Retail media ad spending will hit €25 billion in Europe by 2026, according to IAB Europe forecasts.
According to its report, in collaboration with Xandr, retail media can no longer be described as “an emerging channel” given the Covid-19 pandemic “fundamentally changed” consumer shopping habits. For example, now three-quarters of shoppers in Europe go online.
This forecast and study come as Channel 4 and ITV have inked deals with Sainsbury’s Nectar 360 and Tesco’s Dunnhumby respectively to match broadcaster viewing data with first-party retail media datasets.
Wavemaker global ecommerce lead Mudit Jaju described the retail media market worldwide as going through a “massive explosion in every way” with the number and variety of offerings in retail media “exploding”, with ensuing high volatility, inflation and opportunity in The Media Leader Podcast.
In the UK data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found online sales accounted for 40 per cent of total retail sales last year.
Most of the respondents were brand or media directors, planners or programmatic media directors, and more than half have been working in digital advertising for more than four years.
IAB Europe’s survey found retail media is “a key part” of advertising strategies with the vast majority of advertisers and most agencies already partnering with retailers to reach their target markets.
Out of those that are not currently leveraging retail media in their planning, more than eight in 10 of advertisers and more than three-quarters of agencies plan to within the next year.
The report stated: “Advertising against a bespoke audience built from retailers’ data is an attractive proposition, as marketers increasingly seek future-proofed media planning, activation and measurement in a ‘cookieless’ online advertising environment.”
