Emerce Retail Media Report 2026: Retail Media Is Moving Beyond Performance Towards Full-Funnel Brand Impact

For years, retail media was primarily viewed as a lower-funnel performance channel. Sponsored products, clicks, ROAS and conversion metrics dominated the conversation and became the foundation of most retail media strategies. The report clearly shows that the market is now entering a new phase.

The next stage of growth will no longer be driven by performance optimisation alone. Increasingly, retail media is evolving into a full-funnel channel where brand building, audience quality, incremental impact and measurable business results become central.

The Lower Funnel Is Reaching Saturation

Sponsored products and performance formats remain highly relevant and will continue to play an important role within retail media ecosystems. However, many advertisers are increasingly discovering that future growth cannot come from lower-funnel optimisation alone. As a result, the focus is shifting towards broader marketing objectives such as brand uplift, consideration, mental availability, incrementality and overall business impact. This shift is fundamentally changing the role retail media plays within the total media mix.

Not All Retail Media Delivers The Same Impact

One of the most important observations in the report is that retail media becomes significantly more powerful for brand building when several elements come together within the same customer journey. High attention environments, repeated exposure, multiple touchpoints during a single visit, strong audience profiles and measurable impact all play an important role. This is fundamentally different from isolated display placements or purely transactional sponsored product environments.

Packaged propositions and takeover models are becoming increasingly relevant because they allow brands to combine multiple touchpoints within one journey and create measurable impact across the full funnel.

Aggregators Will Play A Defining Role In The Next Phase

Another important development highlighted in the report is the growing role of aggregators within retail media. Aggregators are not only creating scale. They are increasingly enabling larger audience ecosystems, cross-touchpoint propositions, stronger non-endemic opportunities and more advanced measurement capabilities. This is especially relevant for advertisers and agencies looking to activate retail media beyond individual retailer silos.

As retail media matures, the market will increasingly move towards connected audience ecosystems and full-funnel propositions that combine branding, performance and measurable business impact.

From Inventory To Measurable Brand Impact

The next phase of retail media will likely not be won by the companies with the most inventory alone. The winners will be the players capable of combining scale, audience quality, multiple touchpoints, high attention environments and transparent measurement into propositions that create genuine incremental value for brands.

Retail media is rapidly evolving from a tactical performance tool into a structural part of the broader media mix. And in many ways, this transformation is only just beginning.

Why RetailMedia.One Is Perfectly Positioned For This Shift

At RetailMedia.One, this is exactly the direction we have believed in from day one. Rather than focusing purely on transactional lower-funnel retail media, we have always focused on building full-funnel retail media ecosystems around high attention environments, strong audience profiles and measurable impact.

Through partnerships across mobility, convenience, campuses and physical retail environments, we strongly believe the future of retail media lies in combining multiple touchpoints within one connected customer journey.

Equally important is the growing role of aggregators. As the market matures, brands and agencies increasingly require scale, standardisation, audience quality and transparent measurement across multiple environments instead of fragmented standalone retail propositions. This is precisely where we believe aggregators can create disproportionate value for the market.

The next phase of retail media will not simply be about more inventory. It will be about creating measurable brand impact at scale. And that is exactly the future RetailMedia.One was built for.