Encouraged by the evolution of e-commerce and the sophistication of measurement tools, a new advertising ecosystem has emerged: The Retail Media. This phenomenon is changing the way brands interact with their audiences and is redefining communication and marketing priorities. In a business environment where consumer attention is fragmented and competition is increasingly sharpened, the ability to capture the right message, in the right place and at the right time, is critical. Points of sale, whether physical or digital, are no longer limited to a simple transaction point, but are also becoming powerful communication platforms.
What is retail media?
Retail media is an advertising technique used by advertisers to encourage purchases. It consists in offering targeted ads directly during the buying process of the consumer. Retailers and e-retailers monetize their audience with brands in order to generate additional revenue. To effectively orchestrate these targeted ads, brands often collaborate with an advertising agency, which ensures the management and distribution of campaigns within merchant spaces. For their part, brands benefit from a strategic space to communicate: point of sale (POS), website or mobile application, and are visible while the consumer is shopping.
The growing rise of e-commerce has profoundly reshaped consumer habits. Retailers now haveextremely detailed information on buyer behavior : purchase history, frequency of visits, browsing preferences... after consumer consent. This data, coupled with the digitization of contact points, has allowed the emergence of ultra-targeted and highly personalized advertising formats.
The differences between retail media and traditional advertising
Unlike traditional advertising, which is often perceived as intrusive, because it is broadcast outside the buying process (urban signage, TV spots, traditional web banners), Retail Media is a natural part of the shopping experience.
Where traditional advertising is aimed at a large or socio-demographically segmented audience, Retail Media directly affects consumers in their buying journey. The impact is all the stronger because The advertising message often arrives when the intention to buy is high, thus optimizing the relevance of communication and the return on investment.
The different retail media formats
Retail media online
Advertising on e-commerce platforms takes multiple forms: sponsored banners, paid search results, areas dedicated to product launches, personalized recommendations, etc. These premium locations enhance product visibility and offer brands the opportunity to appear in the purchase tunnel, as close as possible to the decision: this is the case of display campaigns on Amazon, Cdiscount, etc., for example.
Retail media in store
Physically, Retail Media involves the integration of digital tools at the heart of the point of sale. We thus find dynamic signage, digital POS, or interactive terminals. These devices contribute to attracting attention, animating the sales area and delivering responsive communication: invitations to participate in a competition, product recommendations, distribution of personalized offers according to the time of day or zone of the store, etc.
Omnichannel retail media
The rise omnichannel strategies invite you to no longer dissociate online and offline : digital campaigns relayed in stores, screens synchronized with e-commerce promotions, streamlined customer journey via QR codes or mobile applications... This synergy maximizes the reach and effectiveness of communication, creating a homogeneous advertising environment adapted to new consumer uses.
Why is Retail Media an essential tool?
Retail media is a way to boost brand awareness for advertisers and boost and monetize advertising spaces for retail retailers. Add to that the ability to personalize in real time, budget flexibility, and complementarity with traditional media plans: it is becoming a cornerstone of retail advertising strategies.
Targeting accuracy
Retail media advertising makes it possible to convert and retain the consumer through personalized messages adapted to the context. How? Retail Media operates data from buying behavior. Retailers have unique information about their customers and can offer brands audiences segmented on behavioral criteria: previous purchases, average basket, recurrence, etc. This level of granularity is more difficult to achieve through traditional advertising.
Impact on the purchase decision
By intervening at the most decisive moment — the one where the consumer prepares or makes a purchase — Retail Media significantly increases the probability of conversion. It makes it possible to value the product at the key moment and to influence behavior.
Measurability and optimized ROI
Thanks to tracking and data analysis technologies, the effectiveness of Retail Media campaigns is precisely measurable : click rate, conversion rate, return on investment, impact on in-store or online sales, etc. This level of information collected facilitates the optimization of communication strategies and reassures advertisers about the profitability of their advertising investments.
Implement an effective Retail Media strategy
Choosing the right channels and formats
The success of a Retail Media strategy is based on relevance selected channels, based on the target, communication goals and the typical customer journey. It is necessary to identify the best broadcast spaces : e-commerce homepages, product sheets, digital gondola heads, in-store welcome screens, etc.
Retail Media ads come in several formats. The DOOH (Digital Out Of Home for digital outdoor advertising) allows advertising to be broadcast via digital signage screens on the street, in store windows, inside a shopping center... On the Internet, the digital campaign is integrated via visual or video banners, on the home page, in the category pages or even on a product sheet in order to reach the target audience at different levels of the buying process, In native or display.
Optimizing digital signage and digital POS
Digital POS (screens, interactive terminals, etc.) and dynamic signage, in particular, prove to be a powerful lever when the content is contextualized, attractive and renewed frequently. Digital signage screens can be placed in different strategic and connected locations so as to broadcast personalized messages continuously based on their location.
The Cenareo solution allows you to program advertising campaigns on the various digital screens using a player. Thus, you ensure a streaming of advertisements, personalized according to the location of the screens and the context of broadcast (time, weather, target, etc.) and whose broadcast time is distributed according to the various campaigns.
Integration with omnichannel strategies
To maximize the effectiveness of Retail Media, it is essential tointegrate your actions with your other communication levers (social media, e-mailing, digital campaigns). Choose a data-driven approach where each point of contact enriches customer knowledge and allows you to refine your entire advertising strategy.
Retail Media Trends in 2025
We can still expect changes in terms of retail media over the coming years, driven in particular by technological developments.
The evolution ofArtificial intelligence (IA), for example, now allows, as part of a retail media strategy, to create hyper-personalized content and automatically optimize placements advertising thanks to the analysis of customer data in real time.
At the same time, Programmatic advertising in DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home) is revolutionizing digital signage: it offers great flexibility by allowing to buy and manage prints instantly, to effectively target specific audiences according to the context.
These innovations will have to deal with the rapid evolution of the regulatory framework, such as the strengthening of the GDPR or ePrivacy, which require rigorous data management and make respect for privacy a central issue in retail media advertising strategies.
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