Retail Media Ad Formats: Which to Launch, in What Order, at What Price (2026 Guide)

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

A retailer has five retail media ad formats to launch, usually in this order: product ads in search and category results, onsite display, shoppable video, offsite ads on Meta, Google and the open web, and in-store screens. Each earns on its own pricing model: a cost-per-click (CPC) auction for product ads, cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or fixed tenancy for display and video, CPM for offsite, and a price per store, per campaign or per day in-store.

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.

Brands judge every one of these formats on return on ad spend (ROAS) by platform and ad format. To earn more ad revenue from the same shopper traffic without making the store harder to shop, a retailer sequences its format launches, builds the operations each format needs, and prices each one to reach a different brand budget.

Which ad formats count as sponsored content in retail media?

Every paid placement a retailer or marketplace runs on its own surfaces counts as sponsored content: product ads in search and category results, display banners, shoppable video and in-store screens, plus offsite ads targeted with the retailer's shopper data. What separates a sponsored placement from organic content is that a brand paid for the position, and the placement is labelled as an ad.

Retail media is advertising that a retailer or marketplace offers brands on its own websites, apps and stores, and on outside channels targeted with its first-party shopper data. A retail media network is the ad business a retailer builds to run those formats: the ad server and auction, the self-serve tools brands use to launch campaigns, and the reporting that ties ads to sales.

IAB Europe's Retail & Commerce Media Committee groups the formats by where they run. Its definitions describe onsite retail media as "advertising that appears directly on a retailer or CMN's own digital properties, such as their websites and mobile apps" (CMN stands for commerce media network), delivered typically through formats such as Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display, and display or video units. Offsite retail media "refers to advertising delivered outside a retailer or CMN's owned digital properties," and in-store digital retail media "refers to advertising that appears within physical retail environments, across digital or static in-store touchpoints" (IAB Europe, May 2026).

Osmos organises its own formats under the same three channels. Osmos Onsite runs Product Ads, Product Display Ads, Display Ads, Video Ads, custom ad formats and Non-endemic Ads from one ad server, while Osmos Offsite and Osmos In-store cover the other two channels with their own apps.

Commerce media is the wider term for the same model when the media owner is a delivery app, a travel site, a payments platform or any other business with transaction data. Those ads appear on the owner's app and website, on outside channels targeted with its data, and in any physical locations it runs.

The rule that governs labelling is older than retail media. The US Federal Trade Commission's enforcement policy on deceptively formatted ads states that "advertising and promotional messages that are not identifiable as advertising to consumers are deceptive if they mislead consumers into believing they are independent, impartial, or not from the sponsoring advertiser itself" (FTC, December 2015). For a retailer, the practical reading is a visible "Sponsored" or "Ad" label on every paid unit, however closely it matches the organic results around it.

Why do ad formats decide how much a retail media network earns?

The format mix decides how much revenue a retail media network collects from the same traffic, because each format draws on a different brand budget. Product ads draw on performance and trade budgets, while display and video draw on brand and category-marketing money that a search auction never reaches.

Nielsen's Ad Intel data shows how that split looks on the largest network. On Amazon, globally, sponsored products capture 40% of retail media budgets, followed by sponsored brands at 24%, display at 20% and video ads at 16%, and the split varies by country (Nielsen, June 2025). A network running product ads alone is competing for roughly two fifths of the mix that Amazon's advertisers spread across formats.

Citing eMarketer, Advertising Week reported that offsite retail media spending in 2026 "is slated to grow at twice the rate of on-site" (Advertising Week, February 2026). How fast a new offsite line ramps for one retailer depends on that retailer's own audience size and advertiser base.

Sensor Tower reported that total US retail media impressions declined 17% in H1 2026, while onsite placements came to account for "a majority (56%)" of Amazon's tracked impressions (Sensor Tower, August 2026). Both figures count observed impressions. For a retailer, they point toward raising what each placement earns, through the right format on the right surface, better targeting and the right price, with the ad load on each page held where it is.

Osmos builds its onsite channel around that idea. Every Osmos onsite format runs through one ad server with a shared auction and shared reports, so a retailer can add display, video or a custom format without standing up a second stack. The same design protects margin. The Osmos case for judging a network on margin applies directly here, because a format that needs hand-built campaigns for every deal can shrink the margin it was meant to grow.

