US retail media is racing toward $71B, but almost all the growth is going to two players. Spreading budget thin across niche networks is wasting it.
Retail media is the fastest-growing corner of advertising, and that growth is a trap if you read it wrong. The dollars are not spreading out, they are concentrating.
eMarketer projects US retail media rising past $71 billion in 2026, but two giants together are expected to capture 89% of the incremental spend, with most other networks forecast to stay flat or decline. The draw is first-party data, closed-loop attribution, and high-intent audiences that the big two can actually deliver.
If you sell products, the math increasingly favors going deep where the data and attribution close the loop, not buckshot across niche networks. Treat retail media as a focused bet, measured honestly, not a line item you sprinkle everywhere.
How WebKing runs this
We put your retail media budget where it actually closes the loop, with the targeting and attribution to prove what each dollar returned, instead of scattering spend across networks that cannot show you results.
Sources
The Lab is original analysis by WebKing. We summarize and interpret developments from the sources above for industrial, commercial, and small business owners. Figures are reported as published by their sources.
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