Retail media has outgrown its reliance on onsite sponsored slots. With on-platform inventory now saturated, 2026's true growth is happening offsite. We’ve reached a tipping point where first-party data is a portable asset, not a site-specific tool.

The Numbers Demand Attention

Offsite retail media spend is growing at double the rate of onsite and is projected to capture 22.4% of total budgets this year. TikTok Shop alone is on track to exceed $20B in GMV, cementing social commerce as table stakes.

Forward-thinking retailers are shifting from fighting for shelf space to orchestrating seamless journeys across the open web. Tesco is already activating Clubcard data on Pinterest and ITVX, while TikTok Shop collapses discovery-to-purchase in a single, native flow.

The future belongs to those who follow the shopper, not the platform.

Knowledge Hub

‍Bridging Data, Creativity, and Commerce | Navigating the Future of Retail Media

Sameer Dhingra, Retail Head from Google Cloud JAPAC, and Ashish Mehta, CEO of Osmos, explore how retail media is becoming the next major pillar of digital advertising by leveraging high-intent, first-party data to drive measurable commerce outcomes.

They discuss the critical shift from simply selling ad inventory to "selling intelligence," emphasizing that success now depends on organizational alignment, AI integration, and building consumer trust through a clear value exchange.

The conversation concludes with a look at the future of "commerce media," where unified data ecosystems and cross-platform attribution will redefine how brands and retailers collaborate to reach shoppers.

Explore more episodes

Operator Insight

Are RMNs finally optimizing for real measurement, or still just chasing inventory expansion?

With Walmart Connect earning MRC accreditation for Sponsored Search and Albert Heijn becoming the first IAB Europe-certified network in late 2025, the accountability era has officially landed. Yet fragmented metrics still hide whether ads drive net-new sales or simply capture demand that was already there.

Question: Is fragmentation a natural byproduct of scale, or a structural flaw in the RMN model?

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