needs.
Self-Service Lift Testing’s Rise
Stepping Toward Scalable Online-In-Store Integration
Entertainment-Centric Commerce Gains Ground
The Measurement Gap Becomes a Competitive Divide
So What?
Another transformative trend for 2025 is the emergence of self-service lift testing. Drawing inspiration from the capabilities offered by platforms like Google and Meta, retail media networks and commerce-tech providers will empower brands to design and execute their own user-based or geo-based lift tests.
This shift will put more control into the hands of marketers, enabling them to make data-driven decisions and refine their strategies with greater precision. The next step will be systems that can seamlessly integrate these lift test results into broader models, helping brands optimize their media spend and drive meaningful results.
The industry will see its first meaningful strides toward integrating online and in-store media vehicles into a unified, scalable solution. Walmart and Vizio are likely frontrunners in this space. However, this will be a multiyear effort, marked by a wide range of successes and failures as the complexities of such integrations become apparent. The journey to connect these ecosystems will set the stage for the future of omnichannel retail media.
Entertainment-focused commerce verticals will continue to push into the retail media space, forcing the industry to pay attention. Their prominence will largely depend on how shopping behavior and intent evolve across categories. As these players carve out their niche, they will add new dimensions to the retail media landscape, especially in categories where purchase decisions are closely tied to media consumption.
The lack of advanced measurement solutions specifically designed for commerce will create significant capability gaps between brands. Those equipped with robust insights will reallocate budgets more effectively, channeling investments into high-performing campaigns and platforms. This shift will trigger a ripple effect, with competitors scrambling to adjust through rule-based automation or manual interventions. These reactions could lead to less reliance on ROAS, which in turn may destabilize parts of the ecosystem that have become overly reliant on it as a performance metrics and optimization signal.
The year ahead holds countless predictions for retail media, but one thing is certain: 2025 will be a year of transformation for the industry. Some players will rise, others will fall and the difference between winning and losing will hinge on two critical factors—staying agile and grounded in measurable insights. Amid the buzzwords and an alphabet soup of retail media acronyms, the real game-changer is clear: measurement. Those who embrace it will gain a decisive edge, while those who neglect it risk being left behind. In the end, success will favor those who prioritize clarity over hype and precision over promise.
The State of the Retail Industry 2025
JAN 2025
About David Pollet
David is the Chief Executive Officer at Incremental. A skilled go-to-market growth leader with experience scaling SaaS startups and public company divisions ranging from $5M-$100M+ in ARR, David has 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and strategic leadership roles. In his role as CEO, David is responsible for accelerating the company’s growth and transforming GTM operations as Incremental establishes its leadership in the ecommerce category. Prior to joining Incremental, Dave was most recently CRO at convergent TV platform Cross Screen Media, and has held leadership roles at companies including Drawbridge, Neustar, Bank of America, and LendingTree.