In-Store Retail Media Screens in 2026: How Retailers Build, Price and Prove a Screen Network

Last updated: October 2026. Reviewed by Kunal Damgude, Growth and Product Marketing Manager.

In-store retail media earns money for a retailer when its screens, shelves and audio are booked by place and time: which stores, which zone, which day, which hour, for how long. Brands pay per store, per campaign flight or per day, because most store estates do not count the shoppers in front of each screen and so cannot offer a verified impression. The retailer fills what direct brand deals leave empty with programmatic demand, and proves results with play logs, anonymous presence counts and sales measured against matched control stores. Grocery is where this works best today, with screens at the entrance, along the aisles, on end-caps and at checkout.

Osmos is a white-label retail media operating system for retailers and marketplaces. Its modular apps for onsite, offsite and in-store ads sit over your existing stack, so you can break your monetisation ceiling faster without rebuilding it.

In-store is one channel in a wider sector strategy, and our hub on retail media by sector covers how grocery, beauty, fashion and QSR retailers combine it with onsite and offsite. Osmos In-Store turns a retailer's screens, shelves and aisles into bookable ad inventory, with the proof brands need before they commit budget. On that one system a Head of Retail Media can decide where screens go, what they cost to run, how they are priced and how their results are proven.

How do in-store retail media screens make money for a retailer?

In-store screens make money when a retailer packages store surfaces as media, books them by store and time, and reports results brands can take to their own finance teams. The money comes from brand budgets that already exist (trade spend, shopper marketing, retail media and, increasingly, awareness budgets) moving onto surfaces the retailer controls.

In-store retail media is advertising on retailer-controlled surfaces inside physical stores: digital screens, kiosks, connected fixtures, electronic shelf labels, carts, floor graphics, shelf talkers and in-store audio, planned and measured with the retailer's own first-party data. Osmos In-Store runs this channel for a retailer, with screens and physical placements planned, priced and booked in one workflow on its Booking Calendar.

It is the physical leg of commerce media; for how the wider category fits together, see our explainer on what commerce media is.

Worldwide retail media advertising is forecast to reach $200.4 billion in 2026 (invidis, August 2026), and very little of it lands inside a store. One estimate, by the ecommerce advisory firm Eightx, puts physical in-store at about 3.3% of US retail media budgets against more than 80% of retail sales still happening in stores (Eightx, July 2026); it is a single firm's calculation, so treat it as an indication of direction. Shoppers already respond to in-store ads: more than 60% of US grocery shoppers say they bought a product directly after seeing it on an in-store screen, according to the same invidis report.

Osmos reads that gap as a supply problem. Brands have budgets and shoppers respond, but most stores have not yet packaged their surfaces as inventory a brand can plan, book and audit. Retailers are now building that supply. In 2026 CVS expects to run about 11,000 digital screens across the US, with checkout ads on point-of-sale systems in about 7,000 stores (Modern Retail, January 2026).

Christine Foster, SVP of commercial strategy and operations at Kroger Precision Marketing powered by 84.51, framed the opportunity in the same Modern Retail report: "This is an opportunity for the in-store environment to be used as a brand-building channel."

What in-store screens do well, and what to plan for

Osmos sees in-store screens offering point-of-purchase reach and closed-loop measurement that other retail media surfaces do not.

• Point-of-purchase reach. The ad plays within a few steps of the shelf, at the moment the shopper is choosing.
• Weekly mass reach in grocery. Grocery shoppers return every week, so a store network repeats a message to the same catchment without paying for new reach.
• Closed-loop proof. The retailer owns the sales data for every store, so it can compare stores that ran a campaign with stores that did not.
• Local control. Creative can change by store, zone and hour without a print cycle, which suits weather, promotions and dayparts.
• New budget lines. In-store opens awareness and shopper-marketing budgets that onsite search placements rarely reach.