Where do retail media ads appear? The five format categories by surface

Retail media ads appear on five kinds of surface: the retailer's search and category results, the rest of its website and app pages, video slots inside those pages, outside channels such as Meta, Google and the open web, and the screens and fixtures inside its stores.

Creative is where the formats divide in day-to-day operations. Product ads have nothing to upload and catalog-driven display ads assemble from product data, while banner, video and custom formats take an asset from the brand, so an onsite programme already runs a creative workflow. Moving offsite adds more assets, under specs and policies set by platforms the retailer does not govern, which changes how much creative brands produce and who sets the rules for it.

Mobile runs the same formats on a smaller screen. IAB Europe's onsite definition already covers websites and mobile apps, and the same five categories run inside a retailer's app. On a phone the layout changes: product ads sit inside a scrolling results list, display slots become fewer and larger, and video runs full-width in the feed or as a full-screen story. Osmos Video Ads, for example, run in-feed, in-stream or as story video from one player, so the same campaign fits the app and the desktop site.

Ad versioning happens automatically in the catalog-driven formats. Osmos describes its Product Display Ads as "built once" and "assembled fresh every impression": one campaign shows each shopper different products, chosen by purchase history, browsing, cart state and category affinity, and stock and prices update through the day. A brand gets a personalised version of its ad for every shopper without producing a single variant by hand.

Brands increasingly buy several formats at once. Osmos Ad Packages bundle product ads, display, video, in-store screens and offsite into one package with a defined flight and price, which turns a multi-format plan into a single booking that the retailer can template and price as a premium ad package. Each surface in the bundle sits at a different point on the shopper's path from first search to checkout.

What are the popular product ad options for retailers?

The popular product ad options are keyword-targeted listings in search results, auto-targeted listings matched to the shopper's query and browsing context, listings on category and product detail pages, and brand-led units that pair a brand's logo and headline with several of its products. All of them run on a CPC auction, and all except the brand-led unit are assembled from the product catalog.

Product ads, which Amazon and Walmart name Sponsored Products and Osmos names Product Ads, are paid product listings ranked among organic results by a mix of bid and relevance. Osmos describes them as "sponsored listings ranked by intent and context."

The ad is assembled from the retailer's own product listing: catalog image, title, price and rating. Because the ad is built from catalog data, the listing itself and the product detail page behind it are its only quality levers. Osmos Product Ads take selection off the advertiser's plate as well: products are "auto-selected from the catalog, based on 50+ behavioral signals," so an advertiser can launch a campaign without picking SKUs (stock keeping units) by hand.

How does a cost-per-click auction work for product ads?

A retail media platform with a cost-per-click auction model charges the advertiser only when a shopper clicks, and ranks ads on bid and relevance together. Amazon's own description of Sponsored Products is typical: advertisers "bid the maximum amount that you're willing to pay when a shopper clicks an ad," with no monthly or upfront fees (Amazon Ads, Sponsored Products). Hello Retail's pricing explainer gives the reason the model fits: sponsored product listings "are typically priced on a CPC basis since they are more conversion-focused" (Hello Retail, May 2026).

Relevance scoring next to the bid keeps the search page useful. A pure bid auction pushes weak matches to the top of results, shoppers learn to skip the sponsored rows, and click-through falls for every advertiser.

Dynamic ad positioning is the floor-price side of the same retail media auction. On Osmos Product Ads, "Floor CPCs adjust to demand on every ad slot," and premium floors apply automatically on the most popular slots, which lifts yield without manual tuning. Brand distancing keeps same-brand products from appearing side by side, with the auction weighing signals across category, price, cart, purchase and brand affinity.

How can a retailer increase onsite product ad revenue?

A product ad auction earns most when several advertisers bid on every query; where too few bid, slots go empty or clear at the floor. A retailer raises bid density with four levers:

1. Contextual targeting. Matching products to the shopper's query and page context lets keyword-poor categories fill without waiting for advertisers to load keywords.
2. Long-tail onboarding. One-click launch and self-serve tools bring smaller brands into the auction, and every new bidder lifts clearing prices for the rest.
3. Dynamic floors. Floors that rise on popular slots and relax on tail slots raise revenue per click at the top while keeping the long tail filled.
4. Ad load per page. Tuning how many sponsored rows each results page carries keeps the results relevant, and relevant results hold the click-through that product ad revenue depends on.

