Retail media has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments in digital advertising. According to a November 2024 forecast by eMarketer, U.S. retail media ad spending is projected to increase by 88.5% from 2024 to 2028, reaching nearly $97.9 billion .
Simultaneously, CTV advertising is experiencing significant growth. eMarketer reported last year that CTV ad spending in the U.S. will grow by 15.8% in 2025, reaching $33.4 billion. Notably, retail media’s share of CTV ad spending is expanding rapidly, with retail media CTV ad spend growing about three times faster than retail media search in 2025 .
This convergence is driven by the unique advantages that CTV offers to retail media networks. CTV provides a blend of the immersive storytelling capabilities of traditional television with the precise targeting and measurable outcomes of digital advertising. Retailers like Amazon and Walmart are leveraging CTV to deliver personalized, shoppable video content directly to consumers, enhancing engagement and driving conversions.
As the lines between content consumption and commerce continue to blur, understanding the synergy between retail media and CTV advertising becomes crucial for brands aiming to stay ahead in the competitive digital marketplace.
What is Retail Media?
At its core, retail media refers to advertising across a retailer’s owned and operated channels—think websites, mobile apps, email newsletters, in-store displays, and even streaming platforms. What sets it apart is proximity: brands aren’t just reaching consumers anywhere online—they’re engaging them right at the point of consideration or purchase.
Retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Kroger have all built robust media networks that allow brands to tap into their first-party shopper data to deliver highly relevant, contextualized ads. These ads can appear in product listing pages, search results, banners across the site, or now, increasingly, in video formats on smart TVs and in-store screens.
In a world where privacy changes have limited advertisers’ ability to track users across the open web, retail media offers something incredibly valuable: closed-loop attribution. This means advertisers can not only reach consumers at critical decision points—but also measure whether those ads led to a sale, down to the SKU level in many cases.
Think of retail media as the modern-day version of end-cap promotions in physical stores—but digitized, data-driven, and scalable.
The Rise of Retail Media: Follow the Money
In 2025, U.S. retail media ad spending exceeded $62 billion, marking an increase of over $10 billion from the previous year. This surge is not confined to the United States. Globally, retail media revenue reached $176.9 billion in 2025, surpassing total TV revenue (including streaming) for the first time.
Several factors contribute to this growth:
- Shift in Consumer Behavior: The acceleration of online shopping has increased the value of digital shelf space, making retail media a prime avenue for brands to reach consumers at the point of purchase.
- First-Party Data Advantage: Retailers possess rich first-party data, allowing for precise targeting and personalization, especially crucial in a landscape moving away from third-party cookies.
- Measurable Outcomes: Retail media enables brands to directly link ad spend to sales outcomes, enhancing ROI transparency.
Major players like Amazon and Walmart are leading the charge, with Amazon accounting for approximately 77% of U.S. digital retail media advertising spending in 2025. Walmart’s advertising revenue has also seen significant growth, with its U.S. ad business expanding by 30% in the past year. As retail media continues to evolve, its integration with emerging channels like Connected TV (CTV) is set to redefine the advertising landscape, offering brands innovative ways to engage consumers.
Why Retail Media Is Booming
The rapid expansion of retail media can be attributed to several key factors that are reshaping the advertising landscape:
1. Rising Costs on Traditional Platforms
As advertising costs on platforms like Google and Meta continue to escalate, brands are seeking more cost-effective and efficient channels. Retail media offers a compelling alternative, providing access to high-intent shoppers directly at the point of purchase.
2. The Power of First-Party Data
With the phasing out of third-party cookies, first-party data has become increasingly valuable. Retailers possess rich datasets from their customers’ shopping behaviors, enabling precise targeting and personalization. This data-driven approach allows for more effective advertising campaigns, as brands can reach consumers with relevant messages at the right time.
3. Demand for Measurable Outcomes
Advertisers can directly link ad exposure to sales, offering clear insights into campaign performance. This level of measurability is particularly appealing to brands aiming to optimize their marketing spend.
