Investment in retail media is expected to exceed the $200 billion mark globally by 2027, according to WARC Media.
The trade body’s latest forecast suggests that retail media network (RMN) spend will reach $174.9 billion this year – a rise of 13.7% year-on-year – before growing a further 12.4% to reach $196.7 billion in 2026, representing 16% of all ad spend. This is predicted to be followed by a growth rate of 11.6% in 2027.
A further indicator of retail media’s continued rapid growth is the expectation that investment will overtake combined linear and connected TV spend in 2026.
“Retail media has evolved from a US and China-driven trend into a global phenomenon, with European spend now growing at double the rate of the broader digital advertising market,” said Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media. “As the sector expands beyond traditional sponsored search into visual display, audio, social, and television partnerships, it has never been more important for advertisers to have clarity on the scale and the suitability of the commerce media opportunity.”
Recent research from adtech company Infillion found that 40% of agency-side executives who buy retail media see it as a full-funnel solution, with a further 7% agreeing it is an upper-funnel opportunity.
Meanwhile, per WARC, much of the future growth of retail media is projected to come from display and offsite. In the first half of 2025, UK advertiser investment in display retail media increased 41.6% year-on-year versus 35.6% in search retail media spend.
“Retail media is rapidly evolving from a lower-funnel, search-dominated channel into a full-funnel proposition,” said James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence & Forecasting at WARC. “Display advertising currently represents less than 30% of total on-site retail media spend, however, this balance is poised to shift as retail media becomes more integrated with brand digital budgets. Much may depend on the adoption of agentic AI, which threatens the high human traffic volumes that have monetised the retail media networks to date.”