Because the channel is physical, a retailer has to plan for hardware, connectivity and installation before the first booking. Measurement needs a store-level method, since a shopper who sees a screen has nothing to click, and brand buyers are still deciding which budget pays for in-store media. Each of these has a known answer, and a store can offer its analog inventory this quarter while it works through them. For the full commercial playbook on turning footfall into booked revenue, see our guide to how retailers monetize in-store traffic.

Where should screens go in a grocery or convenience store?

Screens should go where shoppers slow down and decide: the entrance, the aisle and shelf edge, end-caps, fresh counters and checkout. Dwell time, line of sight and category proximity differ by zone, so the zone decides the format, the creative length and the price.

Osmos groups grocery screen placements into six zones, and each zone does a different job:

• Entrance and front of store. Large-format screens for awareness, seasonal launches and time-of-day messages. CVS plans to grow its front-entrance screens from about 500 to about 1,000 stores in 2026 (Modern Retail, January 2026).
• Aisle and shelf edge. Smaller screens and digital shelf strips next to the category, for product launches and promotions a shopper can act on in the same aisle.
• End-caps. Screens built into the end-cap fixture, booked together with the physical display so the brand gets the shelf and the message in one booking.
• Fresh counters. Deli, bakery and butcher counters, where shoppers wait and food creative is relevant to what is in front of them.
• Checkout and self-checkout. Point-of-sale screens and lane displays with captive attention, which suit impulse categories and last-minute reminders.
• Pharmacy and service waiting areas. Long dwell and a seated audience, which suit health and wellness brands in drug and grocery-pharmacy formats.

Kroger's placement choices show the zone logic in practice: Modern Retail reports screens on end-caps, at the front of store and in frozen aisles, while some fresh displays, such as berry displays, were kept free of screens. Marlow Nickell, founder and CEO of Grocery TV, gave the same advice from the network side: "you're better off scaling zones within the stores than scaling parts of your network." A retailer that covers checkout in every store usually has a more bookable product than one that covers every zone in a handful of stores, because a brand can buy a consistent placement across the whole chain.

Osmos's Booking Calendar is where zones become inventory: a retailer plans, prices and books screens and physical placements in one workflow, sees fill-rate intelligence across the network, and holds inventory for deals still in negotiation. The formats that run in each zone are static display, video loops, QR-enabled creative and fixture sponsorships; for the full cross-channel format taxonomy, see our guide to onsite, offsite and in-store retail media ad formats.

Which screen types work best for in-store retail media?

LCD screens suit most in-store zones because they are affordable, mature and supported by every signage system; LED suits large bright entrances; kiosks suit zones where the shopper wants to interact.

Digital signage is any digitally driven display surface inside a store: LCD and LED screens, OLED panels, interactive kiosks, electronic shelf labels and projection. In Osmos's framing, signage becomes retail media at the moment a screen's time is booked, priced and reported to a brand.

Electronic shelf labels connect pricing and advertising on the same surface. Walmart has said it is rolling out digital shelf labels across its US stores (Walmart, March 2026), and other grocers are following. A retailer planning screens in 2026 should map shelf labels and screens as one inventory from the start, because a shelf-edge promotion and a screen above it are usually booked by the same brand in the same week. Osmos In-Store connects existing screens, ESLs and point-of-sale systems, so a retailer can start with the hardware it already has.

What software stack runs an in-store screen network?

An in-store screen network runs on a stack of layers: media players, a signage content management system (CMS), an ad server with programmatic supply, a media network or partner where the retailer does not own the screens, and a retail media operating system that turns the estate into bookable, reportable inventory. When a retailer asks which display system is best, the answer usually depends on which of these layers it is missing.

A digital signage CMS is the software that schedules content to screens, manages devices remotely and logs what played. A retail media operating system sits above it and handles the ad business: advertiser onboarding, booking, pricing, creative review, proof of play, measurement and billing. Osmos is a retail media operating system, and it works with a retailer's existing screens and signage.