A product ad launch needs a product catalog with structured attributes (brand, category, price, availability) refreshed at least daily, an auction that scores relevance alongside the bid, a self-serve console with budget caps, pacing and campaign controls, and reporting that returns impressions, clicks, ad-attributed sales and ROAS at SKU level.

How do display ads work in retail media, and how do they differ from a display ad network?

Display ads in retail media are banner, rich media and story-style placements on a retailer's own pages, targeted with its first-party shopper data and measured against its own sales. That is what separates them from a display ad network, which places banners across many other publishers' sites and targets them with whatever audience data the network can assemble.

An open-web display advertising network offers reach. A retailer's display inventory is narrower, but it sits where shoppers are choosing products, and every impression can be tied to orders in the retailer's own records. For a retailer weighing alternatives to traditional display advertising, that is the offer to brands: the retailer's own pages, its own data and its own proof of sales, available directly from the retailer acting as the publisher.

What are the leading display formats in retail media today?

The display formats retailers offer run from standard banners to rich media, gamified units, story ads, carousels and lead-generation units. That is the format list on Osmos's Display Ads page, which supports guaranteed, CPM and CPC buying with yield rules across all three, and targeting by geolocation, keyword, network, device, product catalog and custom audiences, stacked with first-party audiences on every campaign.

Amazon's Sponsored Display, often searched as Amazon product display ads, shows the same pattern at scale. It runs with "Amazon-generated creative or your own creative assets" across Amazon properties including Twitch, Fire TV and Echo Show (Amazon Ads, Sponsored Display), which is the model a retailer reproduces on its own surfaces.

Product display ads (PDAs) sit between product ads and display. A banner-shaped unit carries several clickable products with price and image, assembled from the catalog, and it converts more like a product ad while occupying display surfaces. PDAs suit brands that have a product feed but no creative studio, because the unit builds itself from the feed.

What does a display ads strategy look like for a retailer?

A retailer's display plan starts with a map of every surface: the homepage, category pages, product pages, cart and order confirmation, each with placement IDs and slot specs. A small number of premium positions, such as the homepage hero or a category takeover, go to fixed-price tenancy deals, and the rest run on a CPM auction with a floor set per surface, because a homepage impression and a deep category impression carry different value.

Every display unit takes an uploaded creative, so a published spec and a review of every asset for compliance, brand safety and accessibility become a real cost the day display launches. Brand teams pay a premium for closed-loop reporting to views, add-to-cart and orders; clicks alone undervalue an upper-funnel format.

Pick n Pay, the South African retail chain with store and online channels, shows how quickly a display line can open on that plan. Pick n Pay has a strong base of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), personal care and household advertisers, and wanted new onsite display revenue with prominent placements on high-traffic pages. Osmos helped deploy Display Ads on key pages, including home and category pages, using brand-led placements, and helped with early supply planning so the placements delivered strong impressions without disrupting the shopping experience. Pick n Pay expanded retail media with Display Ads within five days of launch, recording ZAR 102K ad revenue in 5 days and 30 ms p95 response latency, and gained a new monetization channel across key shopper touchpoints.

Retail display has moved from generic banners to targeted, shoppable placements. Display units styled to match the surrounding page are native ads and run as ordinary display inventory.

How should a retailer launch shoppable video?

A retailer launches shoppable video once display is running, by adding video slots to search, category and product pages and giving brands a simple way to supply short assets that link to products in the unit. Video is the format where brand storytelling and a path to purchase sit in the same placement, which is why it draws brand awareness budgets.

Kroger Precision Marketing launched Onsite Video Carousels in October 2025, describing them as "a dynamic new ad format that combines videos with curated product listings." The carousels appear in relevant search results on Kroger.com and the Kroger app, and shoppers can add items to their cart straight from the carousel (Kroger Precision Marketing, October 2025).

