To keep the industry updated between editions of our Retail Media Report Card, Mars United monitors the efforts at leading retailers and platforms around the globe to improve and expand their capabilities and services. We focus on the initiatives that are expected to impact the way advertisers effectively plan, execute, and measure their marketing programs on these networks, either directly through new behind-the-scenes tools and capabilities, or indirectly through new engagement opportunities that will enhance (or at least alter) the way they interact with shoppers.
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AD Retail Media
Ahold Delhaize USA’s AD Retail Media will launch a proprietary in-house advertising platform dubbed Edge in January 2026. Touted as a unique solution custom-built for the grocery sector, the Edge platform will consolidate the core retail media capabilities required by advertisers — audience insights, media planning, activation, and optimization — into a single ecosystem.
Edge will allow brand partners and agencies to manage onsite display, sponsored search, and in-store digital-screen advertising and also enable them to monitor both onsite and offsite campaigns. The platform will align measurement strategies and metrics (including incremental return on ad spend) across all digital channels while continuing to use third-party measurement for in-store media, Bobby Watts, AD Retail Media’s SVP-Digital Merchandising and Marketing, told Grocery Dive.
The goal with Edge is to provide brand partners with “a transparent, intuitive and measurable way to unlock faster speed-to-market and optimize ad performance across physical and digital channels,” the company said in its official release. It will also deliver “an opportunity to drive higher relevancy to our consumers, because no one knows grocery better than grocers,” said Watts, while speaking on a panel last month at Groceryshop in Las Vegas.
AD USA recently revamped its operational model to align the enterprise digital merchandising and marketing teams with the retail media business. The goal is to take a “full-funnel approach [and] understand that entire consumer journey,” Watts said at Groceryshop. “And then, [deciding] where do you leverage retail media? Where do you leverage enterprise marketing?
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Albertsons Media Collective
Albertsons Media Collective is testing a “buy one, get one” offer on offsite media this fall. The deal promises to match an advertiser’s offsite ad impression with another one targeted to a similar audience that’s funded by Albertsons’ own media budget. The basic idea was inspired by classic frequency marketing practices, recently appointed network head Brian Monahan told Path to Purchase Institute.
As part of the limited-time promotion, the network is giving advertisers access to social influencers, more high-traffic onsite and in-app ad slots, and premium placements on Albertsons’ new in-store screens to create curated omnichannel packages that engage the same audiences across digital, social, and physical touchpoints.
Elsewhere, The Collective has inked a deal with ad tech provider Perion Network to pilot high-impact offsite display ads that are visually more dynamic and interactive than standard banner ads. Backed by trade area (geographic) targeting, first-party data, AI-driven optimization, dynamic messaging, and immersive creative capabilities, the ads deliver personized, shoppable content. Brands can also activate across Perion’s digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad formats, supported by incremental sales measurement.
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Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads last month began automatically granting free self-service access to its Amazon Marketing Cloud clean-room solution to all brands running any type of sponsored ad campaigns (products, display, brand, or TV). The upgrade embeds AMC directly into the Amazon Ads console and simplifies the visualization of campaign performance and audience insights via no-code analysis templates and AI-powered assistance. The previous model restricted access to registered users and third-party technology partners.
In other news, Macy’s will soon become the first major retailer to pilot the Amazon Retail Ad Service. Beginning in the fourth quarter, advertisers with overlapping inventory can extend Amazon.com sponsored product ads to the Macy’s Media Network (with Amazon earning a portion of sales but Macy’s fulfilling the order). The arrangement enables Macy’s to collaborate with brands that don’t meet the retailer’s own ad investment thresholds.
Also in the fourth quarter, a new integration with Netflix will give brands using Amazon DSP direct access to the streaming service’s premium ad inventory. The platform likewise recently integrated SiriusXM Media’s portfolio of premium audio ad inventory on its flagship streaming service and will soon extend to the company’s podcast network as well.
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Best Buy Ads
Continuing to beef up its media opportunities, Best Buy next year will roll out a new advertising option: 30-day, total-store takeovers across its roughly 885 U.S. locations. The “takeover packages” will let both endemic and non-endemic brands fully “own” most of the store’s exterior and interior footprint via messaging across windows, entrances, physical displays, TV walls, PC monitor displays, interactive screens, and checkout counters.
“We want to be as flexible and as open for business across categories as possible,” Best Buy Ads President Lisa Valentino told Modern Retail. The ads “can all be telling a sequential story as consumers come into the store, and we want to help enable that creatively,” she said. When working with advertisers, Best Buy intends to prioritize the customer experience, keeping sight lines and wayfinding clear so these takeovers improve — rather than disrupt — the shopper journey, Best Buy Chief Marketing Officer Jennie Weber told the publication.
While the initiative does not involve the installation of any new in-store media, it will leverage existing digital screens and physical assets in new ways. Among the placements will be digital screens in Geek Squad areas and mobile departments, the store’s point-of-sale system, and the interior pickup zones where 30-40% of all online sales are retrieved. Measurement metrics will include units sold.
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Costco
Costco Wholesale will leverage the agentic AI-powered “compound marketing engine” of ad tech provider GrowthLoop to equip its growing retail media operations with a centralized system for audience creation and activation. Costco’s retail media team will use the technology to build and activate audiences directly from the warehouse club’s enterprise data cloud, streamlining campaign workflows from months-long cycles to just days and enabling timelier, relevant messaging opportunities, according to GrowthLoop.
The partnership will facilitate enhanced personalization, increased speed to market, and improved campaign performance while maintaining privacy and governance standards, GrowthLoop indicated.