Osmos sorts the vendors below by the layer of the stack each one fills:

Vendor facts checked on each vendor's own page on 12 October 2026. ScreenCloud and NoviSign prices are what a retailer pays to run the signage software.

Terraboost vs Broadsign: which does a retailer need?

Terraboost and Broadsign sit at different layers, so a retailer rarely chooses between them. Terraboost runs its own kiosk-based media network inside host supermarkets and pharmacies and brings the advertisers to it, which suits a retailer that wants ad revenue without owning screens. Broadsign is software and supply: it manages screens, serves ads and connects them to programmatic buyers, which suits a retailer or network that owns its estate and wants to fill it. A retailer that owns its screens and its brand relationships needs the Broadsign kind of layer plus a retail media operating system for booking, proof and billing; a retailer that does not want to own screens weighs network partners such as Terraboost or Grocery TV.

How should a retailer manage screens and in-store media day to day?

Day-to-day in-store media management means scheduling playlists, keeping every screen healthy, overriding the network for urgent messages and keeping a play record a brand can audit. Osmos's Retail Media CMS does this in one console: rules-based playlists by time, day, location or trigger; a multi-zone editor with brand-locked templates; real-time screen health; one-click network override; and proof of play that logs every ad with screen, store, time and duration, with audit trails and CSV export for billing. Open REST APIs and webhooks connect point-of-sale, CRM and ERP data, which is what lets a weather or stock signal change the schedule.

What in-store inventory can a retailer offer before the screens arrive?

A retailer can offer shelf talkers, end-cap headers, floor decals, standees, wobblers, sampling stations, cart placements and in-store audio from day one, because these surfaces already exist and brands already pay for many of them through trade and shopper marketing. Bringing them into the retail media business takes pricing and reporting work and no capital spend.

EMARKETER scopes in-store retail media as "digital screens and signage, smart carts, in-store audio, sampling stations, and digitized shelf displays," layered "onto long-established analog tactics like display banners and floor decals" (EMARKETER, June 2026). Analog is the larger estate in most stores today, and Osmos treats it as the fastest inventory a retailer can list.

Shelf and shelf edge. Shelf talkers, wobblers, header cards and aisle fins sit at the highest-intent strip of the store. Treated as media, each placement gets a defined flight, a defined store list and a report, and it can be booked in the same conversation as the screen above it. The digital version of the same surface is the electronic shelf label, which is why shelf-talker and shelf-label programmes belong on one inventory map.

Smart carts. A cart screen travels with the shopper and reacts to where the cart is in the store and what is already in it. Instacart opened in-store advertising on its Caper Carts to all brands in March 2025 (Instacart, March 2025). The announcement is older, and it still gives the clearest description of how cart media works.

Floor, print and audio. Floor graphics, display banners, end-cap headers and receipt or bag print behave like out-of-home: a fixed surface, a fixed store list and a fixed number of days. In-store audio belongs to the same family. CVS describes its in-store audio as campaigns "targeted geographically and demographically and dayparted to the hour" (CVS Media Exchange): the schedule is set by store and by hour, and the audience is defined at the level of the store.

Osmos's Physical Media app manages these analog placements as bookable inventory: each space is listed once with price, schedule and targeting tags; advertisers pick inventory, upload creative and schedule in three steps; orders route to print and installation vendors; and store teams upload proof-of-execution photos from their phones. Analog revenue booked this way also funds the first screens.

Is grocery DOOH the same as in-store retail media?

Grocery DOOH and in-store retail media overlap. In-store retail media is advertising on screens and surfaces inside a retailer's own stores, planned and proven with the retailer's sales data, while DOOH (digital out-of-home) is the wider category of screens in public places such as roadsides, transit, malls, gyms and forecourts. Supermarket screens sit in both: they are DOOH by location and retail media by ownership and data.

Grocery DOOH is digital advertising on screens inside or at grocery stores, from entrance displays and aisle screens to checkout and self-checkout lanes. Osmos treats grocery DOOH as in-store retail media whenever the grocer controls the booking and the data, because that is what lets the grocer prove sales results from its own till data.