Early test results from Albertsons were strong. In its beta of Criteo's onsite video, click-through rose 280% among shoppers who saw both onsite video and product ads, and sales rose 460% when video ran alongside product ads, as Digital Commerce 360 reported in April 2025 from Criteo's statements. The sales figure measures video and product ads running together, which is how most retailers will offer the format anyway.

Video also reaches shoppers who have not bought from the brand before. Walmart Connect states that "91 % of sales attributed to Sponsored Videos ads come from new-to-brand customers for small to medium-sized advertisers," based on its data from February 2024 to January 2025 (Walmart Connect, Sponsored Videos). New-to-brand means new to the advertiser's brand over a one-year lookback, so a weekly regular of the retailer who has never bought that brand counts. Walmart prices those search-result videos per click, which shows that a video unit inside search results can run on the product-ad auction while video in display slots runs on CPM.

Osmos Video Ads make every product in the video clickable, with add-to-cart inside the unit, and keep inventory and prices synced live so a video never promotes an out-of-stock item or a stale price. Advertisers see watch-time at 25%, 50%, 75% and 95% for each campaign. Osmos positions story-led video as earning higher revenue per slot than a static banner, which is the case for pricing it at a premium.

Mid-market brands take part when they have a creative path and reporting that credits video for what it does. Brands without in-house video production need accepted aspect ratios, short durations and, ideally, a retailer-funded production option. On reporting, they need view-through and new-to-brand cuts alongside click-through.

How does offsite extend retail media to Meta, Google and the open web?

Offsite retail media extends a retailer's first-party audiences to channels it does not own, such as Meta, Google, TikTok, programmatic display and CTV, so brands can reach the retailer's shoppers wherever they spend time and the retailer earns from demand its own pages could never hold. The retailer supplies the audience and the proof of sales; the media itself comes from outside platforms.

Offsite carries both creative models at once. Some of it is dynamic, catalog-assembled inventory, and a large share is advertiser-uploaded reels, video and story units. A retailer planning offsite needs a path for both, with specs set by each platform.

Osmos Offsite gives the retailer a retailer-branded offsite stack with self-serve for brands, margin controls and closed-loop insights. Its White Labeled DSP (demand-side platform) runs the retailer's audience network across Meta, Google, TikTok and The Trade Desk under the retailer's brand. Extended Media Network runs Google, Meta and TikTok on the retailer's own seat, with channel-level margin for the retailer and unified campaigns for brands. Guaranteed Outcomes has Osmos run tail and torso advertisers across Meta, Google and TikTok, managed to outcomes, so the retailer earns the ad revenue without adding ad-ops headcount. Bring Your Own Traffic, in early access, adds closed-loop attribution for campaigns that drive outside traffic to the retailer's site. A retailer comparing platforms that support multi-format creative deployment across the open web can look for that shape: one console for every channel, run on the retailer's own seat and margin.

Osmos frames the onsite and offsite trade-off in margin terms. Onsite keeps the full media value inside the retailer's network, while every offsite impression carries an external media cost, so offsite earns a thinner margin per dollar from a larger pool of dollars. On that logic, Osmos advises building onsite first and adding offsite once first-party audiences can be exported to outside platforms with consent enforcement and measured back to sales.

An offsite launch needs a first-party data layer that can export shopper segments with privacy and consent controls, activation on at least Meta and Google plus one programmatic route, closed-loop measurement that ties offsite impressions to sales in the retailer's records, and pricing for both self-serve programmatic buyers and brands that want a managed service.

How do in-store and DOOH formats work, and how are they priced?

In-store retail media turns a retailer's screens, entrances, endcaps, checkouts and printed fixtures into bookable ad inventory, priced per store, per campaign or per day and targeted by store, day and hour. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) extends the same idea to screens near the store, such as fuel stations and pickup points.

The largest US grocery and pharmacy chains are scaling in-store media now. Albertsons Media Collective is adding in-store screens to 800 of its 2,200-plus stores in 2026, after a pilot that spanned 80 stores, and has attracted more than 50 advertising partners since launching the in-store display network (Digiday, January 2026).

"The way that we're planning it is to get as large of a footprint as quickly as possible," said Liz Roche, vice president of media and measurement for Albertsons Media Collective (Digiday, January 2026).

