All signs point to retail media’s “gold rush” era drawing to a close. What replaces it is a smaller, more accountable ecosystem – where networks must prove their value or risk being squeezed out.
New data from marketing solutions provider Keen Decision Systems suggests that retail marketers are no longer spreading budgets thin across multiple retail media networks (RMNs). Rather, they are reallocating spend toward networks that clearly demonstrate business impact.
More than a quarter of retail marketers are pulling ad spend from RMNs to fund other channels, according to Keen.
What are retail media networks?
Retail media networks are retailer channels – like websites, mobile apps, in-store screens and digital receipts – that allow brands to advertise directly to shoppers and potentially gain more visibility.
Among those reallocations, 21.7% of retail marketers said they would pull budget from television, while 17.4% would shift spending away from digital audio.
But not everyone is abandoning RMNs. More than two-thirds of retail marketers expect their overall marketing budgets to increase and plan to continue using RMNs in 2026.
That sparks the question: What are retail marketers looking for in RMNs?
RMNs boomed in popularity a few years ago to create what Keen’s CEO Greg Dolan describes as a “Wild West, where money was going everywhere” to more than 200 RMNs. After the dust settled, “there’s a better understanding of which networks are working better and which channels within those networks are working better for the brands,” Dolan explained.
Economic pressure forces tougher choices
Economic uncertainty is accelerating the shift to more potent RMNs. According to Keen’s data, 34.8% of retail marketers have moved budgets toward lower‑cost, higher‑efficiency channels, while an equal 34.8% say economic uncertainty is the biggest barrier to justifying budget requests to their chief financial officer. This shrewd approach is forcing marketers to justify every dollar and exposing performance gaps between RMNs.
When marketers say they are pulling spend from certain networks, Dolan says the decision typically comes down to one question: return on every dollar.
“Marketers have to make a decision around ‘How do I make sure that every dollar is working as hard as possible for me?’ Part of that optimization is identifying which retail media networks are performing best and which channels within those retail media networks are having the biggest impact. So that’s why we’re seeing that flight to quality in dollars flowing to the areas that are having the biggest impact on revenue and profitability,” he explained.
The result looks increasingly like an industry consolidation – one that stands out in scale, data access and measurable impact – which typically favors the “Walmarts and the Amazons of the world,” Dolan said.
For smaller or specialized RMNs, survival will hinge on relevance and measurable outcomes, he added.
But the shift to consolidated RMN spend will be nuanced based on the brand, category and audience, he noted.
Business outcomes over ‘vanity metrics’
As budgets tighten, marketers also are reassessing how success is measured. Over a quarter (26.1) of retail advertisers believe click‑through rate is the most overrated or misleading metric, per Keen. Instead, 30.4% of marketers increasingly favor customer lifetime value and 26.1% favor total revenue as the true indicators of media effectiveness.
“Everything is moving to become more outcomes based, business outcomes versus vanity metrics, and we’re seeing that shift happen in the marketplace. So are we actually able to see customer conversion and revenue and profit growth versus just click through rates, which tend to be misleading,” Dolan said.
He added: “How do we really shift the conversation from engagement to economics? And CFOs are putting more pressure on CMOS to be able to demonstrate that that performance from a [profit and loss] revenue or profitability perspective.”
When asked to define “vanity metrics,” Dolan pointed to a schism between marketing activity and financial impact.
“Marketers are planning against reach and frequency, against audiences, and there’s no connection back to, in many cases, the financial metrics. And ultimately, that’s what’s driving a business,” he explained.
Importantly, Dolan argues the data already exists, but what’s missing is how that data is applied.
“It’s just a question of asking the right questions and setting up the right models to drive the right decisions,” he said.
AI adoption: Useful, but cautious
While AI is increasingly part of marketers’ workflows, ad placements inside generative AI environments remain a tougher sell. Keen found that 39.1% of retail advertisers are taking a cautious approach to advertising within generative AI interfaces, and just 21.7% are actively investing in ads within environments like ChatGPT.
By contrast, AI adoption is much higher behind the scenes: 60.9% are using AI for media planning and 56.5% for brainstorming. The biggest concern? Loss of human connection, cited by 47.8% of respondents, per Keen.
Dolan says that reluctance is consistent with marketers’ historical behavior.
“Marketers in general are risk averse. So they’re always going to be slow to change. … they’re going to want to see the performance on par or better than other channels that they’ve invested in the past before they scale that investment,” he explained.
The days of ‘setting and forgetting’ an annual media plan are over
Even beyond channels and metrics, media planning itself is becoming more uncertain. More than a quarter (26.1%) of marketers say creative requirements by channel create the most uncertainty today, followed by budget cuts and channel allocation (both at 21.7%). More than a third of marketers (34.1%) say forecasting is challenging due to data quality issues and 26.1% say its due to stakeholders changing plans mid-flight, per Keen.
For Dolan, adaptability is the essential ingredient.
“They need to be a lot more agile,” he emphasized.
For marketers, “the days of setting and forgetting an annual plan” have shifted their work towards “being able to move with more flexibility, be able to wrap, react to how things are happening at a more macro level,” he said.
Dolan added: “We’re at a real inflection point with retail media. I think we’re shifting from a time where it was the gold rush or the Wild West and to one of performance accountability.”