4. Diversification of Advertising Formats
Retail media is no longer confined to sponsored product listings. It now encompasses a variety of formats, and this diversification allows brands to engage consumers across multiple touchpoints, enhancing the overall shopping experience.
What Is Connected TV (CTV) and How Does It Differ from OTT?
Connected TV (CTV) refers to television sets that are connected to the internet, enabling viewers to stream digital content directly. This includes smart TVs with built-in internet capabilities and traditional TVs connected via devices like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, or gaming consoles. CTV provides a platform for advertisers to deliver video ads within streaming content, reaching audiences in a traditional TV-like environment with the precision of digital targeting.
Over-the-Top (OTT), on the other hand, encompasses all content delivered over the internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite services. OTT content can be accessed on various devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and CTVs. While all CTV content is a subset of OTT, not all OTT content is viewed on CTV devices. This distinction is crucial for advertisers, as CTV offers the immersive, large-screen experience of traditional TV, often resulting in higher engagement rates.
How Does Video Advertising Work on CTV?
CTV offers a dynamic environment for advertisers to engage viewers within streaming content on a big screen—without the limitations of traditional TV commercials. Brands can insert targeted video ads into streaming experiences, reaching consumers in a more immersive and often uninterrupted setting.
Key components include:
Ad Formats: CTV ads typically appear as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll placements, and are often non-skippable, ensuring complete viewer attention. Some platforms are also experimenting with interactive units—like clickable overlays or QR codes—that bridge the gap between branding and direct response.
Targeting Capabilities: Advertisers can use a combination of household demographics, location data, browsing behavior, and even past purchase history to deliver relevant messages to specific audiences—often leveraging the first-party data of retail media networks.
Measurement and Optimization: Unlike traditional TV, CTV enables performance tracking with metrics such as ad completion rates, impressions, and even attribution data that links ad exposure to online or in-store purchases.
Where Are Retail Media CTV Ads Showing Up?
As CTV becomes a cornerstone of retail media strategy, major platforms are expanding their offerings to accommodate retail advertisers looking to reach streaming audiences in high-impact environments. These partnerships and platforms represent the front lines of where commerce and content intersect.
Amazon Freevee and Fire TV
As part of its broader retail media ecosystem, Amazon is leveraging its streaming services—like Freevee and Fire TV—to run highly targeted video ads. These platforms allow brands to access Amazon’s rich first-party shopping data to reach audiences with personalized messaging, and even enable interactive features like remote-clickable or QR-code-enabled shoppable ads.
Walmart + Roku
Walmart has partnered with Roku to bring shoppable ads to CTV. This collaboration allows viewers to use their remotes to purchase featured products directly through the Roku interface, connecting ad views to retail transactions in real time. It’s a key example of how CTV is turning from a brand-building channel into a performance-driven one.
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk provides programmatic access to CTV inventory across a wide range of streaming services, and has been central to Walmart’s off-site media strategy. Through its partnership with Walmart Connect, The Trade Desk helps brands combine Walmart’s shopper data with premium CTV placements—enabling smarter, data-driven media buys that span both in-store and streaming environments.
Other Major Players
Platforms like Hulu, Peacock, YouTube on TV, and Paramount+ also offer CTV ad placements that can be layered with retail media strategies—particularly when advertisers leverage data partnerships or retail-specific DSPs (demand-side platforms). Many of these services offer brand-safe environments, high completion rates, and growing experimentation with interactivity.
How Do CTV Ads Work? The Rise of Shoppable Experiences
Retail media CTV ads go beyond passive viewership—they’re increasingly designed to drive action. What sets these ads apart is their ability to blend storytelling, precise targeting, and commerce into a single, measurable experience.
Interactive Formats That Invite Engagement
Today’s retail CTV ads often include features like:
- QR Codes: Viewers can scan a code with their phone, taking them directly to a product page or promotion.
- Remote-Clickable Ads: On platforms like Roku, viewers can use their remote to learn more or even make purchases directly through their TV interface.