Albertsons ran a matched-market test to prove the format to brands. A beta for Mondelez's Sargento Cheese Bakes across 116 Albertsons banner stores returned a $2.41 matched-market incremental ROAS and a 14% lift in in-store sales, measured by comparing exposed stores against control stores with no media (MediaPost, January 2026).

The CVS retail media network expects about 11,000 digital screens nationwide in 2026 and is increasing front-entrance screens from 500 to 1,000 (Modern Retail, January 2026). Kroger sees the same opportunity:

"This is an opportunity for the in-store environment to be used as a brand-building channel," said Christine Foster, senior vice president of commercial strategy and operations at Kroger Precision Marketing (Modern Retail, January 2026).

Best Buy packages the whole store as one placement: brands appear "on the windows, at the entrance and throughout the space," including TV walls and PC monitor displays, and Best Buy Ads says it connects 93% of its transactional revenue to a customer ID (Retail Dive, September 2025).

In-store inventory is priced on store count and duration: cost per store, cost per campaign or cost per day. CPM pricing would need multi-sensor deployments that most retailers have not installed, so impressions are the wrong unit for a screen in an aisle. Targeting works by place and time in the same way. The retailer decides which stores, which days and which hours a campaign runs, such as dairy before noon or a soft-drink brand on weekend afternoons, and the screen shows the same creative to everyone standing in front of it.

Shelf strips, floor decals, standees and printed endcaps run as bookable inventory alongside the digital formats, and they reach every store, including those without screens.

Osmos In-store makes screens, shelves and displays bookable ad inventory with measurement. Its apps include the Retail Media CMS (content management system) for screen inventory, a Booking Calendar to plan, price and book inventory across screens and physical placements, Physical Media to manage analog placements as bookable inventory, Programmatic Demand to route programmatic and programmatic DOOH buyers, and Footfall Analytics, available in early access, to measure who is in front of each screen.

How should a retailer price and measure each format?

Each format should be priced on the unit its buyer values and measured on the outcome it is priced for: clicks and attributed sales for product ads, reach and lift for display and video, sales back to the retailer's records for offsite, and store sales lift for in-store. ROAS figures by platform and format are in the Osmos ROAS benchmarks guide.

"Most mid-market retailers start with a hybrid model: CPC for sponsored products and CPM for display banners," notes Hello Retail, which also describes "a flat monthly fee for a homepage banner position priced against expected impressions" (Hello Retail, May 2026). Flat fees and tenancy are where premium surfaces earn most, because a fixed homepage position is priced on its own terms, with no auction slot beside it for a buyer to compare.

IAB Europe's Commerce Media Measurement Standards V2.1 updated the April 2024 standards with "a refined and clearer measurement funnel," and the transition window that allowed retailers to comply with either V1 or V2 ran until the end of July 2026 (IAB Europe). A network reporting on current definitions removes one of the most common friction points with brands: whether it measures the same way the brand's plan does.

Retailers can also supply the independent proof brands look for. Nielsen found that marketers in most industries "rely more on in-platform attribution tools than independent third-party measurement solutions" for full-funnel retail media (Nielsen, June 2025). A network that adds incrementality tests, new-to-brand reporting and holdouts gives brand teams a reason to move upper-funnel budget to its display and video formats.

How does a retailer build and price a custom ad format?

A retailer builds a custom ad format as a high-impact unit that exists only on its own surfaces, trafficked through the same ad server as every other format and priced on the awareness goal it serves. It is the clearest route into brand awareness budgets that a CPC search auction cannot reach.

A custom ad format is an ad unit a retailer designs, names and controls on its own surfaces, which an advertiser cannot buy in the same shape anywhere else. Custom formats belong to the display and video categories, built to the retailer's own design.

Home Depot's Orange Apron Media shows the move. At its 2026 InFronts it announced "high-impact Category Leaderboards on category landing pages," alongside a self-serve Brand Page Portal for brands to manage their own digital storefronts, geotargeting for banner ads, and Sponsored Brands display formats in development (The Home Depot, April 2026).

A custom format commands a premium because it cannot be directly compared to standard inventory. A product ad clears at whatever the next bidder will pay for a click, and a standard banner is compared against every other banner on a brand's plan. A leaderboard or video unit that exists only on one retailer's category pages has no direct comparison, so the retailer can price it on what an awareness budget will pay for that position.