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David Jones Amplify
Australia-based retailer David Jones has overhauled its app-based loyalty program, which boasts 3.6 million members. The redesigned offering integrates the frequent flyer program of Australia’s largest airline, Quantas, to let members choose between earning David Jones Rewards Points or Quantas Points, the latter of which are now redeemable at the retailer. Members can also stack the loyalty programs partnering brands to boost the total rewards earned from a single transaction. Eligible brands include Country Road, Lancome, Rodd & Gunn, and Sportscraft.
The revamped loyalty program is a cornerstone of the luxury department store’s “Vision 2025+” omnichannel transformation strategy. “It helps us understand the communication and personalization our customers need, as well as enabling us to create audiences in our retail media space,” James Holloman, David Jones’ CMO, told Mi3. “That’s really the whole flywheel: rewarding customers, having the data, understanding their preferences, and then using that insight in a more meaningful way.”
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Instacart Ads
Instacart has introduced a consumer insights portal that gives brand partners self-service access to its first-party grocery shopping data in real time. The portal includes information on SKU-level performance, search behavior, substitution patterns, and promotional impact to help advertisers refine offers, product placement, and media strategies, according to Instacart.
“We built the consumer insights portal to surface actionable patterns in consumer behavior — information like brand switching, trial drivers, and repeat rates — in a way that’s timely and directly useful,” said Ali Miller, General Manager of Advertising at Instacart, in a release announcing the platform.
Elsewhere, Instacart again expanded its reach by integrating Carrot Ads technology into Vroom Delivery, an ecommerce platform specializing in convenience and liquor store retail that supports roughly 3,500 U.S. stores. The on-demand delivery leader is also offering its white label ecommerce solution (which includes Carrot Ads) to wholesaler Merchant Distributors’ network of about 600 independent grocers in 12 states. The latest deals follow integrations with Hy-Vee RedMedia, Uber Advertising, and Bottlecapps, bringing the number of grocers, marketplaces, and commerce platforms that currently leverage the Carrot Ads solution to some 240.
Instacart additionally is now integrating its behavioral data directly with TikTok’s ad management platform, claiming to be the first to give brands native end-to-end capabilities, including direct access to high-intent audience segments, dynamic grocery selection, and closed-loop measurement on campaign performance.
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Kroger Precision Marketing
Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) has expanded managed services to support additional offsite retail media placements. With the goal of helping small and mid-sized brands navigate programmatic channels, a scaled-up in-house team will provide a suite of new capabilities:
- Audio: Immersive, non-skippable ads on such platforms as Pandora and iHeartMedia across mobile, desktop, and in-app environments, with an option to add companion banners to extend engagement.
- Connected TV (CTV): Ads within premium content on major platforms including Roku, Paramount, and Samsung. KPM audiences on the platforms receive non-skippable video ads in brand-safe environments.
- Dynamic creative optimization for display ads: Offsite display messaging that changes in real time based on variables such as location, weather, time of day, or audience segment to showcase products in contextually relevant moments.
In addition to standard media metrics, campaign reporting through the service consists of retail metrics like incremental ROAS, household penetration, uplift, dollar sales, and unit sales. The expansion marks the first update since the network’s unification with Kroger’s 84.51° analytics business under a single team earlier this year, KPM noted.
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Loblaw Advance
Canadian retail media network Loblaw Advance has added multi-touch attribution (MTA) to its suite of campaign measurement tools. The in-house offering logs shopper interaction with advertising across channels, platforms, and media types, measuring the value of online and in-store touchpoints holistically, providing granular insights, and empowering smarter campaign optimization, according to the network.
“MTA delivers crucial insights into full-funnel marketing performance, allowing advertisers to strategically determine when and where to use our various marketing tactics,” Jamie Armstrong, General Manager of Media Intelligence at Loblaw Advance, said in a release. “By delivering a detailed view of the customer journey, we’re equipping brands with the tools to make impactful decisions that elevate campaign success.”
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Valiuz Adz/Infinity Advertising
Two of France’s leading retail media networks will consolidate in January when Infinity Advertising merges with Valiuz, building on a previously established purchasing alliance. Data alliance firm Valiuz offers retail media services under its Valiuz Adz unit. Infinity is the retail media arm of Mousquetaires Group, a collective of independent business owners that is acquiring a stake in Valiuz as part of the deal.
Infinity’s 50 employees will join with Valiuz’s 310 staffers to represent some 10,000 stores across 25 partnering retailers in France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. Combining operations under the Valiuz company umbrella, the new entity will command a 27% share of the European food market but also reach across the home improvement, electronics and appliances, apparel, and sporting goods channels, according to an official release.
The news comes on the heels of Valiuz’s merger with Imediacenter, a provider of DOOH advertising in supermarkets and shopping malls.
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Unlimitail
Unlimitail, the international retail media alliance operated by global grocer Carrefour Group and Publicis Groupe (parent company of Mars United), is helping consumer electronics retailer MediaMarktSaturn expand its retail media capabilities to offsite opportunities. Publicis Groupe’s Epsilon Retail Media is powering the offsite offering, which will be available to both endemic and non-endemic brands.
The new opportunities include curated open-internet display and online video ad inventory, as well as CTV. The rollout begins this month in Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Turkey, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Hungary will follow in early 2026. MediaMarktSaturn operates about 1,000 stores across 11 countries.
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Mars United Commerce is a leading global commerce marketing practice that aligns people, technology, and intelligence to make the business of our clients better today than it was yesterday. Our worldwide capabilities coalesce into four key disciplines — Strategy & Analytics, Content & Experiences, Digital Commerce, and Retail Consultancy — that individually deliver unmatched results for clients and collectively give them an unparalleled network of seamlessly integrated functions across the entire commerce marketing ecosystem. For more information about our commerce media practice, contact Willy Blesener, SVP-Media, at [email protected].