- Add-to-Cart Functionality: Some pilots have allowed viewers to save items to their cart on platforms like Amazon or Walmart for later checkout.
How the Rise of Retail Media and CTV Is Shaping the Future of Video Advertising
For years, video has largely lived at the top of the funnel: great for storytelling and brand lift, but harder to tie directly to sales. That’s changing—fast.
From Brand Awareness to Commerce Activation
With the convergence of retailer data and CTV technology, brands can now deliver video content that doesn’t just inspire but converts. Shoppable ads are shortening the path from awareness to action, and the addition of measurable, transaction-level outcomes means brands no longer have to choose between brand building and performance. They can have both—at scale.
A Shift Toward Personalization at Scale
As retail media networks expand their data capabilities, CTV ads can now be dynamically served to different households based on purchase behavior, demographics, and even regional availability. This kind of personalized storytelling was previously only possible in digital display and social. Now, it’s coming to the biggest screen in the house.
Creative Quality Is the Next Competitive Edge
As CTV ad opportunities grow more sophisticated, the creative bar is rising. Brands need video content that not only fits the format but also captures attention in an environment that’s more relaxed and less scrollable than social. That means sharper storytelling, quicker hooks, and content that makes interactivity feel seamless—not intrusive.
Retailers Are Becoming Full-Funnel Media Platforms
Platforms like Amazon and Walmart aren’t just selling shelf space anymore—they’re selling influence across the entire customer journey. CTV is giving them a top-of-funnel entry point, turning retail media from a mid-to-lower funnel tactic into a full-funnel ecosystem.
How Retail and E-Commerce Brands Can Stay Ahead in This Shifting Landscape
As retail media networks expand and CTV takes on a more central role in video advertising, brands that want to stay competitive will need to adapt on both creative and strategic fronts. Here’s how retail and e-commerce marketers can position themselves for success:
1. Invest in Versatile, Platform-Ready Video Content
CTV requires video that grabs attention quickly and is optimized for a lean-back viewing environment. At the same time, you’ll want content that can be repurposed across on-site retail placements, social, paid media, and product detail pages. The key is to create modular content that can flex across the funnel and across formats.
2. Prioritize First-Party Data Partnerships
Work with retail media networks that give you access to rich audience insights and closed-loop reporting. The ability to connect your ad spend to real transactions will give you the clarity and confidence to scale what’s working.
3. Experiment with Interactivity
Start testing shoppable features now—whether it’s clickable overlays, QR codes, or “add-to-cart” integrations. The brands that figure out how to make these experiences seamless and useful (rather than gimmicky) will win more attention and more conversions.
4. Think Full-Funnel from the Start
Video is no longer confined to awareness. With retail media CTV, you can plan campaigns that tell a cohesive story from impression to checkout. Align your messaging across channels and ensure every asset plays a role in moving shoppers forward.
5. Move Fast—But Stay Strategic
Retail media and CTV are evolving quickly. That means the brands who test, learn, and adapt in real time will build a competitive edge. But speed shouldn’t come at the cost of quality. Strategic creative, sharp targeting, and solid measurement should still anchor every campaign.
How Lemonlight Can Help
Navigating the new world of retail media and CTV advertising requires more than just adapting to trends — it demands expert video content built to perform across every stage of the customer journey.
That’s where Lemonlight comes in. With over 30,000 videos produced, a large portion specifically crafted for e-commerce and retail brands, we know how to create video assets that are not only visually compelling but strategically designed for conversion. Whether you need a captivating CTV spot or modular creative assets to power your full retail media strategy, we deliver content that fits—and elevates—every platform.
As a certified Amazon Ads Partner and a Walmart Connect partner, Lemonlight has direct experience producing video content for two of the biggest forces in retail media today. We understand what it takes to meet the creative standards, technical requirements, and shopper expectations within these highly competitive ecosystems.
Ready to make video the engine of your retail media strategy? Let’s bring your next campaign to life together.
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