Street and venue DOOH is usually bought on audience impressions, because audience measurement is built into that supply chain. In-store estates are usually priced on stores and duration and proven on sales, because the retailer has the till data and usually does not have a sensor on every screen. The same screen can be offered both ways: direct brand deals on stores and days, and a slice of unfilled time offered to programmatic DOOH buyers.

How grocery DOOH works in practice

Grocery is where in-store screen networks are growing fastest, and grocers are building them in different ways:

• The retailer builds and runs its own network. Hy-Vee added more than 10,000 in-store screens across more than 400 locations by the end of 2024 (Modern Retail, January 2026).
• The retailer partners with a grocery network. The Raley's Companies launched an in-store media network with Grocery TV across 208 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, per a May 2026 company release (PR Newswire, May 2026). For how a group with several banners structures one network across them, see our multi-banner retail media network guide.
• A third-party network places its own units in host stores. Terraboost's supermarket network places kiosks at entrances and high-dwell areas across thousands of locations, per its own site.

Checkout is the zone most grocers start with, because every shopper passes it, dwell is predictable and the placement is easy to describe in a rate card: "every lane in these 200 stores for two weeks." Fresh counters and entrances usually follow.

What brands want to see before they put budget into grocery screens

When a brand asks where it can advertise on retail digital screens, it wants to know which stores and zones it can book, what each booking costs and how the sales lift will be measured. A grocer wins that budget with a store list and zone map a planner can book, prices by store, campaign or day that a brand can check, play logs showing that the ad ran where and when it was booked, and a sales read against matched control stores.

Brands reach retail screens through the retailer's own media network, through a third-party network in the retailer's stores, or through programmatic DOOH where the retailer offers screen time to demand-side platforms. A retailer that offers all three to the same estate, with direct deals protected, captures the most of that budget. Quick-service restaurants follow the same place-and-time logic on menu boards and ordering kiosks, with mealtimes as the dayparts. For what grocery brands measure once they buy, see our analysis of in-store ad revenue and grocery brand ROI.

How does programmatic advertising work for supermarket screens?

Programmatic advertising for supermarkets lets brands buy unfilled in-store screen time through their usual demand-side platforms (DSPs), in private marketplace (PMP) or programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals or in open auction, while the retailer keeps its direct brand deals first in line. It turns screen time that direct sales did not fill into a second revenue stream.

Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) is the automated buying of digital out-of-home screen time through DSPs and supply-side platforms (SSPs), the same buying model as programmatic display adapted for screens. A pDOOH buy flows from the brand or agency to a DSP, then to an SSP or exchange, then to the screen's ad server and player.

US programmatic DOOH investment is expected to rise about 49% over the next 18 months, according to VIOOH's State of the Nation survey as reported by Billboard Insider (March 2026). Supply has also consolidated: Broadsign now runs the Place Exchange SSP inside one platform, with nearly 2 million screens connected and transacting and over 55 connected DSPs, according to its own March 2026 post. For a retailer, consolidation means fewer, larger programmatic partners to connect to, and buyers who expect in-store screens to arrive through the same pipes as the rest of their DOOH.

Why direct deals come first and programmatic fills the rest

Programmatic DOOH transacts on CPM because street and venue screens carry audience measurement in their supply chain. Most in-store estates do not, so the direct business stays priced on stores and duration, and programmatic fills what is left. Osmos's Programmatic Demand app is built on that order: Osmos notes that in-store fill rates rarely cross 60 to 70%, so it opens the remaining time to DSPs through standard PMP and PG deals; direct and house campaigns stay protected, programmatic fills the remainder, and the CMS schedule always takes precedence. The retailer sees fill rate per screen split by direct, programmatic and house demand, creatives are checked against each screen's format before they serve, and category block lists based on the IAB taxonomy keep brand safety under the retailer's control.

