Retail media tries to graduate from performance to brand-building

Retail media networks have proven they can find shoppers and close the sale; now they are arguing they can build brands. The pitch leans on a wave of partnerships that give retailers streaming, social and CTV reach without building their own tech stacks: Kroger with Disney Advertising, Walmart with TikTok, Meta and Snap, Instacart with NBCUniversal. In Q4 2025, 60% of Walmart's self-serve display spend went to offsite inventory, per a Tinuiti report. "Retailers own far more than online ad placements. They own aisles, screens, apps, content and cultural moments," Kim Mayo, executive director of retail media at Trade School, told Digiday. The blocker is internal: agencies cite a tug of war over who controls the budget, and many marketers remain hooked on ROAS, putting brand growth in the backseat.

The crux

RMNs are trying to move budget out of lower-funnel performance and into brand, but the holding-pattern is organizational - ownership fights and a ROAS addiction - more than a capability gap.

Sell-side read

For publishers in commerce and retail media, the offsite trend is the opening: retailer first-party data flowing to premium, publisher-grade inventory (streaming, social, CTV) is where the incremental brand dollars land. Position inventory as the brand-building extension of an RMN's closed loop.

Watch

Whether Walmart and Kroger report offsite as a share of total RMN revenue in the next two quarters; that number tells you if brand dollars are real or a narrative.