Why Retail Media Networks Still Struggle as Brand-Building Channels

Retail media networks were built for one job: to find shoppers at the point of purchase and convert them. Now they want a second job — brand building. The plumbing is largely there through partnerships with streaming and social platforms. Kroger has Disney Advertising, Walmart has TikTok, Meta and Snap, and Instacart has NBCUniversal. In Q4 2025, 60% of Walmart’s self-serve display spend went offsite, according to Tinuiti. Yet media buyers Digiday spoke with say most retail media networks still are not truly full-funnel.

That gap is not just technological. It is psychological and organizational.

From receipt data to cultural moments

The pitch for retail media as a brand channel is strong. Retailers own far more than online ad placements — they control aisles, screens, apps and cultural moments where shoppers already are. Their audience data is tied to actual purchase behavior. As Jen Sayroo of Mission One Media put it: “They’re not modeled off of a lookalike. They’re modeled off of a receipt.” That first-party data can be activated offsite across programmatic, audio, social and streaming TV.

For a marketer, that sounds like creative reach plus closed-loop measurement. So why has the budget not followed?

Why brand work keeps losing to ROAS

The default scoring system is stacked against brand building. Most retail media inventory is still small online units built for conversion, sold through conversion-optimized auctions and measured by attribution models that make longer-term brand effects look like underperformance. If you judge a brand campaign by last-click ROAS, it will almost always lose to a promotion.

There is also a cost-of-proof problem. One anonymous executive estimated a brand might need to spend more than $500,000 to test whether retail media investment is shifting household penetration nationwide. Some upper-funnel data is locked behind spend thresholds or joint business plans. Elizabeth Marsten, VP of commerce media at Tinuiti, summed up the frustration: “I feel very nickel and dimed as a brand.”

Then there is the internal tug of war. Retail media is often funded by trade or shopper budgets, whose owners are judged on immediate returns. “Until the ad products and the measurement change, the channel will keep pulling brand budgets toward performance behavior,” Kim Mayo of Trade School told Digiday.

The frame that changes the conversation

Marketers can borrow a simple effectiveness lens: separate activation spend from brand-building spend. Retail media only gets a real shot at brand budget when it is bought, measured and funded through that lens.

• Agree on funding before signing: decide whether brand or shopper budget pays, and set success metrics for each.
• Negotiate access to closed-loop data without punishing spend thresholds, or build a matched-market test.
• Judge upper-funnel retail media activity on reach, frequency and brand lift — not on final-click ROAS alone.
• Use retail audiences offsite for reach, but keep conversion inventory separate so you don’t over-optimize the wrong thing.

Retail media may become a legitimate brand-building channel, but only when advertisers stop letting performance plumbing set brand strategy.

Source: Digiday