How to choose a programmatic partner for supermarket screens

A retailer choosing a programmatic partner for in-store screens evaluates DSP reach, deal types, priority control, creative and category control, and reporting:

1. DSP reach. Which DSPs and agency trading desks already buy through the partner.
2. Deal types. Whether the partner supports PMP and PG deals alongside open auction, so the retailer can price premium zones.
3. Priority control. Whether direct deals and house messages always win, and the retailer sets floors by zone and daypart.
4. Creative and category control. Whether creatives are validated per screen format before they serve and categories can be blocked.
5. Reporting. Whether programmatic plays appear in the same proof-of-play log and revenue view as direct campaigns.

How are leading retailers building in-store networks in 2026?

Leading retailers are building in-store networks with fixture-integrated screens planned into the store design, with fast rollouts on existing signage software, or through partnerships where a network or media owner supplies screens and demand. Each approach has to settle who owns the hardware, who runs the ad business and who proves the results.

Kroger: fixture-integrated screens. Kroger Precision Marketing's in-store platform is powered by Barrows Connected Stores, with screens built into fixtures such as end-caps and front-of-store displays, and the programme is moving beyond its pilot stores in 2026 (Modern Retail, January 2026). The design choice keeps screens part of the shopping environment, which is the point Christine Foster makes about in-store as a brand-building channel.

Albertsons: signage partner plus measurement. Albertsons launched an in-store digital display network in 80 stores with STRATACACHE in July 2025, according to the same Modern Retail report. The pattern pairs a signage technology partner with the retailer's own media business and sales data.

CVS, Hy-Vee and Raley's: own or partner. CVS combines front-entrance screens, pharmacy waiting-area screens, digital end-caps, in-store audio and checkout ads into one network it owns, as Hy-Vee does with its own screen estate. Raley's took the partner route across six banners with Grocery TV, which gives a mid-sized grocer a network without funding every screen itself.

Europe: measurement and shared estates. Tesco trialled measurement technology to see how shoppers engage with its in-store digital screens (Retail Technology Innovation Hub, November 2025). Carrefour, Carmila, Unlimitail and JCDecaux agreed in December 2025 to develop retail media together across Carrefour and Carmila sites in France and Spain, bringing indoor and outdoor screens under one commercial offer (JCDecaux, December 2025).

Southeast Asia: a retail media operating system over a multi-format estate. Osmos helped one of Southeast Asia's largest multi-brand retail groups scale in-store retail media to 1,700+ stores enabled and 5,000+ in-store screens activated, over a 3-month onboarding, with results reported from January to June 2026 and presence across 5 Southeast Asian markets. In this pattern the retailer keeps its screens and runs booking, scheduling and proof on one retail media operating system that also covers its onsite and offsite inventory.

In each of these patterns the retailer settles hardware first, and the return then depends on how well it runs booking, pricing and proof. For how the economics look over several years, see our guide on building the retail media business case on margin, not revenue.

How does an in-store screen target: by place and time, never by person?

An in-store screen targets by store, zone, day and hour, never by the individual shopper standing in front of it. Each ad plays because the schedule assigns that creative to that store, that aisle and that hour, whoever is walking past.

In practice, dairy plays before midday, when breakfast and lunch shoppers fill the aisle. Soft drinks play on weekend afternoons. A back-to-school campaign runs in the stores nearest school districts for the three weeks that matter. The retailer uses its first-party loyalty and basket data to choose the stores, zones and hours a brand should buy, and the screen still knows nothing about the person in front of it. For how this differs from the context and history signals used onsite, see our comparison of contextual vs behavioral targeting in retail media.

Sensors, where a retailer installs them, produce anonymous and aggregate readings of the shop floor: how many people were present, how long they stayed, and broad age range and group composition. Osmos Footfall Analytics is in early access with certified sensor partners Quividi, Advertima and RetailNext, and runs on USB webcams, IP cameras and existing CCTV in most stores. It pairs each ad play with a presence signal within plus or minus five seconds to produce IAB-aligned verified impressions, stores only aggregated demographic buckets, keeps no raw video or biometric identifiers and hashes shopper IDs with SHA-256.