Osmos custom ad formats render as part of the page, with the retailer's fonts, spacing, colours and component patterns. A retailer can compose the format in a visual builder, or brief the spec and have Osmos design and ship it; either way the unit is trafficked and auctioned alongside the rest of the onsite suite, with reporting from impression to attributed order. The same approach opens inventory to advertisers outside the retailer's categories: Osmos Non-endemic Ads bring brands from financial services, auto, travel, insurance, telecom and entertainment through the same workflow endemic brands use.

Repeat sales of a custom format depend on a stable spec, measurement against the goal it is priced on, and a fit with the ad server.

• A stable spec and a production path. These are creative-bearing units, so the brand uploads an asset. Publish the spec, keep it stable for at least a season, and give mid-market brands a way to produce for it, or only the largest few brands in each category will buy it.
• Measurement against the goal it is priced on. A unit priced for awareness should report reach, new-to-brand share and lift. Without them the buyer falls back to judging it on last-click ROAS, and the premium collapses.
• A fit with the ad server. A unit that cannot be trafficked, capped, reviewed and reported alongside the rest of the portfolio becomes a hand-worked exception, and a team doing that by hand stalls at a handful of deals a quarter.

Which format mix does a marketplace need, and how does a marketplace differ from a retailer?

A marketplace differs from a traditional retailer in who owns the catalog and who pays for the ads. On a marketplace, third-party sellers list their own products and fund most of the advertising; a traditional retailer buys and stocks the products it lists, and earns ad revenue mainly from the brands it carries. The formats are the same, and on a marketplace the buyer is a seller account, often a small one, which shapes how a marketplace builds its own ad platform.

The best first format for marketplace sellers is product ads, because sellers already understand CPC, and the ad is assembled from a listing they already maintain, so no creative studio is needed. Brand-led units and display come next for the larger sellers, then offsite once the seller base wants reach beyond the marketplace.

A seller ads program has to run without a sales team, and it rests on four pieces:

1. Self-serve onboarding inside the seller dashboard, so a seller can start a campaign without a sales call.
2. Wallets and prepaid budgets, so small sellers can fund campaigns from earnings and the marketplace never chases invoices.
3. Auto-targeted product ads with sensible default bids, because most sellers will not manage keywords.
4. Per-seller reporting that ties ad spend to orders.

Osmos Brand Self-Serve adds brand-facing ad buying on top of the existing ad server, and Osmos Wallets & Billing handles brand wallets, incentives and billing reconciled against campaign delivery.

Which platforms cover which retail media ad formats?

For a retailer choosing infrastructure, the platforms that power retail media networks all cover the core onsite formats; they differ in how many channels they document, and in whether the retailer runs the network as its own branded system.

In what order should a retailer launch ad formats?

A retailer launches product ads first to build bid density, adds display, product display ads and video once premium surfaces are mapped, and moves to offsite and in-store only after first-party data and measurement are stable. A differentiated custom format can join once display is live.

Phase 1: Product ads (months 0 to 3). Product ads carry the lowest technical complexity and the fastest revenue for the retailer, and brands already know how to buy them. Get relevance scoring tuned and a meaningful base of advertisers bidding before adding format complexity.

Phase 2: Display and product display ads (months 3 to 6). Display opens the homepage, category pages and product pages to brand and category-marketing budgets. Tenancy on premium surfaces starts producing larger fixed deals once display is stable. This is also the earliest point for a custom format, because display inventory and a creative review workflow now exist.

Phase 3: Shoppable video (months 6 to 12). Video brings premium pricing and new-to-brand reach. A creative path for brands without video production is what decides whether the format earns from the long tail or only from the largest advertisers.

Phase 4: Offsite (months 9 to 18). Offsite needs first-party data that can be exported with consent enforcement, and closed-loop measurement that is already built on launch day. Activating Meta, Google and a programmatic route together captures more of the addressable budget than a single channel.

Phase 5: In-store and DOOH (months 12 to 24). Hardware, placement planning and store-level measurement are build cycles of their own. Albertsons' path, an 80-store pilot followed by an 800-store rollout, is the usual shape: footprint first, then a controlled matched-market test that brands accept as proof.

