E-commerce marketing · Industry brief

Walmart, Target, and Dollar General are scaling retail media networks by integrating digital advertising, customer data, e-commerce and physical stores. Walmart's global advertising business grew 38% in Q2 fiscal 2027, with Walmart Connect up 43%, and the company acquired Vibe to expand self-service advertising tools across markets. Target's Roundel gross billings increased nearly 20% in Q2 2026, with quarterly advertising revenues reaching $279 million, up from $217 million year-over-year. Dollar General's DG Media Network reached approximately $170 million in annual volume and is expanding across on-site, off-site and in-store channels, including social media, connected TV, and an expanded in-store radio network.

Global retail media spending will exceed $200 billion in 2026 according to WARC data cited by Awin, but growth is decelerating outside Amazon's ecosystem with projections showing single-digit rates by 2027. Amazon's market dominance has created extreme concentration, forcing advertisers to diversify away from saturated on-site placements toward brand partnerships, checkout promotions, and offline channels. Retailers including JD Sports, Matalan, Very, and logistics provider Evri are responding by launching new ad units and exploring alternative formats like podcast advertising to capture spending across different environments. Awin reports that the next growth phase for retail media networks lies in "non-endemic" advertising, where brands without direct products on a retailer's site use first-party data to reach audiences, representing a shift from simple ad placements to performance-tracked brand partnerships.

Horizon Commerce and Pacvue announced an expanded strategic partnership integrating retail media planning, activation and measurement capabilities. The collaboration connects Horizon Commerce's Blu Commerce intelligence platform—which provides standardized performance measurement across retailers with incremental contribution and iROI tracking—with Pacvue's Commerce Media Operating System to unify workflow across major retail media networks including Amazon, Walmart, and Target. The partnership addresses fragmentation in retail media operations where measurement systems are often disconnected from activation platforms, forcing marketers to rely on manual processes and retailer-specific metrics. A case study with Revlon's Mitchum brands demonstrated results including 13% average weekly revenue lift and 19-point Best Seller Rank improvement through aligned media investment with commerce signals. Pacvue currently powers over $12 billion in advertising spend across 100+ global retail media networks and represents 12% of total retail media ad spend worldwide excluding China as of 2025.