The same pattern shows up elsewhere. Progressive Grocer describes Advertima's deployment with Walmart Connect Mexico as audience measurement across non-digital in-store promotional spaces in support of trade and shopper marketing campaigns (Progressive Grocer, January 2026). For the Osmos side of that sensor work, see the Osmos and Advertima partnership announcement.

Privacy guardrails for in-store measurement

In-store presence measurement should be sensor-based, anonymous, aggregated and minimized, with no facial recognition and no storage of personal data. European retailers add GDPR and UK GDPR obligations, and every retailer should publish what its store sensors do and do not collect. The commercial benefit is a promise a retailer can keep: a brand's creative will play in the dairy aisle of 300 named stores between 8am and noon for four weeks, those stores were chosen with the retailer's own data, and the result will be read against matched control stores. For who owns and controls that data, see our piece on data ownership in retail media ecosystems.

How should a retailer price in-store screen media?

A retailer should price in-store screen media per store, per campaign flight or per day, with fixed tenancies for premium zones, because those are the units it can guarantee and a brand can verify. CPM works on screens where certified sensors give a trustworthy impression count, and pDOOH buyers will expect it in programmatic deals. Most stores do not have that sensor coverage yet, so the chain-wide rate card still runs on place and time.

Osmos sorts in-store pricing by what the price is tied to:

A defensible rate card ties the price to the store count and the store tier.

1. Know the denominator. Scale does most of the pricing work, so quote the store count and zone count before the price. A 300-store booking means something different on a 208-store grocer, a pharmacy chain with checkout screens in about 7,000 stores and a network of more than 6,700 partner stores.
2. Price by store tier. Footfall, basket size and format mix differ between a flagship and a convenience store, so a flat per-store rate under-prices the top tier and over-prices the bottom.
3. Add performance pricing later. Pricing tied to measured lift becomes safe only once the matched-store method is running and the retailer has its own baseline. Industry growth rates show where brand budgets are moving; build the ramp forecast for a new in-store line from the retailer's own store count, fill rate and price.

Packaging lifts the price more than any single placement does. Bundling checkout, end-cap and audio into one flight, or in-store with onsite and offsite into one campaign, gives a brand a reason to pay a premium; for how to build those, see our guide to retail media ad packages brands pay a premium for, and for the offsite leg of an omnichannel bundle, our guide to expanding retail media from onsite into offsite.

How do you prove play, presence and sales lift to brands?

A retailer proves in-store results with play logs, presence data and matched-store sales analysis. Play logs show the ad ran where and when it was booked, presence data shows shoppers were in front of the screen while it played, and matched-store sales analysis shows what the campaign changed at the till. A brand's finance team gets the strongest case when the three are joined by store and timestamp.

Proof of play. Before a brand pays an invoice, it wants a play log recording screen, store, time and duration for every ad. Osmos's Retail Media CMS keeps that log, with audit trails and CSV export, so billing and brand reporting draw on the same record.

Presence. Only screens with sensor coverage can show an audience. On those screens, a play paired with a sensor presence signal becomes a verified impression, the strongest audience evidence in-store measurement offers, and Osmos Footfall Analytics makes that pairing with certified sensor partners. Its first phase, available in early access today, covers audience and impression measurement plus store-level sales attribution from point-of-sale data.

Sales lift. Here the store is the unit of analysis. Stores that ran the campaign are matched, on the variables that predict sales, to similar stores that did not, and the difference in category or brand sales is read as the media effect; brands trust matched-store lift most for in-store as long as the control stores are chosen before the campaign runs. Loyalty-card matching then adds a shopper-level view of exposed baskets, QR codes a direct response path, and basket analysis a read on whether the gain came from new buyers or bigger baskets.