Every new format adds a buyer pool, and that pool spends only when the operations layer keeps up: advertiser onboarding, creative review, wallets and billing, and campaign management. When that layer lives in spreadsheets beside the ad server, new formats onboard advertisers too slowly to fill. Osmos treats that layer as part of the same system as the formats, which is also the direction the Osmos analysis of multi-agentic AI orchestration in retail media points to, and the Osmos review of retail media technology trends sets the wider context.

How does the format mix change by vertical and in India?

The format mix shifts with how shoppers buy in each vertical. High-frequency categories such as grocery lean on product ads, visual categories put more into video, and in regulated categories category targeting does most of the work.

Grocery and quick commerce. Product ads dominate because purchase frequency and basket breadth produce heavy search volume. Onsite video carries consumer packaged goods brand spend that does not fit the search auction, as Kroger's carousels show, and grocery is where in-store screens are scaling fastest. Retailers running several store brands can share one retail media stack across banners.

Food delivery.Delivery platforms run onsite and offsite formats; restaurants and grocery partners fund product ads in search and menus, and brand campaigns extend offsite.

Fashion and beauty. These categories run a video-forward mix, because the buying decision is visual. Story ads and shoppable video carry more weight than in grocery, while product ads still drive conversion.

Pharmacy and health. Product ads and display dominate, because category-level targeting around seasons and over-the-counter categories is the main lever. Video plays a smaller role where creative review for health claims is stricter.

India is moving fastest on streaming and video. Amazon Ads India reports that the country's streaming audience has crossed 600 million and that connected TV users grew 87% year on year to 129 million, citing the Ormax OTT Audience Report 2025 (About Amazon India, February 2026). The report's author, Priyanka Khaneja Gandhi, Head of Marketing and Creative Solutions at Amazon Ads India, framed the creative side this way:

"Technology should amplify human creativity, not replace it." (About Amazon India, February 2026)

For Indian retailers and marketplaces, the implication is a different sequence. Bid density is a binding constraint earlier, with fewer advertisers per category, so contextual auto-targeting matters from the first month of product ads. Video formats can launch straight into streaming and app environments and skip a desktop display phase, and offsite on Meta and Google is a larger share of the reachable advertiser budget.

What slows a format launch, and what fixes it?

A format launch beyond product ads stalls on thin bid density, slow advertiser adoption, creative production or fatigue across networks.

Most networks outside Amazon have more search inventory than advertisers willing to bid on it. Contextual auto-targeting makes keyword-poor categories auction-eligible, incentives draw bids into under-bid categories, and house ads cover the inventory that remains.

Brands default to product ads because they are cheap to test and easy to attribute. A retailer that ships incrementality measurement before pushing display, video or offsite goes into the first conversation about a new format with a way to prove it.

Creative limits display, brand-led units, video, custom formats and offsite, which all need uploaded assets; product ads sit outside it, since their quality depends on the listing. One-size-fits-all creative underperforms, so a retailer publishes a spec, runs automated checks before an asset goes live, and offers a retailer-funded production option for mid-market brands. Fatigue comes from brands working with several retail media networks at once, where each new format competes for the same team's attention. Programmatic routes for offsite, standard measurement for cross-network comparison and self-serve tools that make every new format quick to try all meet buyers where they already work.

How does Osmos help a retailer launch these formats?

Osmos helps a retailer launch retail media ad formats one app at a time on a white-label system that carries the retailer's brand, starting with whichever channel its launch plan puts first: onsite search and display, offsite audience extension, or bookable screens and physical media in-store, all over the retailer's existing stack. Because the onsite apps share one serving and reporting layer, the next format in the launch order arrives as an added app on the integration the retailer already has. Retailers can get a demo to map their own launch order and pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Do retailers need to upload creative for product ads?

No. A product ad is built automatically from the product listing, so neither the retailer nor the brand uploads an asset for it. What a brand can improve is the listing behind the ad: clear catalog images, a precise title, accurate attributes and the ratings and reviews on the product detail page, all of which improve both the ad and the organic listing at once. Every other format does take an upload: display, brand-led units, video and custom formats take brand assets, and offsite social mixes feed-built dynamic units with brand-supplied short-form clips.

