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Best tools

Best Retail Media Networks for Brands and Advertisers

Retail media networks give advertisers access to purchase-intent audiences on the platforms where purchase decisions happen. But the quality of the audience data, the transparency of attribution, and the breadth of ad formats vary significantly between networks. This list covers the retail media networks with the strongest advertiser infrastructure, the most reliable attribution, and the clearest return on investment measurement — for brands evaluating where to test or scale retail media spending.

How we picked

  • Audience data quality and purchase signal richness
  • Attribution transparency and new-to-brand measurement
  • Ad format breadth (sponsored products, display, video)
  • Self-serve access and minimum spend requirements

Our picks

1.

Amazon Ads

Best overall scale and infrastructure

Amazon Ads is the largest retail media network by volume and offers the most mature advertiser infrastructure: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, and streaming TV ads, all connected to purchase data from the world's largest e-commerce marketplace. For brands selling on Amazon, it is not optional — it is category cost of entry. For brands not on Amazon, Amazon DSP provides access to Amazon's audience data without requiring product listings.

Amazon Ads is Amazon's advertising platform for reaching shoppers and audiences across its store, streaming properties, and the wider web. Its products include self-service sponsored ads, Brand Stores, display and video formats, measurement tools, and Amazon DSP, with reporting tied closely to shopping activity. It is most useful for marketplace sellers, retail brands, and agencies that need commerce-oriented campaigns from product discovery through purchase.

View tool details: Amazon Ads
2.

Walmart Connect

Best for grocery and Walmart-distributed brands

Walmart Connect provides access to one of the largest brick-and-mortar grocery shopper audiences with in-store and digital touchpoints. For CPG brands distributed through Walmart stores, Walmart Connect's audience data from in-store purchase behavior and its in-store media formats provide measurement that Amazon Ads cannot — physical retail attribution.

Walmart Connect is Walmart's retail media platform for reaching shoppers across its digital properties and broader advertising ecosystem. Advertisers can run sponsored search, display, video, connected television, and offsite campaigns using Walmart purchase signals, then measure outcomes such as sales, new buyers, and return on ad spend. It is most relevant to brands and marketplace sellers that distribute through Walmart and need media activity tied closely to commerce results.

View tool details: Walmart Connect
3.

Instacart Ads

Best for high-purchase-intent grocery audience

Instacart Ads operates at the moment of grocery decision — users searching for specific products or browsing shopping lists. Its audience is explicitly in purchase mode, not browsing. For food, beverage, and household brands, Instacart's targeting precision (targeting users who buy a specific competitor's product) offers unique audience access unavailable through other channels.

Instacart Ads is Instacart's retail media platform for brands that want to influence grocery and convenience purchases near the point of sale. Its formats include sponsored products, display placements, promotions, and off-platform campaigns informed by shopping behavior across participating retailers, with reporting focused on product discovery and sales. It is especially useful for consumer packaged goods, food, beverage, household, and personal care marketers selling through the Instacart marketplace.

View tool details: Instacart Ads
4.

Target Roundel

Best for Target-distributed brands

Target Roundel provides digital and in-store advertising connected to Target's Circle loyalty data, which covers over 100 million members. For brands distributed through Target in beauty, home, food, and apparel, Roundel's first-party audience data and sponsored placement within Target.com search and category pages offer a direct path to purchase from Target shoppers.

Roundel is Target's retail media business, connecting advertisers with Target shoppers through onsite, offsite, social, search, video, and connected television placements. Campaign planning and measurement use Target's commerce relationships and purchase signals to build audiences, personalize messages, and evaluate sales impact across channels. It fits established consumer brands and agency teams that sell through Target and want coordinated media programs around launches, seasonal moments, category growth, or household acquisition.

View tool details: Target Roundel
5.

Pacvue

Best for multi-network retail media management

Pacvue is a software platform for managing campaigns across multiple retail media networks — Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Target Roundel, and others — from a single interface. For brands running retail media at scale across multiple retailers, managing each platform natively is untenable. Pacvue's campaign management, bidding automation, and cross-network reporting simplify the operational overhead.

Pacvue is an enterprise commerce acceleration platform for managing retail media, digital shelf performance, and sales operations across many marketplaces. It centralizes campaign creation, bidding, budgeting, rules, reporting, competitive intelligence, and retail data for networks such as Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart, with workflow features designed for large portfolios. It is best suited to brands and agencies that need cross-retailer governance, granular automation, and consolidated measurement rather than separate tools and spreadsheets for each commerce channel.

View tool details: Pacvue

Frequently asked questions

How is retail media attribution different from standard digital attribution?

Retail media attribution uses the retailer's first-party purchase data to measure whether an ad exposure led to a purchase — within the retailer's ecosystem. Amazon's attribution window, Walmart Connect's closed-loop measurement, and Instacart's attribution all trace ad impression to actual basket purchase using checkout data, which is more reliable than cookie-based attribution. The limitation is that it only measures purchases on that retailer's platform, not cross-retailer impact.

What budget is needed to test retail media effectively?

Amazon Sponsored Products can be tested meaningfully at $500-1,000/month per ASIN for smaller categories. Testing at $5,000+/month per network is recommended for statistically reliable ROAS measurement across category benchmarks. Walmart Connect and Instacart have higher minimum spend requirements for managed programs; self-serve options allow smaller initial tests. Plan for 8-12 weeks of data before evaluating ROAS against category benchmarks.

Should brands prioritize endemic or non-endemic retail media?

Endemic retail media (advertising on a retailer where your products are sold) should be the first priority — the audience is directly in the purchase funnel for your category, and the attribution is closed-loop. Non-endemic retail media (advertising on a retailer where your products are not sold, using their audience data) is a later consideration for brand awareness or driving traffic to your own DTC channels.