IAB Europe has published a revised draft of its in-store measurement guidance for public comment until 23 October 2026, including a simplified Opportunity To See model built on six inputs: footfall, store count, campaign duration, number of placements, aisle penetration and share of voice (ExchangeWire, September 2026). In ExchangeWire's summary, "the emerging approach favours footfall and the opportunity for visual contact with an ad," which fits stores that price on place and time and add sensors gradually.

Paul Brenner, SVP of retail media and partnerships at In-Store Marketplace, Mood Media's in-store retail media division, described in-store buyers as "working a lot harder at folding the in-store digital measurement into their omnichannel measurement solution" (Modern Retail, January 2026). NielsenIQ found that 67% of CMOs plan to increase retail media investment in 2026 while 53% believe their retail media networks provide adequate measurement and attribution (NielsenIQ, July 2026); Osmos reads that gap as the opening for an in-store network that reports play, presence and lift in the same view as onsite and offsite. For the measurement methods in more depth, see how brands measure in-store ad performance, the retail media attribution and measurement guide and our deep dive on closed-loop attribution at Walmart, Amazon and Instacart.

How do you build an in-store screen network, and what does it cost to run?

A retailer starts with the analog inventory it already has and installs screens and ad software once it has decided whether to partner or build. Running costs fall into hardware, software licences, connectivity, content and ad operations, and the last two are the ones that grow with the network.

1. Audit the inventory you already have. Before the first screen ships, list shelf talkers, floor graphics, end-cap headers, sampling stations, audio slots and any screens already in store. This inventory can be offered this quarter and funds what comes next.
2. Decide partner or build. A retailer that owns its screens keeps the brand relationships and the data, and needs software and a team. A retailer that partners with a network, as Raley's did with Grocery TV, gets a faster start and shares the revenue and some of the control. Either way, write down who owns the shopper data and the brand relationships before signing.
3. Install screens and connectivity by zone. Match screen type to zone (LED at the entrance, LCD in aisles and at counters, kiosks where shoppers interact) and plan shelf labels and screens as one inventory. Wired connections suit permanent installs; cellular suits hard-to-cable sites.
4. Add the ad business layer. The signage CMS schedules content; the retail media layer handles booking, pricing, creative review, proof of play, presence measurement, programmatic demand and billing. Osmos In-Store provides that layer through its five in-store apps. A retailer can pilot in a few stores to prove revenue per store before rolling out to the whole estate.
5. Fill the screens from the first week. House ads fill most early inventory unless demand is planned in advance: bring the brands already funding trade and shopper marketing, offer analog and screens together, and open unfilled time to programmatic buyers once direct deals are in place.

What it costs to run an in-store screen network

Software licences are the easiest running cost to budget because vendors publish them. Signage licences run from $14 to $25 per screen per month at NoviSign and $20 to $30 at ScreenCloud, billed annually, per each vendor's own pricing page; on a $20 licence, a 500-screen network costs $10,000 a month in signage software before any ad business software. Hardware, installation and connectivity vary too much by store format, screen size and region for a single figure to be useful, so price them per zone with your installer.

Two costs grow with the network and are where planning pays off. Content operations (building, approving and scheduling creative for every zone) scale with the number of campaigns, which is why brand-locked templates and automated creative checks matter. Ad operations (onboarding advertisers, booking, reporting and billing) scale with the number of advertisers, which is why a retailer automates them before demand arrives. Osmos's Booking Calendar, for example, flags under-pacing screens, unfilled dayparts and stale price floors before they cost a renewal, and splits house fill from paid fill so the team can see how much of the network is earning.

For where in-store monetization is heading next, see our view on the future of in-store retail media monetization.

FAQ

Can a retailer run in-store ads without replacing its digital signage software?

Yes. A retail media operating system sits above the signage software, so a retailer can keep its screens and players and add booking, proof of play, presence measurement and billing on top. Osmos In-Store connects to existing screens, ESLs and point-of-sale systems, which lets a retailer pilot in a few stores and prove revenue per store before it decides on any new hardware.