How does Koddi's format offering compare to a full-stack retail media platform?

Koddi documents a broad format catalogue across on-site, off-site and on-premise placements, and offers programmatic buyers a route in through its own supply-side platform. For a retailer, the comparison turns on operating questions: whether the network runs under the retailer's own brand, whether every format shares one auction and one reporting view, and how much advertiser onboarding, creative review and billing work the platform absorbs. Osmos answers those as a white-label retail media operating system whose modular apps a retailer can adopt one at a time. Brands looking for trusted product ad providers buy on the network a retailer builds on one of these platforms, so its onboarding, creative review and reporting are what those advertisers use.

What technology do retailers need to launch in-store retail media formats?

In-store retail media needs screens or fixtures placed where shoppers decide (entrance, aisle, endcap, checkout); a content management system that schedules creative by store, day and hour; a booking and pricing tool that turns screens and physical placements into inventory brands can reserve; and a way to prove results, usually matched-market tests or loyalty-linked sales. Osmos Footfall Analytics, available in early access, measures who is in front of each screen.

How is in-store retail media measured?

In-store media is measured at the levels of exposure (screen play logs and, where sensors exist, audience counts), interaction (QR scans and other in-store actions) and sales (matched-market tests against control stores, or loyalty-card data linking exposure to purchases). Matched-market testing is the method brands accept most readily today because it needs no person-level tracking. How to set up control stores is explained in the Osmos in-store screens guide.

What is the difference between a product ad and a display ad in retail media?

A product ad is a listing assembled from the catalog and bought by the click; a display ad is an uploaded creative bought by the impression or by fixed tenancy. For a retailer the practical difference is who signs off the spend: product ads are usually planned by a brand's ecommerce or shopper team, display by its brand or media team, so adding display brings a second buyer from inside the same advertiser.

Sources

1. IAB Europe, Retail & Commerce Media Committee: Retail & Commerce Media Definitions (May 2026)
2. US Federal Trade Commission: Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptively Formatted Advertisements (December 22, 2015)
3. Nielsen: The future of retail media (June 2025)
4. Advertising Week: Why Off-Site Retail Media Is Growing Twice as Fast as On-Site (February 2026)
5. Sensor Tower: Retail Media Report 2026: Impressions and Market Share (August 2026)
6. Hello Retail: Retail Media pricing: CPM, CPC, and hybrid models explained (updated May 9, 2026)
7. Amazon Ads: Sponsored Products, advertising.amazon.com/solutions/products/sponsored-products (checked October 2026)
8. Amazon Ads: Sponsored Display, advertising.amazon.com/solutions/products/sponsored-display (checked October 2026)
9. Kroger Precision Marketing: Onsite Video Carousels Turn Inspiration into Conversion (October 21, 2025)
10. Digital Commerce 360: Albertsons rolls out shoppable video ads with Criteo, sharing early test results (April 29, 2025)
11. Walmart Connect: Sponsored Videos (data February 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025)
12. Digiday: Albertsons is putting digital screens for ads in more than a third of its stores (January 2026)
13. MediaPost: Albertsons Aims To Show What In-Store Ads Actually Deliver (January 2026)
14. Modern Retail: Retailers like Kroger, CVS plan many more screens for in-store ads in 2026 (January 2026)
15. Retail Dive: Best Buy builds retail media with in-store takeovers, sports deals (September 22, 2025)
16. IAB Europe: Commerce (incl. Retail) Media Measurement Standards V2.1
17. The Home Depot: Orange Apron Media Unveils New Partnerships, Onsite Offerings, and Certification Program at Third Annual InFronts (April 22, 2026)
18. About Amazon India: The future of advertising in India: 5 trends brands need to know for 2026 (February 2026)
19. Koddi: Ad Formats/Experiences, developers.koddi.com/docs/ad-formats, and koddi.com (checked October 2026)
20. Criteo: Formats Overview, Retailer Integration, developers.criteo.com/retailer-integration/docs/format-overview (checked October 2026)
21. Osmos: Pick n Pay expands retail media with Display Ads within five days of launch