This year, advertisers in Europe are expected to double their spending on retail media. This means that sellers are making drastic changes to their business model. Retailers are investing in becoming platforms with retail media, and in off-site advertising.
This is according to WARC Media, a company that helps brands to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing. In their latest report, The Future of Commerce Media 2025, the company announced that the worldwide retail media market will grow 13.7 percent, to 152 billion euros (175 billion dollars) in this year.
Growth retail media slowing down in coming years
The growth in commerce media is expected to decrease next year, to 12.4 percent. And in 2027, WARC Media expects a growth of just 11.6 percent. In recent years, retail media increased rapidly. For example, Amazon Germany increased its net sales in retail media with 20 percent in 2023, which came to 2.9 billion euros. This was almost 10 percent of the company’s total revenue in Germany.
The report indicates that the current European growth rate was previously seen in China and the United States. There, retail media is already much more established.
‘Full-funnel solution’
Retail media entails advertising space within online retailers’ websites. Think of ads in search results, on overview pages and product groups. These are shown on the websites of the online store, shopping apps or platforms.
‘40% of managers who buy retail media see it as a full-funnel solution’
“Commerce media is emerging as a full-funnel solution, with more ad formats and channels to complement detailed first-party data”, according to a press release from WARC Media. “A recent survey by adtech company Infillion found that two in five (40 percent) of agency-side managers who purchase retail media see it as a full-funnel solution, and another seven percent said it is an opportunity for the upper funnel.”