How many stores does a retailer need before brands will book in-store media?

There is no published minimum. What brands buy is consistency: the same zone, with the same format, across a store list large enough to matter in their own sales data. A regional grocer with 200 stores and screens at every checkout can offer a cleaner product than a national chain with screens in a scattered few, which is why covering one zone across every store usually comes before adding zones.

Who owns the shopper data when a third-party network runs screens in a retailer's stores?

It depends on the contract, so settle it before signing. The terms to fix are who owns the sales and loyalty data used for planning and measurement, who holds the relationship with each brand, whether the retailer can see campaign-level results, and what happens to the screens and data at the end of the term. A retailer that wants to keep its first-party data as a long-term asset usually keeps measurement and brand reporting in its own system even when a partner supplies screens.

Does the same model work for quick-service restaurants and convenience stores?

The same model works for quick-service restaurants and convenience stores, with shorter dayparts. Quick-service restaurants advertise on menu boards, ordering kiosks and pickup screens, where mealtimes are the natural dayparts and the inventory is small enough that tenancy and cost-per-day pricing dominate. Convenience stores lean on checkout and fuel-forecourt screens, where dwell is short and frequency is high, so creative stays short and campaigns run longer.

Book an in-store walkthrough

Osmos In-Store gives a retailer booking, scheduling, analog inventory, presence measurement and programmatic demand on one retail media operating system, over the screens it already has. To see it running on a store estate like yours, book a demo with Osmos.

Sources

1. invidis, "Global Retail Media Ad Market Forecast to Top $200B in 2026", August 2026. invidis.com
2. Eightx, "In-Store Retail Media: The Budget Allocation Blind Spot", July 2026. eightx.co
3. Modern Retail (Mitchell Parton), "Retailers like Kroger, CVS plan many more screens for in-store ads in 2026", 6 January 2026. modernretail.co
4. Walmart, "How the Shelf Got Smarter and Our Jobs Got Easier", March 2026. corporate.walmart.com
5. EMARKETER, "FAQ on In-Store Retail Media: Closing the Gap Between Demand and Execution", June 2026. emarketer.com
6. Instacart, "Instacart Expands In-Store Advertising to All Brands on Caper Carts", March 2025. company.instacart.com/pressreleases/instacart-expands-in-store-advertising
7. CVS Media Exchange, "In-Store Advertising". cvsmediaexchange.com
8. PR Newswire, "The Raley's Companies Launch In-Store Media Network With Grocery TV", 20 May 2026. prnewswire.com
9. Billboard Insider, "US Programmatic DOOH Spend Set to Rise 49% as Market Enters its Next Phase of Growth", March 2026. billboardinsider.com
10. Retail Technology Innovation Hub, "Tesco taps trial measurement technology to see how shoppers engage with digital screens", November 2025. retailtechinnovationhub.com
11. JCDecaux, "Carrefour, Carmila, Unlimitail and JCDecaux join forces", December 2025. jcdecaux.com
12. Progressive Grocer, "Walmart Connect Mexico Deploys Advertima Audience AI", January 2026. progressivegrocer.com
13. ExchangeWire, "IAB Europe advances in-store and travel media measurement with new proposals open for public comment", 17 September 2026. exchangewire.com
14. NielsenIQ, "How Brands Can Measure Incrementality and Prove Retail Media Impact", July 2026. nielseniq.com
15. Broadsign, "The Broadsign platform: powering revenue growth and performance", 11 March 2026, checked 12 October 2026. broadsign.com/blog/the-broadsign-platform-powering-revenue-growth-and-performance
16. Terraboost, homepage, checked 12 October 2026. terraboost.com
17. Grocery TV, homepage, checked 12 October 2026. grocerytv.com
18. BrightSign, homepage, checked 12 October 2026. brightsign.biz
19. ScreenCloud, pricing, checked 12 October 2026. screencloud.com/pricing
20. NoviSign, pricing, checked 12 October 2026. novisign.com/pricing