The holiday season is a defining moment for retailers, marked by record-breaking site traffic and fierce competition for consumer attention. As e-commerce cements itself as the primary shopping channel—74% of consumers now prefer to buy online during the holidays—retailers face mounting margin pressures from fulfillment and returns. In this environment, retail media networks have emerged as a transformative opportunity, enabling retailers to monetize digital real estate and unlock high-margin, recurring revenue streams that extend well beyond the transaction.
Retail media networks turn a retailer’s digital presence—websites, apps, and even in-store screens—into powerful advertising platforms. By offering brands and suppliers the ability to reach shoppers at the point of consideration, retailers can generate incremental revenue from every visit, not just every sale. This is especially impactful during the holiday surge, when site traffic peaks and consumers are more open to discovering new products and deals.
Several factors make retail media networks a strategic imperative for today’s retailers:
Retailers with significant digital reach—often 10 million or more monthly unique visitors—are already seeing retail media networks deliver millions in incremental revenue annually, with margins that can reach 40-60%. This is particularly pronounced in grocery, but the model is rapidly expanding to apparel, electronics, and specialty retail.
Launching a successful retail media network requires more than just placing ads on a website. It demands a robust, flexible technology stack that can support:
Many leading retailers are partnering with technology providers specializing in retail media, enabling rapid deployment and access to advanced features such as programmatic buying, dynamic creative optimization, and cross-channel attribution.
The shift to retail media networks is not just a technology play—it requires a new way of working. Retailers must break down traditional silos between merchandising, marketing, e-commerce, and IT to create integrated teams focused on digital monetization. Key organizational changes include:
Retailers are also rethinking their relationships with suppliers, moving from transactional negotiations to strategic partnerships that focus on shared growth and data-driven insights.
Grocery retailers have been early adopters of retail media networks, leveraging high-frequency traffic and rich loyalty data. Leading grocers enable CPG brands to target shoppers based on purchase history and basket composition, offer sponsored search and display advertising, and integrate media with loyalty programs to drive both sales and engagement. This creates a win-win: brands gain direct access to high-intent shoppers, while grocers unlock new revenue streams to fund digital innovation and supply chain modernization.
Big box, specialty, and department store retailers are also embracing retail media, though with different dynamics. These retailers use retail media networks to enable sponsored product placements and dynamic promotions during peak shopping events, partner with brands to co-create content and experiences, and expand into new business models such as marketplaces and drop-shipping, where media can be a key differentiator. Retailers like Target have demonstrated how a robust retail media business can complement core retail operations, driving both profitability and customer loyalty.
E-commerce profitability is increasingly challenged by rising fulfillment costs and the growing volume of returns—especially during the holidays. Retail media networks offer a rare combination of high-margin, scalable revenue that can materially improve a retailer’s bottom line. For some, retail media is already delivering 50 to 150 basis points of incremental revenue—enough to offset much of the margin pressure from e-commerce and returns. This is especially valuable in categories with high return rates or low product margins.
To fully capitalize on the holiday surge and beyond, retailers should:
As data privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies are phased out, retailers’ first-party data becomes even more valuable. Retail media networks are uniquely positioned to thrive in this environment, relying on direct relationships with shoppers and consent-based data collection. Retailers must ensure compliance with privacy laws and provide clear value to consumers in exchange for their data—especially during the holidays, when trust is paramount.
Retail media networks are redefining what it means to be a retailer in the digital age. By monetizing e-commerce traffic beyond the transaction, retailers can unlock new growth, improve profitability, and deliver richer, more relevant experiences for customers and brands alike. As the holiday season and other peak periods approach, the time to act is now.
Publicis Sapient partners with retailers across grocery and non-grocery sectors to design, build, and scale retail media networks that drive measurable business impact. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to accelerate your digital monetization journey, our team brings the strategy, technology, and organizational expertise to help you succeed in this new era of retail.